Mentors, Teachers, and Schools

Abstract

Mentor begins not as a phenomenon, but as a name. Homer’s The Odyssey introduces the Greek hero Odysseus who, upon leaving for the Trojan War, leaves his son Telemachus “in the care of Mentor” (Mullen, 2005, p. 30). Keller (2010) notes that, “In this case, mentoring entailed substantial responsibility for raising a youth at the request of an absent parent ” (p. 25). Thus, mentors, as seen in this tale, or even in real life examples such as Aristotle’s relationship with Alexander the Great, were ever more than teachers. They were often hired by the powerful to groom children into becoming successful rulers.