The value of internship and mentoring in the development of a teacher’s professional identity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7346/-fei-XXIII-03-25_12Keywords:
Mentoring, Internship, Educational relationship, Teacher identity, ReflexivityAbstract
This paper offers a reflection on the meaning and value of internships and mentoring within the training of future preschool and primary school teachers, with particular attention to the process of building professional identity and to the relationship with the mentor. Teacher identity is a particularly complex notion and can be understood as an ongoing, ever-evolving process, nourished by concrete experience, lived relationships, and critical reflection. Consequently, teacher education cannot be limited to the acquisition of technical skills; it must also involve the development of relational, communicative, and decision-making abilities, as well as the practice of reflexivity. The mentor’s role enables the integration of theoretical and practical aspects, promoting professional learning that is flexible and open to change. University education must therefore be firmly connected to experience, and must itself be an experience to question and interpret. From this perspective, the mentor becomes a significant other who supports the student in exploring experience and the personal meaning attached to it, representing the student’s first true contact with school reality. What had previously been only an idea of what a teacher is, becomes concrete when encountering the mentor; it allows comparison with a model and supports the construction of one’s own identity through guidance, mutual respect, knowledge, and trust.
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