This study examined how our non-personhood experiences (NPHEs) contributed to our teacher educator identity process. We took up exploration of these experiences, which were very painful for us, not as entrée into victimhood, but because we wanted to learn something about how, in the face of such experiences, we could engage with these troubling interactions in order to renew our commitment to our work as teacher educators in the academe. During the analysis process, we considered our stories along four overlapping dimensions (1) our Selves in our own story, 2) others in the story, 3) colleagues not in the story, and 4) non-colleagues and others not in the story. A framework for looking at our NPHEs resulted that allows teacher educators to attend to students’ needs while simultaneously reasserting their own teacher educator identities in more honest and vulnerable ways. Analyzing NPHEs has the potential to help teacher educators engage and invite students to recognize teacher educators’ personhood and therefore better position them to recognize the personhood of their future students.

While past research has suggested that undergraduate peer mentors benefit from
mentoring their peers, little research has examined how this experience is associated with
transformative learning. This study uses narrative analysis of authentic mentoring stories to
explore how particular types of mentoring experience contribute to transformative learning for
the peer mentors of first-year students. We find that transformation is more likely when PMs
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engage in meaningful routines and everyday practices; practice purposeful “pretending” in the
unfamiliar aspects of their role; embrace challenge and surprise in their practice; regularly reflect
on their experiences; and are mentored by supportive faculty and staff. Findings have
implications for peer mentor selection and training, as well as peer mentoring program design.