Teachers and Students Inspire Eachother

Summary

The author reflects on their experience as a mentor to aspiring writers, proposing new terminology for mentorship and emphasizing the importance of mutual learning.

Abstract

Inspired by Holly Kellums' article, the author delves into the concept of mentorship, suggesting a new vocabulary to replace the current terms. They propose the word "imparter" or "impartor" for mentor and "impartee" for mentee, resulting in the relationship being called an "impartnership." The author emphasizes the importance of knowledge flowing in both directions and shares an example of a successful mentoring experience where both parties learned from each other.

Opinions

The author expresses surprise at the lack of objection to the current terms "mentor" and "mentee," implying that they find these terms potentially problematic.
The author suggests that the law of osmosis applies to mentorship, where success secrets are absorbed by the less successful party in the relationship.
They propose new terms for mentorship, aiming for a more balanced and mutual learning relationship.
The author believes that a successful mentorship involves learning from each other, using an example of getting their mentees to write about what excites them.
The author expresses excitement and satisfaction with the improvement they saw in their mentees' writing, indicating their commitment to fostering such relationships.
The author promotes an AI service they recommend, stating it provides the same performance as ChatGPT Plus (GPT-4) but at a more affordable price.

Teachers and Students Inspire Eachother

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I am presently the mentor to two, possibly three, aspiring writers. Holly Kellums’s piece inspired me to think about these relationships and her article. The article is really about the law of osmosis — surround yourself with people who are successful and by osmosis, the secrets to their success should get absorbed by anyone who is less successful and open and willing to learn. That environment probably exists within any number of publications on Medium.

It also inspired me to think about the words involved: MENtor, MENtee, and the MENtor-MENtee relationship. I am surprised at the absence of an outcry of sexism, and that evangelicals have not denounced it as an affront to God. Thus, being a bit of wordchemist, I set my mind to the task of solving for this while we remain in a calm before a storm of political correctness, and I propose that the word imparter or a new word, impartor, replace mentor, and that a new word, impartee, replace mentee as the recipient of the benefit of the former’s experience. The relationship itself then succinctly becomes an impartnership.

I very much like that, as when engaged in an impartnership some amount of knowledge should flow in each direction. For example, I could not get my stubborn flock to grasp that they will write better if the subject matter truly excites them. I learned from this that to get through to them I would have to get them to see it for themselves, which they did when I tasked them to write essays telling me what makes them tick — why do they write. Here is a before and after study — the improvement excited me so much that I am hungry for more impartnerships.

Before:

After:

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