Engage in authentic conversation and reflection with experienced educators

Designing a Transformative Mentoring & Induction Program

Guest(s): Vince Bustamante and Lisa Fain
Date: 05/28/2025
Run time: 56:43
Season 4, Episode 10

This season of the Teacher to Teacher podcast has focused on Mentoring in Action. In this last episode of Season 4, Carol welcomes Vince Bustamante and Lisa Fain and their conversation is centered around the topic of Designing a Transformative Mentoring & Induction Program.

Vince and Lisa delve into the benefits of mentoring and induction programs for both new teachers and experienced educators. These programs not only aid in improving teaching practices and student learning outcomes, but they also support teacher retention and overall school culture.

Three Essential Steps for School Leaders

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Episode Audio

SPEAKER 1: Welcome to Corwin's Teacher to Teacher Podcast with host Carol Pelletier Radford. Carol is an experienced

classroom teacher and university educator, founder of mentoringandaction.comm, and author of four best-selling

professional books for teachers. She believes the best form of professional learning happens when teachers

engage in authentic conversations and share their wisdom.

In every episode, Carol and her guests share stories about pivotal moments in their careers, successful

classroom strategies, and personal actions they take to minimize stress and stay healthy. The Teacher to Teacher

Podcast is a place to engage in authentic conversation and reflection with experienced educators. We hope these

conversations will energize you, keep you inspired, and remind you why you chose to become a teacher.

SONJA

HOLLINSALEXANDER:

Hello and welcome to the Teacher to Teacher Podcast. I'm Sandra Hollins Alexander, associate vice president,

content advisor, and scholar here at Corwin. This season of the podcast focuses on mentoring in action. We have

such a rich episode for you today, centered around the topic of designing a transformative mentoring and

induction program, which is the last episode of season 4.

Our guests are Vince Bustamante and Lisa Fain. Vince Bustamante is a best-selling author and award-winning

professional learning consultant with Corwin. He specializes in the sustainable implementation of professional

learning practices across schools and districts.

I've had the opportunity to work very closely with Vince, and what I appreciate about Vince is he brings forth

those years of experiences in schools and classrooms in the writing that he does, as well as when he is engaging

with educators and professional learning. He provides real-life, real applicable examples. And so it's going to be

really exciting to hear what he has to share in this space.

Lisa Fain is the CEO of the Center for Mentoring Excellence. A sought-after speaker and leadership coach, Lisa

helps organizations foster belonging and inclusion through the power of mentoring. That is absolutely

phenomenal. When I think about belonging and inclusion, and how the two of those are associated with

mentoring, as author of those topics, I don't think that those two can actually happen outside of mentoring. And

so what Lisa has to offer is really going to be excellent for all of us.

In this episode's podcast discussion, the focus is on designing a transformative mentoring and induction program.

Carol Radford highlights three essential steps for school leaders-- creating an intentional purpose for the

mentoring program, taking action by picking goals, and sustaining the program through ongoing feedback and

evaluation.

As a previous building leader who had to implement and desire to implement a mentoring program, these three

actions that Carol just noted are critical for the success of the mentoring program, but all those the success for

the educators.

Vince and Lisa delves into the benefits of mentoring and induction programs for both new teachers and

experienced educators. These programs not only aid in improving teaching practices and student learning

outcomes, but they also support teacher retention and overall school culture. Without a doubt, a solid mentoring

program makes a difference in the climate and the culture of any school. This episode discusses the hope for the

next generation of educators.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Hello, everyone. It's Carol Pelletier Radford here, and we are in episode 10-- I cannot believe it-- of ourT eacher to

Teacher Podcast, and this year's theme, this season's theme has been mentoring. Mentoring in action, meaning

how we work with people in our schools, teacher to teacher, to help the beginners be successful.

And this episode, actually a little different from the other nine episodes, is a look at what it takes to design a

transformative mentoring and induction program. So I have two fabulous guests with me today. Lisa and Vince

are here, and I'm going to turn it over to them to introduce themselves, and we're going to get on with our

conversation. Vince, welcome.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I'm coming to you from Calgary, Alberta,

Canada, where I'm currently at home, and I am a former middle school and high school social studies and history

teacher-turned author with Corwin Press and consultant with Corwin Press. And my current focus, aside from the

big push of implementation, is on supporting new teachers and designing mentorship programs. I'm so excited to

be here and very much looking forward to our conversation.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Thank you, Vince. And full disclosure, Vince and I were on a webinar together several months ago, and I really

enjoyed that conversation because you're working in the same area that I am, and I always love to have a

deeper connection to people who are interested in supporting the beginners. And we need the beginners to stay

in teaching. So all of us need to be working in that area. My other guest is a friend, and I'm now a member of her

organization, I let her share that. Lisa, please introduce yourself, and tell us who you are.

LISA FAIN: Wonderful. Thank you. So I'm Lisa Fain. I wear several hats. I'm a global speaker and an author. I'm CEO of the

Center for Mentoring Excellence. We work with organizations all around the world to help them create more

inclusive cultures through mentoring.

And what Carol was referring to is I'm also the president of the International Mentoring Association, which is, as

the name suggests, a global association that is the go-to resource for folks in the mentoring field, mentoring

stakeholders, really of all kinds. So delighted to be here today with you.

CAROL

RADFORD:

And I love collaborating with you. I am on a committee with Lisa, and I got to meet her in person several times.

And I just appreciate an organization that brings all kinds of people together from different fields. So it's

business. And when I attended the first mentoring conference, I was so delighted to have nurses and business

people and military and youth organizations and church organizations and educators as well. So I'm thrilled to

have you both here.

And I just believe in the importance of mentoring. So I'm going to start the show, as I always do with you, sharing

a personal story that relates to how mentoring has influenced you and your life, and why it's so important for us

to talk about it on these podcasts. Vince, would you start us off?

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Absolutely so I would say mentorship has shaped my career, my trajectory, my current state of being. I have

daily mentorship moments with colleagues and peers, but I would say it's too multifaceted. But the first is when I

first started teaching, I was thrust into a school mid-year. And when you're kind of running to catch up to a school

year, there wasn't an opportunity for any formalized mentorship program. So I went through the first few years of

my teaching career without a quote unquote, "formal mentor."

Obviously, you have colleagues that you work with and stuff, but it wasn't until I switched sites, school sites, to a

new one where I had lots of mentors, whether they were formal or informal.

And the mentorship moment that kind of stands out for me is when I had a conversation outside of the school

walls with my school principal at that time, who tapped me on the shoulder and said, have you considered this

pathway for your career? And to be completely honest, I did not even know that there was a pathway that

existed. I did not know that I was qualified for that pathway, and it was a little bit of like, am I the right person for

this?

And he gently encouraged me to explore the potential of moving down that different trajectory. So not just the

standard traditional classroom teacher, then assistant principal, then principal, and then you move up the realms

of district, but kind of branching out to different paths that have other leadership experiences.

And so if it wasn't for him, and he's still a good friend of mine and a colleague of mine, if it wasn't for him, I don't

know if I'd be where I am today because he held this giant flashlight. When I was looking left in my career, he

took the flashlight and pointed it right and said, there's also all of this other stuff that you can explore. And so for

me, the value was just sharing experiences, sharing information, sharing ideas about things that I didn't even

know existed.

CAROL

RADFORD:

I love that you're. I love that you're bringing this up. And it's perfect that it's in this point of the season. And there

are so many teachers listening that are fabulous classroom teachers. And I taught fifth grade for 21 years before

I chose to work in higher education and work with student-teachers, and I just kept following where my heart was

taking me and what felt right.

And what you're adding another piece of teacher leadership that a lot of teachers in the classroom, some don't

want it, perfectly happy. But you can also lead from the classroom. We laughed, you and I, and we're going to

hear Lisa's story in a minute. But we don't have to leave. We can be teacher leaders and work from the

classroom. But I love your analogy of the flashlight. And we're looking the other direction sometimes, and we just

don't know-- we don't know what we don't know.

And when you're teaching students and you're totally invested in doing a great job, there isn't a lot of time to

reflect on teacher leadership. And would we even want to do it? So tell me his name. Let's have his name out on

the airwaves.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Yeah, absolutely. So he's still in-- we're still colleagues. He's a co-author of mine on two of my new projects. Dr.

Tim Cusack was the principal and became assistant superintendent and now he's a dean of education, and he

has explored-- he's leading, forging the path that I didn't know existed.

CAROL

RADFORD:

So for our listeners, I want everybody listening to pay attention to just that flashlight and looking in the other

direction, just exploring and staying in the classroom and doing it. I did teach a leadership from the classroom for

10 years before I left. And you don't have to leave, but I want people to stay in education.

I don't want us to leave, and some people that are getting tired are leaving, and they're not seeing that there's

another pathway that might be a little bit different. So thank you for that moment. Lisa react to Vince's, and then

I want to hear your story.

LISA FAIN: Yeah, I love this imagery of a giant flashlight because so often we think about, well, I should say so often, I think

mentees feel the pressure of trying to invent something new for themselves, but really, and certainly that's a

possibility. We all have the power of invention and discovery. But I like this imagery of discovery being about

shedding a light on something that existed that we weren't even aware of this idea of mentors helping us

understand possibility, and create that possibility for ourselves. So I think that's really, really powerful.

And I think to your point, Carol, having this flashlight and seeing something new for oneself can reinvigorate us

in what we do. It can help recommit us to our own chosen path or a new path within the same field and our

mentors too. It has a similar effect for our mentors as well. I don't think we give credit to that that's it's

generative, not just for those of us who are the learner, but that the mentor, in fact, is the learner and benefiting

from this as well.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Yeah, and I think the mentors who are listening, I think you're bringing up something important, Vince and Lisa, is

that sometimes when we see beginning teachers or mid-career teachers who might just need a different

perspective, we see them so overwhelmed, it's like, oh, gosh, I don't want to put a flashlight on this, and then

they're going to be a leader, and that could be overwhelming.

So I feel like Tim was very brave, and it has to be said the right way to have your colleague, whether it's a

beginning teacher or a mid-career teacher see the wisdom in that point of view, what they're seeing. And it

because it isn't about adding to, it's about seeing the gifts events that you were offering that you might not have

seen and said in a way that you could embrace it instead of, like, oh, I can't do that. Oh, my God, that's too

overwhelming. How did that feel? Were you overwhelmed when he said that, Vince?

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

I think to that point, I don't know if that conversation would have landed so well if we didn't have an established

personal relationship. And so when he approached me and he was able to be very candid. This move would

equate into more pressure in this situation, and I feel the guilt of leaving a classroom and that doesn't ever go

away.

But I think it would have felt more transactional if it was somebody random cold calling me and saying, I think

you're good for this, whereas for when it came from Tim, it was very authentic, and it was very like he had my

best interests in mind. And I want to be very clear in saying he didn't force me into that position. He just said, I

just want to let you know that there's this other place that exists for you.

CAROL

RADFORD:

And it opened up all these doors for you, and look at what you're doing now.

LISA FAIN: I'll tell you my story, too. I'll do it as a lead-in. There's one more thing about Vince's story that I think is really

important to highlight, which is when we talk about mentoring moments, of course, I know in a few minutes,

we're going to talk about mentoring programs. And that's really important to have a formal setting for mentoring.

But I think what gets overlooked so much is that these transformative moments can happen in just that, in

moments. They can happen in single conversations.

And the more we're open to that, the more certainly that there are mentoring programs that set the seed for us

to understand and value mentoring, the more we're going to be open to those mentoring moments as well, so I

think that's--

CAROL

RADFORD:

Beautiful. Thank you so much. Yes. And that's what we get out of theT eacher to Teacher Podcast when we have

these casual conversations where we're just focused on a topic and let our hearts kind of let us follow the

direction. So Lisa, what's your story?

LISA FAIN: So mine is actually a mentoring moment as well as with somebody who later became a mentor to me. And I

started my professional career, or I should say, my second first pivot in my professional career was in the legal

world. And when I was in the law firm world, I was a attorney doing both litigation and counseling.

But our firm decided to do something that was rather innovative at the time, which was to start a training

division where we did all sorts of compliance and EEO and diversity training, really from a legal realm. And they

brought in a woman named Mindy Chapman to lead that function. And she tapped me on the shoulder to bring

me along to do the training. At the time, I had done no facilitation and training or limited number of facilitation--

amount of facilitation and training, and she saw something in me that made her say that I'd be decent at it.

And it ended up being something that was really transformative to me, because of course, now what I spend my

time in is almost exclusively in facilitation and training when I'm not speaking and writing. And it really was

incredible to have this. It was a flashlight of sorts as well. To look. It's possible with this law degree and this

expertise that you have to be able to take it in a different direction.

Wow, so interesting that your stories relate two different organizations, two different ways to have mentoring

influence us, and you're using the word transformative. So why did I want to title this episode transformative

mentoring programs? So this is how-- so the mission of mentoring in action, which I founded 10 years ago, is to

transform education for students by supporting novice teachers and their mentors.

So I've been using that word for a decade because the purpose of mentoring in my realm is to have students be

successful in school. That's the whole purpose of mentoring. And novice teachers, because they're so vulnerable

and new parents and people might complain that the student that's in a new teacher's classroom isn't getting the

same as if they were in a veteran teacher's classroom.

So I got into it because I was a teacher, and I knew that. And if we focused on novice teacher preparation and

mentoring to help them be better teachers more quickly that it would help students. So that's how the word first

came into my realm. And then a couple of years ago, I did a webinar with a group of teachers that are using the

mentoring and action tools around the country.

So I invited four of them to come on a webinar, and we called it Designing Transformative Mentoring and

Induction Programs because we were trying to get to the student piece, and basically they all shared how they

were using mentoring to transform education for students. And then it evolved. So it's evolved over time.

One of the things that I've been asked to do over the years was to create a program statewide, and this program

was to train the trainer. So we know mentors need to be prepared. I think we're all leases. There's training in the

law field, there's training in whatever field you want. We might not like the word training, so I call it preparation

and support, whatever it is. We want people in schools to know what to do when you're a mentor, because

mentors will always say to me, what am I supposed to be talking about? What am I supposed to be doing?

So we have the big theory, but we don't always have the practical actions. So I came up with an action plan. I

started teaching the course, and the first class I had 79 school districts represented by two people from each

school, and the goal was they'd come and get trained and then they'd go back to their district, and they would

lead the mentor trainings themselves. I was putting myself out of consulting work, which is what I wanted to do. I

wanted them to create it.

Here's what happened. The first class, when we all met, we discovered that the mentoring programs in most of

those districts were running in silos. The induction person was over here. They didn't even know who it was. They

were preparing mentors, the HR person was hiring and people were leaving.

And all of these silos in their district, and they're like, we need a plan. We can't just go and mentor one-on-one

because we're in this vacuum. And that's how I first came to, 10 years ago, focusing my mentor training, my

mentor preparation around a bigger picture, which is, what's the plan for the district, the school, and it's evolved

over this decade.

And today, as I reviewed it for this podcast, I would say I'm now three steps-- essential steps for school leaders,

and I got it down to 3 with little components. And I want you to react to them. And then I want you to share your

transformative ideas. So the first step is to begin with the process. You have to create intentionally the purpose

of the mentoring program. I know that it sounds obvious, but it actually wasn't as obvious as I thought, and that

the team of people on this committee should be diverse, inclusive.

The stakeholders should be from HR, a new teacher, a mentor, a school committee member, anybody that you

can grab that's interested in student success should be on the mentoring and induction vision committee. And

then I, big insight, align the program to teacher evaluation standards. And a lot of mentoring programs do not do

that. It's just the buddy system, it's helping people get oriented, and as soon as I shifted all my work to the

standards, administration and others could get on board because then it was permission to talk about student

success.

And finally, I know this sounds obvious, print up the vision plan-- and it should be one page-- and give it to

everybody in the whole school district, not just the mentors and the novices, which is what I was discovering

most were doing. So step one intentional. Step two actions and pick the goals. I have five in my program. Is the

goal to retain teachers or is the goal to make them more proficient? I was working with districts that weren't

losing any teachers. They're like, we're not losing any teachers. Why are we focused on retention? Well, then why

don't you focus on proficiency that's a little more accelerated. Accelerated proficiency or teacher leadership. Pick

your goal. Doesn't matter.

And then the final step, which again seems obvious but isn't so much is to sustain the program. So I would do all

these train the trainers. And two years later the program is gone because the leader of the program retired or the

superintendent left or whatever happens. So where I'm focusing now is on sustaining. And so how do you

sustain?

Three things I'm thinking. You collect ongoing feedback all year long and modify in real time instead of a lot of

programs would evaluate. And I think you still need to evaluate anonymously, but collect the feedback, evaluate.

And here's another one. Why are we not sharing that it works in the local newspaper, in the blogs, in the

presenting to the school committee at the end of the year? And these seem logical, but when we would bring

them up, a lot of people would say, oh, I don't have time, or we didn't put that in the plan or all the excuses.

So create, act, sustain is where I am today. I don't know where I'll be tomorrow, but let's hear reaction, Vince

and then Lisa, and then weave in what you think transformational program should look like.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Because I think when we first met Carol, I was wrapping up my doctoral dissertation, which is now done, which is

great, and the focus of--

CAROL

RADFORD:

Bravo! OK. Celebrate. We do need-- part of this is celebration.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

That's right. And the reason I bring that up is because my dissertation was on sustainable implementation of

professional learning. That was kind of the focus of my dissertation.

So I latched on to your sustain piece, which I think is-- that's the operative conundrum that we're in education

right now is we're not-- there's lots of turnover, and the turnover always creates some sort of speed bump,

regardless of whatever program we're doing, whether it's mentorship or induction or implementation of

professional learning because that also goes out the window if your key professional learning person moves sites.

But I think the thing that resonated the most with me was when you were talking about the collecting, the

feedback and modifying in real time. Which in my dissertation I just called monitoring. So there's monitoring and

evaluation. And so when the program is sustaining or when the program is going, regardless of what it is, we are

consistently monitoring. Like, you're watching the pot of water boil before you put the pasta in.

And then at the end, in more formalized events, we evaluate. And I think the mentor plays a key role in both, but

I see the mentor in a monitoring capacity. I think if there's a mentor-mentee relationship, and I'm really

interested to hear what Lisa has to say regarding this, but in the mentor-mentee relationship, I feel like if Lisa was

my full time mentor and was kind of with me all year, I think I would take value in the monitoring, the little

adjustments, the coaching pieces, and then in the formalized evaluation to see what was the impact.

I don't know if I want my mentor there specifically. I think they need to be a part of the conversation, but I

actually see them sitting beside the mentee when the formal evaluation is happening from, let's say, district or

from certifications. And for me, I think that is kind of how I see-- that's how I'm reacting to what you said. Now I

want to withhold my transformative mentoring program ideas, because I want to hear what Lisa has to say about

what you--

CAROL

RADFORD:

I want to react to one thing that you're saying because now I'm hearing you-- we're talking about this sustain.

And it's really at two different levels. It's sustaining that relationship, which I hadn't really thought of, and it's

sustaining the program so that the district and school, if there's this whole district and this organization with 15

schools that the leader of that, we ended up calling them lead mentors. We had to go beyond the one on one,

and that was developed in real time when I was doing these mentor trainings around the state because they

were like, well, we can't-- who's going to be in between me and the superintendent?

And the lead mentorship model created a new pathway. It created like a new word in the organization. For them

to sustain it for next year. They had to monitor how all the relationships were going and what needed to change.

So thank you for helping me tease that out a little. All right, Lisa, reaction, and then I want to hear what you have

to say as well.

LISA FAIN: Yeah, there's a great mantra that I tend to live by in so many different areas of my life that I think is really

applicable here when you think about transformative mentoring programs. I know we're talking about induction

here too, but I don't come from the teacher world. I come from the other world. So we'll extrapolate that into the

induction world for your listeners as well, Carol, which is that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main

thing. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

And when we talk about mentoring initiatives, and I say initiatives even broader than programs, I love what you

were saying about start with the intentionality because it's very easy to jump on a mentoring bandwagon. Yes,

mentoring is a great thing, but mentoring is not a bandwagon. Mentoring is a vehicle to something else. It

doesn't make sense to do mentoring just for the sake of mentoring. It makes sense to do mentoring because it

gets you to where you want to go.

So, I love that you said start with the purpose of the program. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And

when you come to that, you come to that from-- we usually call it a MAT, a Mentoring Advisory Team. I think you

called it a committee. Same kind of thing where you have all the different stakeholders. It's not different

stakeholders for the sake of having a meeting where everybody at the table is represented, although that's

certainly important.

There's multi purposes to that. It helps you determine what the outcomes can be. It helps you identify what the

obstacles can be. Having diverse stakeholders helps you with recruitment. It helps you with troubleshooting. It

helps you with matching. It helps you to the extent that you have to herd cats, so to speak, to get responses to

your surveys or people in the door or what have you. It helps you identify where holes in your thinking might be.

So there's lots of different reasons to have diverse stakeholders at the table when you're talking about

developing a program.

A lot of times, people will call me. Prospective or existing clients will say, just tell us what we need to do to set up

a mentoring initiative, and I tell them, I'm not a physician. There's no prescription here. It's a consultative

process that depends on the context in which you are setting it up. So that intentionality is really, really

important.

I also love what you said, Carol, about aligning to evaluation standards. So we could spend an entire season of

your podcast talking about ways to measure. So I won't go too deep in here, but I do think aligning it to what is

important in the organization, what else is the organization measuring that counts? I'm using air quotes. I know

everybody's listening and not seeing, but what is it that counts? What is it that matters? And how can mentoring

lead us there?

So when you think about measurement, you want to think about measurement at the level of the mentor and the

mentee. You want to think about measurement at the level of the mentoring initiative, the mentoring program.

And you want to think about measurement at the level of the organization.

Now, sometimes those organizational indicators will be lagging a little bit because they take some time to get

there. But remember, the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And if you're looking to have

teachers advance in there or retain more teachers or avoid burnout or develop certain leadership skills, you want

to be measuring what that means for the organization in the long term. So I've thrown a lot at you. I'm just

looking to see--

CAROL

RADFORD:

I love that, though. I'm writing down notes now too. So this is the casual conversation that's getting a heated

debate that I love. So what we discovered when we were doing at the beginning when I moved to working in-- so

induction, the focus is more me connecting with the beginning teachers. So I'd be doing the mentor training and

creating a pool of mentors being prepared and having a big pool, as one district called it, instead of a puddle like

most of the districts have a puddle and they have to train somebody on the fly.

Here's what it was about the alignment to the standards and the teacher evaluation that shifted all of my work is

that the novice teachers want to get rehired, and they don't know the language. So you have these beginners,

and we'd be having these fabulous mentoring conversations, but the mentor wasn't preparing.

They knew the language, so they weren't intentionally talking or teaching the language to that novice teacher.

And that shifted what you're saying, the intentionality to make the novices more confident and competent to get

rehired, and it started to shift the way they would be assessed by the school leaders who were coming in to

observe them because they knew the language. Instead of keeping it so informal. Oh, my God, thank you for

bringing that up, Lisa. Vince reaction to Lisa's.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

I mean, she probably-- I wrote down-- I don't know if I could have written the word main more times in a

sentence, but I wrote main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing, and I'm like, that's a great bumper

sticker or tattoo or something. But

I think the idea of measuring to standards, regardless of where you are, obviously, we have standards here. We

have what's called the teacher quality standards here in Alberta, which are-- we have three part standards--

teacher quality standards, leadership quality standards, and then superintendent leadership quality standards,

and they are naturally aligned.

They were all written at the same time. And so we also measure to those things, and I think it's important. One of

the things that you alluded to right at the end there with the induction piece is this idea of shared language

versus shared understanding.

And I think when we are matching, and I'll talk a little bit later about the framework that we have in our mentor's

guidebook, but when we talk about mentorship matching, specifically when we're matching mentors and

mentees, it's imperative that we unpack those expectations to make sure that the understanding is the same,

because it's great to have the same language, and it's great that everyone has access to the same pieces of

information, but what does-- gosh, give me any educational buzzword. What does rigor mean to you, to

whomever? We need to have that shared understanding.

So one of the things that we believe in and we follow-- I've been lucky enough to interact with Professor John

Hattie quite a bit over the course of my kind of authorship, and we borrowed some of his theory and applied it to

our mentorship work, which is are we taking time to learn about the skill, will, and thrill of our future teachers? So

when I meet my new teachers, my mentees, what's their skill? As in what's the prior knowledge they bring with

them? What's their will? What are their dispositions towards teaching? And then what's the thrill? What are their

motivations for teaching?

And if we take a little bit of time to excavate some of that information from our mentees, we can match a little

cleaner. Now, this is in a very idyllic situation because I know the reality, especially the reality where I am, is we

have-- let's use student teachers as an example, because we have a student teaching program here in Alberta,

but the University of Alberta has to place 400 student teachers across our province.

Oftentimes, it's like they'll send an email out and say, do you want a student teacher? And you say, yes. And the

only thing they match on is Vince is a high school social studies teacher, so he's going to get a high school social

studies student teacher, and we just get forced together.

So in that case, it's even more important for us to learn a little bit of that skill will and thrill so that we can either

temper our mentorship expectations or design or manufacture a relationship that's built around those

expectations or those goals that we want our kids-- we want our teachers to be successful, we want our induction

teachers to become permanent teachers, and the residuals are that our students are getting the best educational

experience possible.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Right. Lisa, reaction or-- even to-- react, and then I want to stick with these program components at the level of

what do we need to have to pay attention to as leaders as we're pulling this together. And Vince has brought up

the matching could be one or it could might not be. It might be we go another direction and we do group

mentoring. So there's no matching. So things come up.

Those challenges that Lisa talked about, when you have other stakeholders at your table, like HR people who are

just bringing up challenges like, hey, we're just rehiring, rehiring, we're spending-- We don't know what the

challenge is. And they're unique in every school and district. Lisa.

LISA FAIN: Yeah, I love skill, will, and thrill, so I might be stealing that. Terrific. Great framework. The matching thing is really

interesting. And I think that this distinction between shared language and shared understanding equally so--

excuse me-- because there is a great benefit and a great potential challenge in matching for sameness and

similarity.

The benefit is that it does create some sense of shared understanding, but in some ways I might argue that it's a

false sense of shared understanding, unless it is clarified, because we tend to assume similar journeys based on

similar interests or similar shortcomings, based on similar interests or similar challenge based on similar paths,

and to the extent that matching-- to some extent, matching for sameness provides a shortcut that can be a real

detriment to forming trust and safety in a mentoring relationship.

So it's really critical to provide, whether you call it training, whether you call it preparedness, whether you call it a

kickoff, whether you call it capacity building, the skill of appreciative inquiry, the skill of coaching, the skill of

curiosity and inquiry for mentors and mentees alike to be able to identify what their assumptions are and get

curious about those assumptions and their applicability.

And I think that-- I'm curious, Carol and Vince, you have the experience in the classroom and in the education

world that I don't. But I imagine that my experience in the workplace translates in the same way or in the-- and

other organizations translates in the same way in that you got to build the safety and trust to have this kind of

genuine learning. And each teacher is going to come to the classroom with their own set of skills, their own set of

insecurities, their own skills, wills and thrills that really have to be identified. So I think that that's really

important.

CAROL

RADFORD:

I think it's so interesting that the conversation that matching came up as a talking point for us because in part of

program design, when I was doing this very big statewide program, that was a challenge because people would

come to the meeting and say, well, I can't match a social studies. There's only one of that teacher.

So we had to be creative, and it actually opened a door to what you're talking about to actually group mentoring,

I'm not kidding. And they became these groups that we had to do, and they were across grade levels. And what

was happening is the silos of elementary teachers are this, middle school teachers are that, high school teachers

are that.

And I might say my two sons are both high school teachers and my husband, too, and I'm elementary. So we do

have different opinions about how we interact with students. But what happened is the program at a program

level, the lead mentor has to deal with these things because it became a challenge, because you couldn't match.

And what Lisa's talking about became the next layer of preparation, which was, well, why don't we-- the novice is

saying they want content talk. So let's have content coaching and let's have pedagogy coaching. So they would

be matched with a pedagogy teaching standards coach. That could be any grade level, that could be any, and we

started to break down the silos.

But it came from a problem of that we couldn't match. And it grew into this glorious relational thing across a

whole school, which had never been there before because everybody was working in a different way. Vince, what

do you think of that?

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

I agree completely. And I also agree with Lisa when you were talking about the benefit and challenge of matching

based on similarities. And one of the things that we offer or that one of the things that we discuss, especially in

this new kind of guidebook, is it doesn't really-- it shouldn't matter who you're matched with, but the

fundamental goal in the sense is that-- and I don't mean it shouldn't matter, but the more important piece is

taking time to learn about them before leaping into mentoring. Who are you? What are your dispositions?

So I can be a little bit more deliberate in designing those mentorship experiences for you? So I think, well, I

mean, there's just so much value to be taken out of these-- out of everything, and I've just been frantically writing

these things down. But I do believe the biggest thing that I heard that resonated with me was none of this-- this

all collapses if we don't have the safety and trust, there's no mentorship occurring in any shape, or form. If

there's not the safety and trust that's built up first.

And I do think there's value in the program and the group mentorship and the pedagogical or strategy versus

content, mentorship. I also think there's value in-- oh, gosh, I don't even know if we have this-- we don't really

have a term for it. But what we alluded to was in not involuntary mentorship, but just--

CAROL

RADFORD:

Informal.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Informal when your new teachers just naturally deviate to someone else. And last week, I was presenting at a big

teachers conference here in the province, and one of the things that we talk about is the mentor needs to be

hyper aware of their own attitudes and biases, their own conceptual understanding of mentoring and their own

disposition towards others.

Because one of the things that happens, especially, and I can only speak to my experience in a school, is on day

one, I take my mentee through the school, and I eat lunch with the same people I've eaten lunch with for 10

years in my school. And it's informally communicating that I have my own biases about other staff members that

I'm unfairly putting on the mentee.

And so one of the big things that we talk about is step one, introduce your mentee to all staff, and under that,

hide your biases about your colleagues because they will pick up on those things. And so we're naturally

impeding those informal mentorship relationships if we pass our own biases onto our mentee.

CAROL

RADFORD:

So we're talking about things that-- two different-- the mentoring relationships and the trust. So let's get back to

the program. So a transformative program has to be attentive. The leader of the program who's designing this to

make that happen. It has to be an intentional component or an intentional conversation or activity. It's a goal.

So if I've got my three essential steps for school leaders, if we create the plan, then we have these actions. So

what I'm hearing is one of the actions is preparing that mentor in that way to build that trust, and what does--

and the biases and all of that. It becomes part of the program.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

For sure.

CAROL

RADFORD:

I would like to hear-- we're winding down already, that we could go on forever with this one. What do you think

the components have to be in addition to that? That clearly has to be a program component for a leader in an

organization. Lisa, what are you-- I know your work is organic with an organization, but how do you lead that

conversation?

LISA FAIN: Yeah, I would say that it's bespoke. It's not organic because I think the intentionality is really, really important.

So there's a number of different things. So we talked about the intentionality in terms of outcomes and what

you're designing for. That's the first step, creating an advisory committee right there aligned with you.

Then you got to choose the mode. So we tend to default to one-on-one hierarchical mentorship of senior to junior,

but there's many other modes as well. There's peer mentorship. There's group mentorship, and there's peer

circles. There's complimentary mentoring, which some people call reverse mentoring. I'm not a fan of that term.

We could use the term complimentary mentoring where in my organizations. So then you choose-- then you

choose the mode, right?

CAROL

RADFORD:

Yeah. Yes.

LISA FAIN: Choose the audience. I mean, I know it sounds-- what's the pool you're choosing from? And then how are you

going to-- how are you going to build capacity? How are you going to match? How are you going to provide

ongoing support? How are you going to measure-- not just measure success, but measure milestones along the

way? How are you going to communicate?

CAROL

RADFORD:

Are your milestones between with the relationship and also the program success?

LISA FAIN: Yes.

CAROL

RADFORD:

At those two levels, I want to bring us to that level that we're looking with the bird's eye view.

LISA FAIN: Yes, in other words-- in other words, have you set goals? Have you done a check in on the relationship? What are

you doing in terms of feedback? And then also, not just measuring at the end, but I recommend that

organizations really take a pulse at the beginning-- at the beginning, in the middle, and the end, and maybe even

some more time in between. What ongoing support are you going to be providing mentors and mentees?

CAROL

RADFORD:

--what Vince was talking about monitoring. So we're all three talking about that, which I'm not sure every

program is doing. So that's like an underscore point that I want to tease out from this conversation so it doesn't

get lost.

LISA FAIN: There's just two more pieces. I just want to make sure--

CAROL

RADFORD:

OK. Get those--

LISA FAIN: So ongoing support is really, really important. Alignment and communication, how are you communicating about

mentoring throughout the school, throughout the district and what have you? What are your principals and your

superintendents and your other school leaders?

What's your school board saying about the importance of investing, of having our educators invest in their own

learning and in the learning of the other educators in the system because it's not going to take on an importance-

- look, there's so many urgent things that teachers deal with on a day to day basis, and it's very easy to say that

your own learning isn't urgent.

It's very difficult to say that it's important if your leaders and the people who are evaluating your performance

and are speaking for your organization don't value it. So you really need to-- that needs to be underscored. And

then celebration and communication.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Yes.

LISA FAIN: [INAUDIBLE] The celebration piece is really, really important. What did we accomplish? All have these little pocket

devices in our-- these devices in our pockets, have your participants in your mentoring cohort shoot a one-minute

video about what it is that they accomplished and what they're grateful for having participated, what they're

thankful for. That kind of communication is really, really important. OK I'm done [INAUDIBLE].

CAROL

RADFORD:

No, no. That all fit. This is just what I wrote down today. So, Lisa, you and I are totally--

LISA FAIN: [INAUDIBLE], Carol.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Celebrate what works.

LISA FAIN: Yes.

CAROL

RADFORD:

We always are in problem-solving mode. We're problem solvers, mentors. So I just wrote that down, and then I

put keep mentoring results visible. So back to the visibility because we don't sustain anything because we just

keep going, we just like keep running. All right. Vince, last words because I want to hear about the books before

we wind down, and we're going to have to connect again.

VINCE

BUSTAMANTE:

Yeah, I know this could be a whole season. So I will just offer because I didn't do a great job of discussing

program specifics, so I will just say-- I'll use this as a segue. So my co-authors and I have two books coming out in

May. I know this is probably going to be around the end of May, so have a look.

The first one is called the mentors guidebook, which I think is really, really serendipitous that Lisa, you have the

mentors guide book, but the mentors guide book, which offers what we call a mentorship mindset model, and it

explores the modality, the motivation and the matching components of mentorship.

And then how do we maintain mentorship maintenance, and how do we maintain mentorship momentum? And so

the maintenance and momentum pieces are essentially everything that Lisa was talking about in terms of

celebrating and milestones. And it was just-- it's all jam packed in there.

And what I like about it is, we've never met before today officially, Lisa, but a lot of the things that we're saying

are intersecting so perfectly. So that book is coming out at the end of May, and we are releasing a

complimentary book at the same time for new teachers called Navigating the First Years. So two books come out

at the same time.

They are not intended-- they can be their handshake, but they stand alone. So the goal here is your new teachers

would get navigating the first years, and your mentors would get the mentors guidebook. And whether they do

an independent book study or a collaborative book study, there's lots of overlap between the two. But you don't

need to own both to be successful in anything.

And I think the celebration piece, that's the only thing I'm going to say before I turn it over is I think that's so

understated and so important, especially right now. And honestly, no celebration is too small. I think that's really

important. Like the little wins are big wins right now, especially in the context of what's happening. Every win is a

big win.

Maybe we don't need to go out and celebrate all weekend for everyone, but a high-five, a written note like, thank

you so much for all of the wonderful things you're doing, everything like that should be celebrated. And I think

this conversation should also be celebrated because it was just such a lovely conversation.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Oh, thank you, Vince. Lisa, just tell-- I would love you to share with the audience about the International

Mentoring Association Conference that's coming up.

LISA FAIN: Yes, I would love to do that. So International Mentoring Association Conference is coming in May 12 through 14 of

2026. So hold the date, save it on your calendar, and plan on coming to St. Petersburg, Florida, for that

conference. We have a conference every other year, an in-person conference every other year for IMA.

But don't wait until May of 2026 to get involved with IMA. If you have an interest in mentoring, go to

mentoringassociation.org, check out IMA, and consider becoming a member. You'll get a lot of value in terms of

the fellowship with others who are in the mentoring world, the resources, learning about what's new and coming

out in mentoring, research and lots of other exciting initiatives in the mentoring world. So check that out.

And then in terms of my own business, please check out Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring and The

Mentors Guide, which are two books that I'm particularly proud of that I think add to the mentoring scholarship as

well.

CAROL

RADFORD:

Thank you, Lisa. What I love about this conversation and being a member myself of the International Mentoring

Association is bringing like-minded mentors together from all these different fields. And it is the common

language of supporting and inducting or whatever word the organization is using to lift up the spirits of those who

are entering whatever organization it is and taking the wisdom of our most successful teachers, most successful

lawyers, whoever, and engaging them in formal or informal mentoring experiences.

And I just want to thank both of you today for your authenticity, your work, and it's just been a wonderful season

because mentoring is near and dear to my heart, and I will leave our audience with the affirmation. Usually, it's

one for the mentors, one for the new teachers, but I am going to have one affirmation as we close the season. I

am a leader.

So we are all leaders in this field as we share our work and our hopes for the next generation of educators and

mentoring professionals in all organizations. We want everyone to be successful. So thanks for being here, and

thanks to our listeners.

SPEAKER 1: Thanks, everyone, for joining today's teacher-to-teacher conversation. We hope this time together energized you,

inspired you, and reminded you why you chose to become a teacher. You can purchase any of Carol's books and

any books mentioned in the podcast online at www.corwin.com.

Please leave a review and share this podcast with your colleagues. Thank you for listening to the Corwin Teacher

to Teacher Podcast, a place to share teacher wisdom and engage in authentic conversations with experienced

educators.

SPEAKER 2: Come explore Corwin's free new teacher toolkit and resources. We've curated these resources based on

extensive research from teachers, coaches, and principals alike. Whether you are brand new or a veteran

teacher, find ready to go teaching tools at corwin.com today.

Vince Bustamante

Vince Bustamante, EdD, is a Calgary-based instructional coach, curriculum content developer, and author. Vince specializes in working with teachers, leadership teams, schools, and school districts in implementing high impact strategies and systems. With a strong background in implementation, assessment, and deep learning, he is passionate about understanding and evaluating teachers' impact. Having worked with schools and school districts across North America and internationally, he brings a wide variety of experience and perspectives when looking at school improvement, pedagogical and leadership development, and implementation of high impact strategies across school environments. Vince’s doctoral research focused on the sustainable implementation of professional learning across school districts and the impact of long-term school partnerships.

Vince has co-authored two bestselling books with Corwin Press: Great Teaching by Design and The Assessment Playbook for Distance and Blended Learning. His other title, Leader Ready: Four Pathways to Prepare Aspiring School Leaders, is also available from Corwin Press. You can find more information about Vince at www.vincebustamante.com.

Lisa Fain

Lisa Fain is the CEO of the Center for Mentoring Excellence, a globally recognized expert on creating mentoring cultures, and the author of Bridging Differences for Better Mentoring and The Mentor’s Guide, 3rd Edition. A sought-after speaker and leadership coach, Lisa helps organizations foster belonging and inclusion through the power of mentoring.

Connect with her at www.centerformentoring.com or on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/lisazfain.

Carol Pelletier Radford

Carol Pelletier Radford is the founder of Mentoring in Action, an organization dedicated to the success of novice teachers and their mentors. She received her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education where she focused her studies on mentoring and teacher leadership. Carol is an experienced classroom teacher, university education administrator, and certified yoga instructor. She is the author of bestselling Corwin books Mentoring in Action: Guiding, Sharing, and Reflecting With Novice Teachers; The First Years Matter: Becoming an Effective Teacher; Teaching With Light: Ten Lessons for Finding Wisdom, Balance, and Inspiration; and "When I Started Teaching, I Wish I Had Known..." Weekly Wisdom for Beginning Teachers.

Visit https://mentoringinaction.com/ to learn more about her books and access free podcasts, videos, and courses. You can find her near the beach in Falmouth, Massachusetts and Venice, Florida.