thementoree

10/02/2026

Ontario Kindergarten educators are being asked to navigate significant change.

With the rollout of Ontario’s new Kindergarten curriculum, we wanted to create something that didn’t simply explain what has changed, but actually supported educators as they learned their way through the change.

That’s how Finding Our Balance: Learning Our Way Through Ontario’s New Kindergarten Curriculum came to be.

This Community of Practice brings together Dr. Yvonne Messenger’s unique, research-based Balance Framework with The Mentoree’s relational approach to professional learning—creating a space where Kindergarten educators can explore, question, try, reflect, and learn with and from one another.

Across four sessions, we’ll explore what it can look like to hold together the many important elements of Kindergarten practice: foundational literacy and mathematics, explicit and systematic instruction, intentional teaching, play, inquiry, relationships, and developmentally appropriate practice.

Using Yvonne’s framework of Model, Invite, Expect, Nurture & Nudge, we’ll think together about how professional judgment helps us decide what our learners need, when they need it, and how we can respond intentionally.

And because meaningful professional learning doesn’t happen in a single session, we’ve built in time between gatherings to try things in practice and come back together—including optional Open Door Hours for questions, challenges, ideas, or simply thinking something through with others.

We’d love to welcome Ontario Kindergarten educators, OCT/RECE teams, early years consultants, coaches, administrators, and others supporting Kindergarten implementation into this community.

📅 Four sessions: October 14, November 4, November 25 & December 16
🚪 Three optional Open Door Hours between sessions
💻 Online
💛 $20 for the entire Community of Practice
Register: https://thementoree.com/what-we-do/marketplace/

As Yvonne noted, "This isn’t about finding one perfect balance.
It’s about learning our way through change together—and finding our balance for our students, our teams, our classrooms, and ourselves.
Come with what you know. Bring what you’re wondering. Try something. Come back and tell us what happened.
We’ll find our balance together."

09/14/2026

It can be tempting to measure mentorship by our own actions:
➡️ the advice we gave,
➡️ the questions we asked,
➡️ the resources we shared,
➡️the doors we opened.

But the evidence of successful mentorship doesn’t live in the mentor. It lives in the increased capacity of the person we mentor.
🌟 What can they see now that they couldn’t see before?
🌟 What can they navigate with greater confidence?
🌟 What questions are they better able to ask?
🌟 What decisions are they increasingly able to make for themselves?

The goal isn’t to become more necessary.
It’s to help someone become more capable.

That might be one of the clearest measures of mentorship.

Check out our recent post in Letters from The Mentoree: https://thementoree.substack.com/p/how-does-a-mentor-teacher-know-theyve

If you are interested in a facilitated experience, reach out to [email protected]

08/28/2026

There is a distinction between:
"Ask someone else," and "Let's ask someone else."

“Let’s” signals that mentorship is about walking alongside someone—not having every answer or becoming their everything, but helping them discover where else they can turn.

Don’t just point someone toward the door. Open it with them.

That's the essence of this latest post in their Letters from The Mentoree series for Mentor Teachers.

Mentoring Preservice Teachers to Build a Web, Not a Dependency

08/01/2026

We are so excited to share that The Mentoree Podcast will be launching on the BE Podcast Network this fall.

If you are an educator in K12 or higher ed and want to engage in a conversation on the proposed topics, add your name to the form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd4D3ECLLzi68IEoA-iuL0MIM5sPVBdJHDHudXNxxmwJe3cag/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=116946712241046058052

Stay tuned for details or where you can list.

Check out Noa's previous show OnEdMentors: https://voiced.ca/project/onedmentors/

07/31/2026

In the latest installment of our Letters From The Mentoree series for host, associate, collaborating, and cooperating teachers, as well as mentors, Noa Daniel, Iolanda Volpe, and Denise Furlong, Ed.D., explore a simple but powerful idea: the greatest gift a mentor offers isn't certainty, but presence, curiosity, and the willingness to learn alongside others.

When mentors make their own learning visible, they empower teacher candidates to become reflective, confident professionals—ready not just to teach, but to keep learning throughout their careers.

How do we move beyond being the person with all the answers and instead become the person who helps others keep learning? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thementoree/p/your-presence-is-the-present?r=5hsz9j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

07/03/2026

Every strong mentorship begins with a relationship.

In the latest Letters from The Mentoree, Noa Daniel, Iolanda Volpe, and Denise Furlong, Ed.D look at how to build a supportive relationship with your teacher candidate mentee.

Discover practical ways to foster safe, supportive connections that lead to a more meaningful and rewarding practicum experience—for mentors, mentees, and ultimately, students.

Read it here:

Building safe and supportive connections while getting to know your mentee lays the groundwork for a fulfilling practicum experience for Mentor Teachers.

06/06/2026

Different faculties use different terms—host teacher, associate teacher, cooperating teacher, collaborating teacher—but regardless of the title, any educator who opens their classroom to a teacher candidate is stepping into a mentorship role.

In our latest *Letter from The Mentoree*, we invite educators to consider what shifts when we view this essential role through the lens of mentorship rather than modelling. What happens when the goal is not to create a copy of ourselves, but to support another educator in developing their own professional voice and practice?

https://thementoree.substack.com/p/host-teachers-are-mentors?r=5hsz9j

We would love to hear your thoughts.

How do you view your role when supporting a teacher candidate? What does mentorship look like in your classroom?

Creating Practicum Experiences Rooted in Growth, Agency, and Belonging

05/29/2026

In this final Letters from The Mentoree in this series written by Noa Daniel Dr Denise Furlong and iolanda volpe, directed to preservice teachers, we encourage all course instructors and professors to consider using these letters with their teacher candidates.

These pieces were written to validate, challenge, encourage, and humanize the journey of becoming a teacher. If they can help spark meaningful dialogue, reflection, or connection for even one teacher candidate, then they have done what they were meant to do.

Where do preservice teachers turn for help?
Perhaps part of the answer is: toward one another, toward mentorship, and toward communities willing to hold honest conversations about the realities of teaching and learning.

https://thementoree.substack.com/p/where-do-you-turn-for-help?r=5hsz9j

05/15/2026

In this 4th letter to Preservice Teachers, Noa Daniel iolanda volpe and Denise Furlong, Ed.D share the value of actively seeking the people you need to support, challenge, guide, and teach you.

You may be lucky to find this in one person but, more likely, it is about building your network with a bevy of people.

Seek widely, choose wisely.

Find your flock.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thementoree/p/find-your-flock?r=5hsz9j&utm_medium=ios

05/15/2026

Thank you to .mentoring.association for a wonderful few days of learning, networking, and connecting ideas around mentorship from across industries, k12, higher ed, and more. So much to unpack!

Congrats to Dr. Ben Kutsyuruba of for officially beginning his time as IMA president!