By Kate Anderson, Guest Contributor

As mentioned in the previous post, “Rethinking Mentoring: Master-Apprentice to Dynamic Duo,” we need to rethink mentoring. We need to begin thinking of it as a dynamic duo rather than an outdated master-apprentice type of relationship.

Even though work today is looking less like the work of the past this old mentoring/apprentice archetype from the days of yore still permeates our minds. This ideal is widely prevalent in our collective minds because it seems to fulfill our notions of the natural order of learning and work. However, this ideal is terribly shortsighted in the modern era: It situates the mentor as an old fossil and the mentee as a vapid sponge; two objects that bear little resemblance to real modern day humans.