ABSTRACT

The chapter explores the potential of educative mentoring to support the development of geography teachers. We begin by exploring the principles of educative mentoring, drawing on the ideas of knowledge-of-practice (Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1999, Langdon and Ward, 2015), enquiry as stance and co-construction of knowledge within a professional learning community. We examine educative mentoring in terms of benefits not only for the beginning teacher, but also for the mentor, pupils and the wider school. There is a brief discussion of the benefits of using an educative approach in geography education, linking to the dynamic and contested nature of the subject and the importance of critically engaging with theory and practice. Three common tasks completed by a geography mentor and beginning teacher are then explored through an educative mentoring lens. These practical examples suggest ways in which geography mentors can take an educative mentoring approach in collaborative planning, observation and post-lesson dialogue, and collaborative marking. The chapter concludes with suggested next steps for the geography mentor.