I am a recent and proud Millersville of Pennsylvania graduate with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Secondary English Education. Currently, I am a full-time Notre Dame AmeriCorps volunteer at an adult education center. I realize that I have a lot to learn. I value and honor the advice and experiences of those older than I, but I am proud of my own experiences and am fiercely confident in my ability to be critical about my individual teaching habits and paradigms. I also try to ask thoughtful questions about other people's methodology. This article was written as an attempt to explore my own professional struggle and to examine the power relationship between the classroom volunteer and the teacher he or she works with. Although the article may enrage a few readers, my intention is to present a volunteer's perspective -- its challenges and insights.

The Value of Mentoring
Veteran teachers I have worked with tend to value their own experiences over those of less experienced teachers. As a result, the less-experienced teachers tend to devalue their own instincts and acquiesce too readily to the more seasoned educator. It is a topic that I have heard very little discussion about in university courses and in "the real world." The instances where this dynamic can be most visible are in a classroom where both work together with the students.

A teacher who works predominantly from a mentor perspective will engender more positive results from the volunteer than a teacher who operates from a mostly lead teacher mindset. If a mentoring relationship is well implemented, the volunteer understands that the mentor teacher is the lead teacher at all times, but also feels that the volunteer's perceptions and ideas are valid. The teacher who functions from a lead role sees the volunteer as a tabula rasa -- a receptacle for knowledge. The former model allows for flexibility and an interchange of ideas, while simultaneously recognizing the mentor teacher's authority and the volunteer's growth. The latter does not honor the experiences of the volunteer.

I am new to the field of adult education. While my university training and teaching experiences thus far have been challenging and diverse, I have limited exposure to adult learners and educators. My experience does include a lot of work with mentor teachers, however, and in all of those instances there was an unequivocal relationship of authority: I was the subordinate. I was always OK with that because the working terms were clear to me from the beginning.

All volunteers should have the right to ask questions. Furthermore, they should be encouraged to do so, in the interest of refining the learning process of each person in the classroom. This encouragement can exist only if there is mutual respect between the teacher and the volunteer. A lead teacher's insistence that her opinions are more important and her methods are more effective than the volunteers ("because of my many years of teaching") are usually understandable. But that experience is only one interpretation of the truth. The volunteer may have a different perception. In the modern age our old educational cliche is still true: "There is no such thing as a dumb question." As long as the question pertains to the topic at hand, it is valid. At the very least it must be acknowledged and considered.

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Valuing Youth
Generally, societies and communities hold experience in high esteem. In my Vietnamese- American upbringing, this has certainly been the case. Many times I have expressed frustration at my own parents for their patronizing attitude towards my experiences. But I believe that truth is truth, no matter in what vessel it resides. A pot newly removed from the kiln can hold water just as well as a pot that has long since cooled down. How often do we in the United States talk about the wisdom of youth? In the realm of education, how often does an educator ask a less experienced educator, not to mention a volunteer, for advice (unless of course, it may have to do with computer technology)?

An experienced teacher is a dangerous person. Her years of teaching may have calcified her methodologies and made them battle-hardened. Consequently, her assumptions are well-honed and can easily cut through lesser-experienced educator's ideas. A lead educator may involuntarily or unconsciously dispense "solutions" like a broken vending machine that does not appreciate the buyer's indecision/questioning of what to buy. As a result, all of the internal struggles between the volunteer and the lead teacher may result in feelings of resentment on both sides.

Representing, Reiterating, Replanting
I'm sure that many of us have uncritically accepted the answers of more experienced teachers and unwittingly fled the burden of our own responsibilities as educators. The result is that we reiterate teaching strategies that are accepted and recreate outcomes that are familiar-not necessarily the best possible ones for our students or ourselves. If volunteers or less experienced teachers merely re-present the teaching methods of more experienced teachers, we do not stimulate new growth. Instead we replant the same seeds and harvest the same fruits quarter after quarter, semester after semester, and year after year.

Once, another volunteer told me, "I don't have any experience in the field, but as long as I show that I care, I am doing enough." I disagree. A caring teacher without the skills to help students learn is indeed not doing enough. The same can be said of a volunteer. Though it is the first and most important step, it is not the final position or by any account, enough. Anybody in the classroom who operates in a capacity of authority can be interpreted as a teacher. Keeping up with contemporary educational practices is the responsibility of all teachers and volunteers. Should not teachers, then, also be students to their own students and volunteers in some capacity?

In retrospect I see the initial few months I spent at my adult learning center as a testing period. The responsibility for the students' education falls ultimately on the mentor/lead teacher, not the volunteer. The mentor teacher usually has a long-established rapport with her students and coworkers; her professional reputation is on the line. The volunteer in many cases has little or no experience and therefore has different responsibilities, one of which is to create a professional reputation. Both kinds of work are challenging and both perspectives must be respected.

Suggestions
I would like to offer a few suggestions for improving dialogue between volunteers and the teachers they are working with. These suggestions arise from my own experiences as a volunteer.

1. Volunteer should be clear about their motives and goals for volunteering and be able to articulate these ideas with the mentor teacher.

2. The mentor/lead teacher and the volunteer need to communicate honestly and share some common understanding about their work and goals in the classroom.

3. Both the mentor teacher and the volunteer should be open to critique from each other.

Khiet Luong, a Notre Dame Ameri-Corps volunteer, teaches ESOL at Saint Julie Asian Center in Lowell, MA. He can be reached by e-mail at khiet00@hotmail.com