Aspiring to Educate: Culturally Relevant and Sustaining Education in Pennsylvania Mentorship Toolkit
This toolkit from Aspiring to Educate (A2E) offers comprehensive guidelines for creating mentoring programs aimed at recruiting and retaining educators of color who are culturally responsive. Grounded in research that identifies mentorship as a key factor in human capital development, the toolkit emphasizes the importance of culturally responsive mentorship in validating mentees’ identities as they navigate personal and professional challenges. It serves as a resource for K–12 schools, higher education institutions, community organizations, and others seeking to develop mentoring programs that equip mentees to become agents of change in their communities, persist through the teacher preparation pathway, and adopt critical perspectives on educational oppression and inequity. The A2E mentorship model is transformative, antiracist, and focused on nurturing educators as justice leaders.