Schools

Mentoring Materials

Introduction

Internships provide a context that enables students to put into action the knowledge and values they have acquired in the classroom. The mastery of skills grows out of interaction with others. Through action with people one becomes competent to practice one's profession. An internship offers students a laboratory in which to test their competence, knowledge, and values. An internship not only allows students to practice, but at its best, it also encourages reflection on actions. A mentor, in this case an experienced and seasoned rabbi, guides this process of introspection by helping a student to plan and reflect on how best to approach any given assignment. Together, mentor and student work toward increasing the mastery of skill and integrating the student's personal and professional identities. It is through the intimate, regular, and structured contact with mentors, all senior colleagues trained in supervision, that the transition from student to rabbi should become a smooth and individualized process. JTS relies greatly upon the mentors to work with these students, hone their skills, share in their professional and spiritual journeys, and, in fact, become partners with JTS in the preparation of the coming generation of rabbis who will serve and lead our Conservative Movement.

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Mentor Training

Each fall, new mentors participate in an orientation conducted by the director of Field Education, Rabbi Mychal Springer. Following orientation (on the same day), all the current mentors, new and old, join with the interns in programs that are designed to address topics of interest to both mentors and interns. The program builds community among all who are engaged in the internship process, helps strengthen the intern–mentor relationship, and helps both mentors and interns to further develop their clinical skills. A second mentor–intern meeting takes place in the spring. Mentors are welcome to be in touch with the director of field education, at any point throughout the year, to consult about any concerns that might arise.

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Setting up Internships

The Resnick Internship is, in many ways, the culmination of the program of training in professional skills. Prior to the Resnick Internship, students will have completed a number of forty-hour mini-internships, or “rotations,” in different settings. Based on their experiences and future goals in the rabbinate, students will meet with the director of Field Education toward the middle of the third year to discuss the Resnick Internship that would best meet their needs. Students will consult the Directory of Resnick Internship Placement Sites that includes all the current Resnick Internship Field Placement Questionnaires. Each mentor should be sure that his/her questionnaire on file is updated and accurate to aid students in the selection process. Rabbinical students who defer studying in Israel until the fourth year of the program will complete their internships during year three. They will set up their internships during year two. Internships may be completed during the academic year (part-time) or during the summer (full-time). The timeline for students to contact potential mentors is between January 2 and February 15. Students are free to meet with mentors and arrange to complete an internship with a particular mentor. Each mentor is free to select the intern who is the best match for him/her. Where possible, Resnick Internship Field Placement Agreements should be completed before the end of the academic year prior to the beginning of the internship. This will enable the internship site to include the intern in programming that needs to be finalized well in advance. Please see the Resnick Internship Program for comprehensive information about the internship process and guidelines.

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The Role of the Mentor

Successful student learning processes rely on the guidance of an experienced, thoughtful, and secure mentor. Successful mentors will quickly put students into action, helping them prepare for what they are about to undertake, allowing them to make mistakes, and helpfully guiding reflection afterward. This “learning by doing” is a far more intense and accelerated educational process than mere observation. However, mentoring should not be confused with therapeutic intervention, another kind of guided insight process. Because the mentor is a teacher and has a relationship with JTS, discussions with the student should focus on work performance and obstacles to it, rather than personality problems. These are best dealt with by a qualified therapist. Still, between the bounds of observation and. therapeutic intervention, there are three appropriate roles for the mentor to play:

The Educational Role

Perhaps the most important role for the mentor is that of teacher. In this role, the mentors select assignments that have the potential for learning and growth. These real-life situations allow students to test themselves and risk new ideas and behaviors. Mentors prepare students to take on these assignments by providing necessary information, a summary of the actors involved, etc. Mentors also create an environment in which students can disclose their concerns, worries, and questions both before the task and after it is completed. Mentors, perhaps most importantly, identify for the students what they will be learning, helping them to apply their knowledge and values to the work, and draw generalizations from specific learning instances. For example, a student may be assigned the task of working with the Adult Education Committee in the synagogue. The mentor will inform the student about the committee's purpose, history, and current agenda; may make observations about each committee member's orientation and biases; and describe any potentially contentious issues that may arise. After the committee has met, the mentor will encourage the student to analyze what happened, his/her role in the meeting, how he/she dealt with members, and any conflicts that may have arisen. From this discussion, the mentor may draw out generalizations about meetings; for example, how rabbis can use their personal presence and inner resources effectively to encourage interaction and build compromises which include a variety of viewpoints.
The Supportive Role

In this role, the mentors intervene in the organization or synagogue on behalf of students so the contexts in which they study are also amenable to them and their interventions. By explaining to key actors who the students are and the purpose of the internship, mentors legitimize the students' presence. Mentors may also have occasions to protect the students in their dealings with congregation members or other actors. Here, mentors ease the way for the students to do their work. For example, the student may have inadvertently angered an important member of the congregation. The member may come to the rabbi, questioning this student's commitment and demanding that the student leave the internship or that a letter should be written to JTS. At this point, the mentor may feel it is necessary to clarify the student's role as a learner with the congregant, and support the student's purpose in being with the congregation. It is important, however, that “acting on behalf of the student” be balanced with the educational role. Students can learn much from mistakes and be helped to repair them. Too much protection can result in dependence rather than learning. In the example cited above, instead of initially intervening, the mentor instead may discuss with the student how best to make amends and allow the student to attempt the reconciliation.
The Administrative Role

In this role mentors hold students accountable for work. The internship is generally a student's first experience being seen and acting as a rabbi. Thus, the mentor ensures that the student can meet rabbinical demands for timeliness, performance, and accountability. If, for instance, a mentor finds that a student is consistently late or procrastinates or does not share information about his/her work, these problems should be discussed openly and become a part of future conversations, and if they continue, a part of the evaluation as well. Just as mentors help students to be self-aware and conscious of their actions, mentors must also be very vigilant of what they bring to the teaching-learning encounter. All of us bring our own experiences of having been students. Sometimes our experiences haunt what we do with students, suggesting that a student should be totally autonomous or overly nurtured, or even that a student's mistakes will reflect negatively on our own reputations. It is important that mentors be aware of their own “baggage” and therefore able to monitor when that may be getting in the way of offering the student the best possible learning experience.

Developing Resnick Internship Field Placement Agreements

Problems in internships, of course, can and do arise. It is not unusual for an intern to have one idea about what an internship will entail and the mentor to have a different vision. Problems occur when the student or mentor are unclear about what each can expect of the other. What the student is expected to accomplish and learn, timelines for accomplishment, how often the student and mentor are expected to meet, and the content of these discussions should all be laid out well ahead of time and mutually agreed on. Clarity of expectations involves a Resnick Internship Field Placement Agreement containing two parts: (1) learning contract and (2) agreement about mentoring.

Learning Contracts

The purpose of a learning contract is to lay out very clearly the student's goals and responsibilities, what the student is expected to accomplish in each assignment, and what the focus for learning from each task should be. If an assignment has a deadline or specific time requirements, these should also be included. Please see: sample learning contract.

The learning contract should be developed mutually, with input from both student and mentor. Of course, assignments should fit with student interest and background. However, the workload should also be varied with assignments calling for different skills and areas of knowledge so students can try their hand at different things. Importantly, the workload should include “core assignments.” Core assignments are tasks that all rabbis (no matter the organizational context) should be expected to be able to perform competently, such as planning and leading religious services, involvement in life-cycle events, teaching, working with committees, and individual counseling. The workload should include tasks that the student will find easy to perform (these assignments can enhance the student's confidence), as well as those with which the student expects to have some difficulty (these ensure that the student will learn new areas).

Finally, it is important that work be scheduled to commence immediately so as to forestall any anxiety that naturally comes with inactivity. At least some assigned tasks should be ones that can be done initially. For example, students can be assigned to teach an adult education course or make a hospital sick call early in their internship, while the assignment to work with the fundraising committee can be left until students are more comfortable with the synagogue, its members, and their work.

Agreement About Mentoring

In addition to expectations for assignments, it is important that the mentor and the student reach an agreement about their work together. Such a contract will include the day, time, and place of the weekly mentoring discussions; written requirements for these meetings (see mentoring and written reflections sections); and the process of evaluation (select evaluation section). The confidential nature of these sessions and the process of communicating any information with JTS ought to be discussed as well. These ground rules allow students to know exactly what will be expected of them in their weekly mentoring meetings.

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Written Reflections

The expectation that students write an account of an activity, encounter, or meeting is important for many reasons. Requiring students to record, report, and analyze their activities and formulate questions about their work helps guide their processes of introspection. Written reflections assure that insight is neither random nor serendipitous, but accumulates systematically over time. Writing down what happened during an encounter helps students detach enough to conceptualize, and over time they can see patterns emerging in themselves or related to certain activities. For instance, faced with evidence that time after time she/he is tense during a sickroom visit and must fight back the urge to escape, the student may begin to consider why she is so uncomfortable with illness and death. With written work to react to, the mentor is able to teach in greater detail, questioning what happened during a certain moment in an encounter. Finally, recording is a way of holding the student accountable for expected work. Written reflections are time consuming, and as such are often dreaded by both students and mentors. Yet, recording structures introspection, insight, and teaching in a way that simple conversation cannot. There are three useful devices for student writing reflections. Each format is better for writing about certain situations than others, and so should be used differentially, based on each assignment the student is given. A brief review of these devices is available here:

Process Recording

Process recording is a fairly detailed account and analysis of an encounter. It is best matched to the student's work with individuals or families or groups (e.g., sick visits, meetings with grieving families, a conversation with a convert, etc.) A process recording usually runs about four or five pages. It consists of:

A brief statement of the purpose of the encounter.
A fairly detailed record of what happened (what was said by each party, any important nonverbal behavior, observations about the other person or oneself, feelings that were raised by the encounter).
An evaluation of the encounter (here students write about what they think was accomplished, how they evaluate their own actions in the encounter, and questions that emerge from reviewing what happened).

The intent of the process record is to allow the student and mentor to inspect closely the way the student interacted with the people involved. Process recordings should focus on such content as:

What did I observe during this encounter? What did I notice in hindsight?
How well was my stated purpose/goal realized in this encounter? How well did I address others' concerns? How well did I make their concerns a part of my agenda?
What do I feel I did well during this encounter? What could I improve on when these situations arise again?
Why did I intervene the way I did?
What knowledge, values, skills, or feelings was my intervention based on?
Did I notice any patterns in the way I handled this situation and the way I handle others like it?

Sample Process Recording.

Critical Incident Report

Critical incident reports are brief written records of surprise encounters. Because the student doesn't enter these encounters with a predetermined purpose or goal, these records try to capture an unexpected event or occurrence. They are best used to describe unexpected conflict or expressions of emotion (for instance, students often are faced with unanticipated conflict at meetings or a congregant may suddenly share a very personal experience). Caught off guard, the student can be helped to reflect on what occurred. Critical incident reports seldom run longer than a page and should include:

A fairly detailed report of the incident.
An attempt to analyze why the incident occurred and how the intern handled it.
Questions that emerge from the incident.

The intent of the critical incident report is to allow the student and mentor to reflect on what occurred to uncover its causes, learn to intervene spontaneously, and prepare a plan to cope with the consequences of the event. Critical incident reports should focus on such content as:

What might have led up to this event?
What happened before that caused this event to occur at this point in time and in this context?
What did I do to intervene? What knowledge, values, skills, or feelings was my intervention based on?
Did I notice any patterns in the way I handled this situation and the way I handle others like it? What effect did my intervention have on this event? Would anything have been more effective at this point in time?
What is my assessment of this situation as I now see it? What needs to be repaired, soothed, and changed in the situation for next time?
What should I do now? What will alter this situation?
Why, when, how, and with whom should I plan to intervene again?

Sample Critical Incident Report.

Logs

Logs are a fairly detailed progress report on a project or program. They are best suited to assignments where there is less personal interaction and more attention to details (e.g., planning a curriculum, planning a speakers series, creating a service for singles, or putting together a synagogue day-care program). Logs are continued for the duration of the project, so length cannot be specified. A log consists of:

An initial description of the assignment;
A discussion of the assignment's purpose, proposed outcome, and objectives;
A detailed timeline which includes expected deadlines for work in progress;
A continually updated account of progress, obstacles, alterations in the project; and
A continual assessment of how the project is progressing, an analysis of the student's performance on the project, and questions that emerge from reviewing the progress.

The intent of the log is to allow the student and mentor to review closely a project over time, understand that obstacles to plans do occur, and encourage discussion about how to reformulate a plan given new information and obstacles. The log should focus on such content as:

How do I understand this project at this point in time? What has caused me (or might cause me) to change my view of this project?
Who else needs to know about my project? Should anyone else be included in planning this program? How and when should I involve them?
What obstacles do I anticipate may come up in my planning? How might I deal with these obstacles?
What is my time line for completion? How does my time line need to be changed given recent occurrences?
How will I measure the success of this program? Who else should be involved in evaluating this program? When should they be involved (or updated) on this project?

Sample Log.

Written reflections should be completed and handed in regularly to mentors, allowing enough time for the mentor to read and think about what the student has written. Written reflections are accompanied by an agenda prepared by the student that raises the questions the student would most like discussed. The agenda and reflections then become the content of the weekly mentoring conference. They are reviewed in detail and used to frame the discussion between mentor and student.

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The Elements of Mentoring

The relationship between mentor and student is a special one. It is infrequent in education that a student gets the benefit of a one-to-one teaching relationship focused uniquely on his/her individual learning and style. It is also unusual for a teacher to have such an intimate relationship, one in which the teacher gets to see his/her personal experience through the fresh eyes of a newcomer to the rabbinate. Because of the personal nature of the encounter, the tendency to converse freely is often acute. Yet, if the mentoring is to meet fully educational goals, some structure needs to be put in place. Structure for the mentoring occurs in two ways: firstly, a requirement for students to record and report their activities and secondly, a clear and consistent format for the weekly mentoring conference.

The Mentoring Conference

The best mentoring conferences are mutual learning experiences. Students grapple with new situations and questions, and often mentors learn about themselves as they share thoughts, ideas, and warnings. The key to such an intimate and free educational environment is that it is student centered. That is, students, for the most part, determine the agenda for learning and how they best grasp new material. Mentors guide this discovery process by understanding what needs to be learned from each assignment. They prepare students for the undertaking of a task, help to reflect on past action, and generalize the learning. They also tailor their teaching technique to the unique characteristics brought by students. These four areas, preparation, reflection, pattern of learning, and differential teaching, are the mentor's focus during each conference.

Preparation
When we have performed a task many times, we tend to do it unthinkingly because it has become second nature. For instance, when giving directions to our homes, we often forget the names of small streets, so visually familiar are they to us. However, newcomers need those signposts; it is not familiar to them. So it is with students. They have never performed the task before, don't know the people involved, and are unfamiliar with expectations. The key to preparation is to keep their “strangeness” in mind, and to share with them, briefly but comprehensively, all that must be known to accomplish the chosen task. This may mean giving them the history of a person or a committee, explaining normal procedures or policy, or describing what is normally done on such occasions. Of course, not everything can or need be explained. Still, enough information must be shared so the student can enter the situation with some degree of comfort and knowledge. Students can also be told that it is perfectly acceptable to say they don't know, but will get the answer. No person needs to be all knowing, especially not an intern.
Reflection
Reflection occurs after the student has made an attempt at the assigned task. Reflection is focused on enhancing insight and introspection. Using the recording, the mentor can ask a series of questions to guide the student in reflective analysis:
What was your goal in this assignment?
This question helps students focus on purpose.
What did you do in this instance?
This question helps students become conscious of their intervention, which they chose to act/perform/behave in a certain way.
What was your action based on?
This question helps students understand that their actions are based some knowledge or value that they had, perhaps a personal reaction or experience, or perhaps fear, anxiety, or antipathy. This question helps students to integrate what they know with what they do, as well as making them conscious of what is behind their actions.
What did you ignore or miss in this instance?
This question helps students to become aware of gaps, missed opportunities, and inadvertent mistakes. The question helps students to become keener observers, more able to monitor situations, and more auto-critical.
What could you have done differently?
This question helps students understand that there are many possible interventions, some better than others. Students begin to learn about interventions and building a repertoire of actions which can be applied to other similar situations.
Patterning Learning
With time and attention to recording, students will begin to generalize their learning. What was learned in one situation will extend to other similar situations and be applied with greater ease. For example, students may have been at a committee meeting in which there was little interaction and much silence. Having learned to read the meaning of such silences and how to invite communication, the next meeting will be easier. As well, students may extend this knowledge to meetings with grief- stricken individuals, learning to gauge the meaning of an individual's silence and to help the person articulate his/her grief. Mentors need to accommodate the conference time to make room for discussing cumulative learning and pointing out similarities and differences to students so that they can be aware of what it is they are learning.

Mentors also, after time, will be able to draw generalizations about students and to pattern this learning. Mentors will become aware of students' strengths and weaknesses. For instance, a mentor may realize over time that a student's reaction to a new assignment is always fear and feelings of incompetence, even though he/she handle most things quite competently. By pointing out to the student that this is a common pattern, which has no basis in reality, a mentor helps the student understand something about him or herself and how she/he handle new experiences. This is important self-learning that the student will then be able to monitor and hopefully cope with when she/he no longer has the support and protection of a mentor.
Differential Learning
Educators have long been aware that people do not learn in the same way. They have differential learning styles. Some students are cognitive learners; they learn best from reading and thinking about situations. Other students are experiential learners; they learn best from performing a task and then reflecting on what they've done. Still others are visual learners; these students learn best pictorially or from observation. Over time, mentors will discover what kind of learners their students are and be able to teach in ways which complement students' natural learning style. With cognitive learners, mentors may suggest reading material. With visual learners, mentors may use more role modeling, asking students to observe them before undertaking a task themselves. Role playing can be used with experiential learners; it can be used as a simulation of what they will encounter.

Obviously, students come with different personality styles as well as learning styles. Some students are very sensitive to criticism, interpreting all the mentor's comments as personal attacks. Other students have a deep need for nurturing and may require more than the usual amount of the mentor's time. Still other students may want total autonomy, seeing all of the mentor's work as interference. These styles are often characterological and not easily changed. As long as they don't interfere with performance, mentors can accede to the student's individual style. If, however, these styles become obstacles in learning or in completing tasks, the mentor will need to explore what has become a problem with the student, and if need be, inform JTS.

Evaluating the Student

The student's evaluation is the culmination of each semester's work. It is the document which confirms what they have learned and done in their year-long effort. A comprehensive and constructive evaluation is a signal to both mentor and student that the internship was a significant experience, one that merits the thought and attention of both parties. You are welcome to use The Rabbinical's School's evaluation form, for your convenience.

An evaluation relates the assignments students have been given to the skills they have mastered. It is simply a summary of each assignment the student has undertaken during the year, what the student has learned from each, and a description of the student's strengths and weaknesses in relation to each assignment. We have stressed the importance of a clear and mutual learning contract, and the consistent patterning of student learning so that strengths and weaknesses are known throughout the year. If these processes have been handled sufficiently, the completion of an evaluation should be relatively simple, and no surprise to either student or mentor.

The mutual process which began with the learning contract should be extended to the evaluation. Mentors and students should each draft an evaluation. These drafts can then be discussed and any issues that are raised can be addressed. Students should be given an opportunity to react, add, or comment on the evaluation before both mentor and student sign the final version, which is sent to JTS. Students are also responsible for submitting their own evaluations to JTS. We should note here that the director of field education at JTS will be responsible for the final grade (Pass/Fail) of the student. This grade will be awarded in the light of the evaluations prepared by the mentors and the students, in full discussion with them.

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The Hard to Reach Student

Even the best intentioned and most skillful mentor will occasionally find students that are hard to reach. Try as you may, the student will seem to be blocked, continuing to make similar mistakes and not gaining any insight into what is so troublesome. The mentor may begin to suspect that the student is not well suited to the rabbinate. What is to be done?

First, it is incumbent upon the mentor to discuss the seriousness of the situation with the student. The mentor must be able to enumerate the specific instances and areas of problems and to explain that these miscues in knowledge, ethics, skill, or organizational behavior are below acceptable standards. Second, the mentor must be able to point out the pattern of the problem, showing that the same mistake occurs over time and perhaps in different situations.

JTS is an active participant in the internship, and the director of Field Education will be in regular contact with the mentors and students during the year. If problems begin to arise with a student, the director of Field Education should be advised at an early stage. This should not be seen as a sanction invoked against the student, but rather as a move towards mobilizing the best possible team to help and to teach the student. It is possible that the problematic area fits with earlier patterns of behavior displayed by the student. If this should be the case, JTS will have the history of the student available, and perhaps, some insight into ways that the student can be helped to learn.

It may well be that the mentor and JTS will agree that the original learning contract should be revised in light of certain patterns displayed by the student. The contract might be revised to provide for explicit tracking of timeliness by the student or regular reporting concerning other areas (possibly attire, preparation of lessons, or sermons). A student might also be required to undertake extra work if there is some deficiency in technical skills (for example, use of the calendar, reading Torah, etc.)

We have stressed that it is inappropriate for the mentor to enter into a therapeutic relationship with the student (even if the mentor is, in fact, a qualified and practicing therapist). It is certainly possible that a student would be advised, in consultation with the director of Field Education, to consult with a therapist if there seem to be deeper issues surrounding certain areas of rabbinic work. (Such areas could be involved with death or serious illness, addictive behavior, and dysfunctional families).

It is important that such areas of concern be shared with JTS at an early stage. If problems persist, then some account will need to appear in the written evaluations. Many problems in an internship should admit resolution through informal discussions and mediation without appearing as a source of concern in an evaluation.

If the behavior of a student displays patterns that are entirely unsuited to a member of the rabbinate, the mentor and JTS share a responsibility to consider whether a particular student should continue in The Rabbinical School. This is, clearly, an extreme possibility, and the expectation is that in all but the rarest of cases the process of review and evaluation of students by JTS will have removed unsuitable individuals at an earlier stage. It is possible that a particular student will have issues that do not emerge until he/she is exposed to the realities of rabbinic work under the experienced and regular supervision of a mentor.

The Resnick Internship is a required course of The Rabbinical School program, and the provisions of the Resnick Internship Field Placement Agreement are thus a part of the requirements for graduation. JTS will offer every support to the mentors to ensure that a structured and well-supervised program is undertaken by each student.

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Conclusion

An internship can be an exciting and stimulating endeavor for student, mentor, and the congregation or organization. It is always exciting to see someone learn and grow, and the energy and enthusiasm of students often generates a freshness in veterans. Well-trained students often become attentive mentors for other students, replenishing our rabbinate and rejuvenating our congregations and agencies.

Resnick Internship Site Links

The Jewish Theological Seminary