Mentors provide opportunities for proteges to observe and participate in their work. Mentors are role models. Mentors sponsor proteges organizationally and professionally. Mentor-protege relationships end, amiably or bitterly. Some school systems have formalized mentoring processes as part of newly developed induction programs, thus compromising some of the mentor-protege relationship characteristics.
Voluntary participation becomes mandatory for the protege.
At the same time the sphere of influences in which the mentor would ordinarily affect the protege is decreased by time and authority restrictions. The mentor cannot regulate the beginning teacher's levels of responsibility. The mentor does not have the freedom to direct the protege's activities nor the time to adequately oversee developing classroom performance. The mentoring relationship can be supported by creating a school environment which openly offers assistance and provides the means to expand the initiate's repertoire of teaching techniques and classroom management skills. Much of this knowledge is intangible and is not contained in teacher preparation programs.