Mentoring
Here is my pre-flection on the art of mentoring. Mentoring is one of the arts that was very familiar to me personally. As a student at Puget Sound Early College, I practice this art every week on Tuesday. Mentoring is generally defined as supportively guiding others in learning the arts of public life. In my understanding, it is about helping one another grown in a variety of things. I think it has to involve at least 2 people to be successful. One person is for to guide and the other person is for to be guided. However, the roles don't mean to be fixed and can be reverse depended on the situation the people in; as long as the people grow, improve and "evolve" into the person that they can potentially be, usually something positive and useful. Here is my article on the art of mentoring... One of the most well-known organizations based on the art of mentoring is the Big Brothers, Big Sisters and my article is about the "Be A Friend" program, about what they do and the people's experience of the program and the art of mentoring .
http://www.beafriend.org/whatwedo.html

Here is my reflection on the art of mentoring. Mentoring is a tool that organizations or groups can use to nurture and grow their people. It can be an informal practice or a formal program. Protégés observe, question, and explore. Mentors demonstrate, explain and model. The following assumptions form the foundation for a solid mentoring program.
Deliberate learning is the cornerstone. The mentor's job is to promote intentional learning, which includes capacity building through methods such as instructing, coaching, profiding experiences, modeling and advising.
Both failure and success are powerful teachers. Mentors, as leaders of a learning experience, certainly need to share their "how to do it so it comes out right" stories. They also need to share their experiences of failure, ie., "how I did it wrong". Both types of stories are powerful lessons that provide valuable opportunities for analyzing individual and organizational realities.
Leader need to tell their stories. Personal scenarios, anedcotes and case examples, because they offer valuable, often unforgettable insight, must be shared. Mentors who can talk about themselves and their experiences establish a rapport that makes them "learning leaders."
Development matures over time. Mentoring -- when it works -- taps into continuous learning that is not an event, or even a string of discrete events. Rather, it is the synthesis of ongoing event, experiences, observation, studies, and thoughtful analyses.
Mentoring is a joint venture. Successful mentoring means sharing responsibility for learning. Regardless of the facilities, the subject matter, the timing, and all other variables. Successful mentoring begins with setting a contract for learning around which the mentor, the protégé, and their respective line managers are aligned.
Mentoring How-to's:
-Model the Art: encourage people to see values in different point of view for example
-Supportively "push"
-Break learning down into small steps
-Team up new-comers with old-timers

Application: At PSEC, I experience the art of mentoring everyday. From the staff being mentors to students to peer mentoring, it is a very positive element in the life at PSEC. We live by example and we do what we see other demonstrate and by doing that, I see people modeling the art. Following that, we give each other friendly push to achieve certain goal. We supportively encourage one another to thrive for the better. It is hard to learn something that is very important to our life all at once and mentoring give us the chance to break it down. It is a process that may take quiet a bit of time but in the end, it ususally comes out as a positive and worthwhile result. We tend to take it once at a time at PSEC and build it up to a strong tower with supportive base and that's what so great about the school. The last step of the mentoring how-to's is team up new-comers with old-timers and it is clearly demonstrated the most at the mentor group as the cohort 2 and cohort 3 students interact with one another and share their opinions on different issues so we could both learn new things from each others and hopefully becomes more understanding of one another's problems.

Active Listening
Here is my pre-flection on the art of active listening. From personal experience, I can say surely that active listening is not something natural. It requires training, practice and effort, great amount of effort, in order to succeed in the art of active listening. I often think that listening is the same thing compared to hearing. That is one of the most common misconception people have about listening, especially when it comes to active listening. Listening and hearing are two completely different acts. If you think about it, hearing is a natural process and a physical experience. However, listening is not. It's more than just physical because it requires mental power as well. When you listen, you need to understand, if not completely, generally what the other person was talking about. When you hear, you don't necessarily need to understand what was it that you hear. It is not an easy thing to be a good listener. And yet, we don't spend enough time on this art. Because of that, many conflicts have been created from the lack of active listening. Fortunately, we can also use the skill of active listening to resolve conflict .
Here is an article on active listening that can help you become a better active listener and surprisingly, marketer
http://www.icpas.org/icpas/sia/practice/activelistening.asp

Here is my reflection on the art of active listening.
Active listening skill requires
Attending
A: Eye contact B: Posture C: Gesture
S.O.L.E.R.
Five steps to attentive listening
Squarely face the person Open your posture Lean towards the sender Eye contact maintained Relax while attending
Paraphrasing
What is it? Restating a message, but usually with fewer words. Where possible try and get more to the point.
Purpose:
To test your understanding of what you heard.
To communicate that you are trying to understand what is being said. If you’re successful, paraphrasing indicates that you are following the speaker’s verbal explorations and that you’re beginning to understand the basic message.
When listening consider asking yourself:
What is the speaker’s basic thinking message
What is the person’s basic feeling message
E.g. S: I just don’t understand, one minute she tells me to do this, and the next minute to do that. X: She really confuses you. S: I really think he is a very nice guy. He’s so thoughtful, sensitive, and kind. He calls me a lot. He’s fun to go out with. X: You like him very much, then.
Clarifying
What is it: Process of bringing vague material into sharper focus.
Purpose:
To untangle unclear or wrong listener interpretation.
To get more information
To help the speaker see other points of view
To identify what was said e.g. I’m confused, let me try to sate what I think you were trying to say.
You’ve said so much, let me see if I’ve got it all.
Perception Checking
What is it: Request for verification of your perceptions.
Purpose:
To give and receive feedback
To check out your assumptions
e.g. Let me see if I’ve got it straight. You said that you love your children and that they are very important to you. At the same time you can’t stand being with them. Is that what you are saying?
Summarizing
What is it: pulling together, organizing, and integrating the major aspects of your dialogue. Pay attention to various themes and emotional overtones. Pout key ideas and feelings into broad statements. DO NOT add new ideas.
Purpose:
To give a sense of movement and accomplishment in the exchange
To establish a basis for further discussion.
Pull together major ideas, facts, and feelings e.g. A number of good points have been made about rules for the classroom. Let’s take a few minutes to go over them and write them on the board. We’re going all over the map this morning. If I understand you correctly,
The three major points of the story are…
Primary Empathy
What is it: Reflection of content and feelings
Purpose:
To show that you’re understanding the speaker’s experience
To allow the speaker to evaluate his/her feelings after hearing them expressed by someone else Basic Formula:
You feel (state feeling) because (state content)
e.g. Student: I just don’t know how I am going to get all this math homework done before tonight’s game especially since I don’t get most of this stuff you taught us today.
Teacher: You are feeling frustrated and stuck…You are feeling frustrated and stuck with math you don’t know how to do and you’re worried that you won’t figure it out before you go to the game.
The main fear for you seems to be fear -- you’re really scared of losing your relationship if things don’t get better.
It’s upsetting when someone doesn’t let you tell your side of the story.
Advanced Empathy
What is it: reflection of content and feeling at a deeper level.
Purpose: To try and get an understanding of what may be deeper feelings
e.g. -I get the sense that you are really angry about what was said, but I am wondering if you also feel a little hurt by it.
-You said that you feel more confident about contacting employers, but I wonder if you also still feel a bit scared.

Application: It is the most important skill in my personal opinion. I use it everyday at PSEC. We have been working in group on the safe cosmetics campaign. Each of us has a different opinion on how to make the project successful. That's why active listening is so important.
We all listen to one another's ideas and show support like "It's a good idea" or "I like your idea very much". We don't interrupte one another when a person express her idea or feeling. I strongly believe that active listening reduce our chances of corruption and argument. Active listening also give us a better sense of judgement. We made many better decisions from just listening actively.