Times Higher EducationBy Tom Palaima. A mentor provides far more than inspiration and sage advice, says Tom Palaima, who fears for the future of such guiding relationships in the era of Moocs.
I have been meditating upon mentors – slightly unmoored still by the loss of my own mentor of nearly 40 years, the father of Mycenaean epigraphy, Emmett L. Bennett Jr, who died in December 2011 – and on massive open online courses.
I have spent nearly my whole life, since kindergarten in 1956, in love with learning and teaching. I have derived lots of pleasure and satisfaction from thinking, reading, exploring new ideas, and trying to identify and then answer questions and solve problems. More...