Mentoring Goes Both Ways

"The notion of the mentor molding the young charge, like clay in the hands of a master potter, is an old one. What is less often remarked, even forgotten, is that the molding goes both ways," So writes Ann Pelo in her inspiring book, The Goodness of Rain: Developing an Ecological Identity in Young Children, an account of a year spent with one-year-old Dylan, together discovering what it would be like to spend each day outside, no matter the weather.

"My commitment was to both of us," Pelo declares, "I hoped that Dylan would learn the place where she lived, would take it into her bones and blood so that it would become bound into her identity. I hoped that I would relax my shoulders that hunched against the rain, and open my resistant heart to this place where I make my home...I hoped that our days outside would cultivate in each of us an ecological identity."

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