The Athena Project: Refining the Practice of Mentorship in Community Art

Part 5 of "A Landmark Year: Community Arts and U.S. Higher Education 2006," a CANuniversity series of timely articles, interviews, photographs and syllabi from the field. This is an introduction to the topic of developing mentoring relationships between students of different ages through a college course. It is based on the work of Minette Lee Mangahas and Virginia Jardim on The Athena Project, a studio class at the California College of the Arts that gives college students an opportunity to mentor 6-9th grade youth in an after-school community arts program.

When we think of mentorship in the arts, the typical image that comes up is that of the master and the apprentice. In this relationship, the elder shares her experience with the student, usually taking her through an individualized course of study wherein the apprentice takes on projects that increase in difficulty and scale. It is a tradition that has been practiced around the world for centuries and in myriad ways. While a calligrapher’s student in Japan may spend years learning how to make strokes correctly with a brush, a carpenter’s apprentice in New England may spend a lot of time learning to turn a square piece of wood into a perfectly round leg for a chair.

For the mentee, the road of learning is built on a measure of both dedication and trust in their mentors’ skill. For the mentor, the journey is not unlike the engaging process of refining diamonds in the rough.

For young people, this relationship can be pivotal in their personal development. Yet in our urban communities, it is mentorship that is most often lacking in children’s lives. Thus, with the support of the Center for Art and Public Life at the California College of the Arts, Virginia Jardim and I developed a course that would combine training for college students in the art of mentorship with an after-school program in Community Arts.

This article is an attempt to summarize what we learned in the year of preparation leading up to the Athena Project, during its implementation, and in the months since. I hope to illuminate the structures we found most helpful and elaborate a little on the ways in which we hoped to challenge the definitions of mentor and mentee.

Our goal in the Athena Project was to give youth and college students the opportunity to dive into intimate learning relationships through the vehicle of postmodern creative practice. Our challenge for the CCA students was to develop their own model of mentorship and to refine it through practice. Our challenge to the youth was to explore beyond their concepts of art and to be co-conspirators in pushing the boundaries of what the college could offer them.

We chose to name the course after the Greek goddess Athena because in Homer’s Odyssey she assumes the form of Mentor, a trusted guide to Telemachus (Odysseus’ son) in his search for his father. The word “mentor” is derived from the Indo-European word "men," meaning “to think,” and was commonly used by ancient Greeks to mean “wise counselor.” Athena also personifies wisdom in the form of a feminine warrior, which we interpreted as embodying the courage that it takes to nurture and protect the world.

To add another layer of significance, we asked the students to work with residents at the Matilda Brown Home for Elderly Women, a historic community for elders located near the college’s Oakland campus. We visited the women throughout the semester and learned about the Home which was founded by the Ladies’ Home Society of Oakland in 1872.

We chose to work with youth in middle school (ages 11-13) from different schools in the area. Coincidentally 16 of the 18 youth were girls. We chose to focus on this age group because this is often the stage when kids begin to feel insecure about their capacity as artists. Often, this is when they decide whether they “can draw,” are the “creative type,” and can accept the label “artist.” For students this age, the experience of having a supportive mentor to guide them in discovering their artistic potential can make the difference in whether or not their creative selves shut down or blossom in high school and beyond.

The course was divided into two parts, a seminar and a three-hour studio. On Mondays the class consisted of a three-hour seminar that began with a reflective meditation and a short reading. Here the “mentors” had an opportunity to discuss and reflect on their experience while planning future projects. The after-school program took place on Wednesdays, where we had an hour to set up and then worked with the youth from four to six o’clock. In its entirety, the course took place over 14 weeks.

Shaping a Classroom Culture of Mentorship: Who were your mentors and how did they mentor you?

In our very first seminar, we asked the college students two questions, “Who were your mentors?” and “What made them good mentors?” Asking these questions immediately gave students a ramp from which to build their own practice. We approached mentorship as an art form with skills and techniques, one that requires trial and error, experience and practice. The goal was not to become a perfect mentor. There is no such thing. Rather, the goal was to find the path of mentorship that was true and strong for each person.

I would like to reiterate that mentorship is very much an art that requires practice and experience in using skills and tools. It demands that we, as artists, become particularly articulate about the process of creating and empathetic to the struggle of others to develop their own creative process. It is a beautiful practice that requires mentors to delve into themselves deeply, because in order to mentor another person, we must also face the challenge of defining ourselves.

This is the first basic struggle in becoming a teacher. We must battle our insecurities about our identity, our skill, and our knowledge. We must come to a place of confidence that is not necessarily based in knowing all the answers, but in the knowledge that we can find the answers together. Since we were building relationships between mentors and mentees that are not that far apart in age, it was particularly important to relieve the older students of the pressure to feel they must act as “experts.” Rather, it was more productive to set up a relationship wherein both mentors and mentees could approach problems together with openness and curiosity.

To do this, first we needed to look at how mentoring relationships differ from other relationships. A mentor is not the same as a parent and cannot take the place of a parent. Parental relationships are more intimate and bear more responsibility. In our case, mentors did not bear any legal responsibility or authority over their mentees. Neither is a mentor the same as a classroom teacher, who teaches prescribed material and judges or grades a youth based on her performance in a class.

Mentors have more authority yet less intimacy than a youth’s peers. They require more respect and distance than buddies, and yet as much trust and honesty. These distinctions are particularly important to make, as college students tend to fall into any of these three roles when they interact with youth (and sometimes vacillate between playing different roles during the course of the relationship).

There was a natural tendency for our students to mimic their parents or teachers when speaking with youth. However, this was not always helpful or appropriate. A mentor who distances herself too much as a voice of authority may not be able to win the trust and confidence of her mentees. Conversely, a mentor who tries too hard to become “one of the gang” may find later that she is unable to get them to take her seriously when it is time to focus on work.

The art is in finding the balance. Perhaps mentors are more like guiding friends or personal teachers. They could help by asking the right questions, facing the young person in the right direction so that they can themselves uncover answers and more questions.

During our seminars, each mentor gave a presentation on a book about mentorship, education, or child development of their choice. Here we were able to make the distinction between our shared ideal of creative mentorship and the mentor-protégé relationship illuminated in many business-oriented models in some of the literature. Rather than training the younger students to be more like them, the college students chose to function more like mediums and models. Their purpose was to illuminate the youth’s strengths and unmask their potential.

As the overseers for this class, we tried to build in time for both structured and unstructured reflection. College students kept journals and the youth were given sketchbooks to use for both assignments and free writing and drawing. We are indebted to Chungliang Al Huang and Jerry Lynch for their book "Mentoring, the Tao of Giving and Receiving Wisdom." Each week, we began the seminar with a reading of one or two chapters in this book. They break the virtues of mentorship down into basic components including Humility, Self-Acceptance, Integrity, Kindness, Non-judgment, Trustfulness, Instinctiveness, Spontaneity, Vigilance, Attentiveness, Decisiveness, Perseverance, Empathy, Modeling, Nurturance and Harmony. We used their meditations on each topic as a basis for discussion, often taking into consideration differences and similarities in the way that Chinese and American cultures approach teaching and learning.

In their journals, most of the students reflected on the challenges of finding their mentoring voice — a voice of authority that was both warm and wise, and one that was uniquely their own — apart from the dominant figures in their lives. Through writing exercises and discussions we practiced identifying behaviors and reflecting after every session so that they could become aware of their tendencies and mindfully try alternatives as well.

Finding their mentor voice was important because there were guidelines and boundaries that they needed to keep with the younger students. We forbade the use of cell phones and headsets during class. We discouraged the college students from inviting youth into their homes or fraternizing inappropriately. We asked everyone to honor the space and the tools that we used in the program. And we expected that each person in the program would treat the others with openness and respect.

When showing youth new skills, we encouraged mentors to teach with intentionality. This meant being clear and consistent with regard to articulating technique, vocabulary, and learning goals. We encouraged them to repeat what they said so that students have multiple opportunities to understand concepts and remember new words.

It was also important for everyone to be conscious that the road to learning was a two-way street. In their journals, the CCA students were in continuous awe of how much they were learning from their mentees. Perhaps most important, some discovered what it took to keep this road open both internally and outwardly. Playing the role of the mentor also meant being willing to learn from one’s mentee.

Because of the differences between the college age and the middle-school students, and their tremendous differences with the 80-90-year-old women, we realized early on that it was critical for us to build skills around confronting difference. We talked about how race, socio-economics, culture, disabilities, gender and age can affect relationships between mentors and mentees. We also talked about these issues with respect to the elders at the Home. To prepare youth for meeting the elders, two CCA students devised an activity around judging people based on stereotypes.

For this session, first they showed youth pictures of various people and asked them to answer a series of questions based on what they would guess the person was like. The questions included “What kind of music do they listen to?” “Where are they from?” “What language/s do they speak?” “What do they drive?” and “What are they most afraid of?” Then the class watched taped interviews with the subjects wherein they answered the same questions for themselves.

This activity was very effective in slowing judgmentalism in the group, and made them aware of their own preconceived notions. I think it made everyone more curious about each other and about the women they would later meet.

Six months before the program began, we asked middle-school teachers to distribute a simple application form and nominate students. We met with all the applicants and their parents or guardians, which gave them a sense of being part of something important and gave us a chance to explain the focus and structure of the program. Establishing this personal relationship with the students and their guardians early on proved very helpful during the course of the semester.

When the youth arrived at the College, the mentors lead them through a series of ice breakers that would allow them to expend their excess energy from the school day and enable them to playfully connect with their new peers and mentors. To ensure that we could identify each other easily, everyone created nametags that were reused at every session. Then the mentors taught the students to build personalized portfolios in which to put their artwork.

After everyone bonded as a class, we assigned each youth to work within smaller “co-learning circles,” which involved one or two CCA students and two to five youth. We paired students in groups so that no one would be left out in case mentors or mentees were absent. Together these groups developed art skills that would enable them to design and build their final projects. Those final projects, which were created over a span of about eight weeks, were based on research into the history of the surrounding Oakland community and interviews with elders at the Matilda Brown Home for Elderly Women.

In preparation, we invited historians to speak and give us tours of public art projects in the surrounding neighborhood. We sketched the environment and the women who we interviewed at the Home and we took photo and video documentation of our work each step of the way. In the end the work involved an excavation of history, family, identity and aging through storytelling, painting and sculpture.

There were several main issues we took into consideration in setting up the infrastructure of this course:

The impact of environment on the capacity of individuals to learn cannot be underscored enough. The availability of natural light, fresh air, an outdoor space in which to explore and a protected indoor space in which to focus were what we needed at minimum. Accessibility of restrooms, sinks, and storage were also important, as was the location of the classrooms within the campus.

Could the parents find the room? Could it be secured? Was there a place to let paint dry in between classes? Was there a place to store materials and supplies? We did not have all of these things, but their absence made a significant impact on the flow of the program.

Because we were working with young students, safety — both physical and emotional — was an issue at all times. It was important for us to take the time to get to know one another so that we could look out for each other in a meaningful way. This meant also respecting emotional space when someone was feeling down or was having a difficult day. Students could come to the class knowing that they could be themselves — they could feel elated or quiet without being judged or changed. Their mood could be channeled into their work no matter what it was. Once students learned this, they appreciated and respected the space and their discipline grew naturally.

We tried to create more emphasis on learning and refining a small set of skills over time in order to understand the experience of exploring something deeply. And as trust grew within the group, we encouraged mentors to set aside specific amounts of time for giving and receiving feedback in each class. We asked ourselves the question, “How can we give feedback in a way that both supports the organic nature of the creative process while challenging students to reach beyond their boundaries?”

It was helpful to use observation rather than opinion as the basis for critique. It was also helpful to remember to ask questions from a perspective of curiosity rather than state opinions based on knowledge. For example, beginning sentences with “I see that…” and “What would happen if…?” rather than “I think that…” makes a big difference in the delivery and reception of a statement.

We found that managing our time was every bit as important as practicing these communication skills. At the end of an entire semester, the pervasive complaint was that we did not have more time! Its important to emphasize at the beginning of a program that it only runs for the duration of four months and to keep everyone aware of where the class is in relation to time left. The younger the students, the more difficulty they had conceptualizing time at the beginning and planning their projects accordingly. Students had a tendency to be ambitious with their goals and the scope of their projects in their proposals. So, we asked them to come up with a Plan A and Plan B, one full version and one simplified version in case they ran into snags with one or the other.

I would like to point out that without strong partnerships with the staff at the College, the Matilda Brown Home, the school district staff and the teachers and guardians of youth, the program would have faltered. For youth who would never otherwise have come to the art college, these partnerships made it to possible participate for free or through a small materials fee of $25. The Center for Art and Public Life, a home base for the Community Arts mentorship program at CCA, also gave the class funds for additional materials and supplies. The CCA mentors then scrounged or brought their own materials to make up the difference.

The Athena Project was born out of a desire to provide a positive mentorship experience to youth while introducing them to the practice of community-based art. We also wanted to give CCA students an opportunity to learn how to be mentors and, in the process, to dissect the role of a mentor and the whole practice of mentorship.

The final projects from the semester included a life-sized ceramic bust of a young girl and an old woman holding hands, a triptych of acrylic paintings illustrating the life of one of the elders, a mixed-media painting inspired by the travel stories of an elder, and a mobile of soft sculptures representing impressions and environmental elements at the Matilda Brown Home.

We realized in the end that this course involved more than the students who participated in it. It made an impact on a whole community. During the reception for exhibition, the retirement home was bursting with the families, friends and staff who participated and helped support the program. One of the college students showed a short documentary that she had made of the program while she was in the class. Everyone felt exhilarated and moved. For us this illustrated the power of community-based artistic practice.

Minette Lee Mangahas is a visual and performing artist formerly on the staff of the Center for Art & Public Life at California Center for the Arts. She has worked in the fields of art and education internationally for ten years. She is a recipient of the John Hope Franklin Award from the Center for Documentary Studies and the Henry Schumann Award from Duke University, where she graduated with honors in political science and cultural anthropology. Before coming to the Center, she served as associate director for Visual Arts/Language Arts, a nonprofit employing artists and writers in East Bay public elementary schools. She is currently in India, Nepal and the Philippines working on a project with orphans and students.

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The Athena Project: Refining the Practice of Mentorship in Community Art

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