For this change to occur, learning must take place. Mentoring supports the learning process. Mentoring, quite simply means a one to one relationship supporting the development of another referee. The concept is as broad as necessary and as inclusive as possible.
Mentoring is not the same as teaching. It does not revolve around providing solutions. Mentoring means different things with individual referees at different levels. With newly qualified referees and junior referees mentoring should be about empowering and helping referees to control the learning experience for themselves. With more experienced referees it focuses on challenging their beliefs and values they have developed so that they come to a deeper understanding of their role, task and the application and interpretation of the laws.
Learning comes in many different guises. Referees sometimes cannot recognise the learning opportunities that lurk behind the problems, chance occurrences and run of the mill events that happen almost every day. Mentors can help a referee recognise and grasp the learning opportunities presented to them. The role of the mentor is to help make the referees learning experience less accidental.
Referee education, unlike training in the workplace that occurs mainly on the job, by necessity removes referees from their surroundings and transports them to a centralised location. This education tends to occur in isolated blocks of time, often months- if not years- apart and is, in the mind of the referee, largely unconnected. Referee instructional programmes operate under constraints of time and resources. All this produces a referee education gap. This can be described in two areas:
From - much of the material that referee instructors wish to transmit is theoretical. Refereeing is a practical activity. This leaves a huge leap for the referee to make between material received and the referees own practical application.
Context - referee instruction occurs in a training location far removed from the refereeing environment. This leap of context can be difficult to make. Things that seemed to make complete sense in the training environment suddenly become difficult when referees attempt to implement them on the field of play.
In an attempt to bridge the referee education gap the mentoring process needs to find a way parallel to the referee instructional programmes.
Want To Know More or get Involved?
Contact Somerset F.A.'s Referees' Mentor Co-ordinator, Tim Hinks at Timothy.Hinks@BTinternet.com