Learning How to “Mentor on the Run”:Appreciating the Power of “Little Moments” of MentoringBuilding a “Community of Mentors” and Promoting a “Culture of Mentoring”The Impact of Mentoring on CSUN’s EOP Bridge Program for Low-Income FreshmenAppreciating the Transformative Power of MentoringNotes1 Mentoring as the “Giving and Receiving of Wisdom”: Breaking the Chains of Colonialism on Our Hearts, Minds, and Souls By Glenn Omatsu Glenn Omatsu is a lecturer in Asian American Studies and Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) at CSUN and serves as coordinator of the Faculty Mentor Program. When we hear the word mentoring, a powerful image forms in our minds: that of an old sage (almost always male with long hair and often a flowing beard) sitting for hours in a secluded space and providing wisdom to a young person. This dominant image shapes our core beliefs about mentoring. We usually define mentoring as consisting of long-term relationships, as involving the transmission of wisdom from the old to the young, and as occurring in magical “big moments” between two people. However, there is a basic problem with this definition. It is wrong, and it is largely shaped by western colonialism. In reality, mentors in our communities are both young and old, can be female as well as male, and can have short hair or no hair. The mentors in our lives can be sages, but they are more likely “ordinary” people all around us. In the real world, mentoring means more than an isolated, long-term relationship involving two individuals; most mentoring occurs in a web of2 relationships with others (i.e., within a community). In our communities, mentoring is reciprocal and not one-way — i.e., mentoring involves an interactive process in which both the mentor and mentee benefit. And, perhaps most important, mentoring in the real world occurs not only in “big moments” but mainly in “little moments” — i.e., as part of our daily interactions with others. In their small book, Mentoring: The Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom, Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch remind us about the mentoring opportunities that are always all around us. They define mentoring as “the giving and receiving of wisdom” within a web of relationships. Through the interactions that mentors have with others, they share the “gift of wisdom and [have] it graciously appreciated and received by others who then carry the gift to all those within their sphere of influence.”1 Mentoring, Huang and Lynch further emphasize, occurs within a community, and mentoring activities help to promote a culture of wisdom throughout this community. According to Huang and Lynch’s expanded understanding of mentoring, each of us daily has many opportunities to serve as both a mentor and mentee with those around us. Yes, mentoring does occur in special “big moments” — those built up through relationships with a few individuals that we have worked with intensely for years — but we need to more fully recognize that the most powerful acts of mentoring happen during “little moments.” The “little moments” occur in our day-to-day interactions with others all around us. For teachers, these “little moments” of mentoring are infused into our teaching in the classroom and our daily interactions3 with our students. For community activists, these “little moments” occur in our patient and day-to-day activities educating and organizing with others. However, if we are to truly capture the potential contained in these “little moments,” we need to expand our consciousness and overcome the continuing ideological impact of western colonialism and its narrow definition of mentoring. The colonial definition of mentoring limits our thinking and the scope of our activities. It restricts the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of mentoring. It promotes a narrow belief that we can only mentor a select and special few, that we can only mentor during specific times in a day, and that we can only mentor in particular locations. Of course, for political activists, the colonial definition of mentoring clashes with our everyday experiences. Yet, if the colonial definition of mentoring clashes with everyday practices, why does it continue to dominate our consciousness? I believe the answer lies in the largely unrecognized legacy of colonialism in our hearts, minds, and souls. Political activists have created an impressive body of work critiquing the political and economic legacy of colonialism on the lives of all people today. Nevertheless, much more work needs to be done to analyze and root out the legacy of colonialism from our consciousness, especially as it manifests in our day-to-day practices and thinking. In the world today, all people — including political activists — have unconsciously assimilated a colonizer’s view of society. This perspective, for example, influences the ways we conceptualize organizing to change society. According to the colonial perspective, social change comes from the initiative of an individual4 person who uses the power of reason to build awareness in others as a precondition for collective action. Political change occurs through “big moments,” which are prepared by numerous small steps. The small steps are defined as simply incremental in the arduous task of changing society and have no value in and of themselves. In short, the colonizer’s perspective focuses on the individual person as the basic unit in society (as opposed to seeing the individual within a community), the overarching power of reason (as opposed to understanding the relationship of reason with emotions, values, and other human qualities), the separation of thinking from acting (as opposed to focusing on the interaction between knowing and doing), the emphasis on distinct stages for creating change (as opposed to appreciating process), and the conviction that change consists of “big moments” prepared by small steps (as opposed to recognizing that small steps shape the bigger outcomes and are really the most important part of social change).2 Understanding the colonizer’s perspective of society is important because it shapes how we see mentoring. It also points to the necessity to create an expanded vision of mentoring, one that is unfettered by colonialism. Significantly, this broader, alternative vision does not have to be invented because it already