My first takeaway from watching “A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Dylan biopic in theaters now was, “Bob Dylan is a genius.” My second thought was, “that was a story about mentorship.”
I know little about the real relationship between the two musical giants, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, played, exceptionally, by Ed Norton. But in the film, the only thing Seeger knows about Dylan when he invites him to play a song for Woody Guthrie and himself is that Dylan had the chutzpah to make a pilgrimage to see Guthrie, his hero. Even so, he invites Dylan to play a song and has the good sense to recognize talent when he sees it. He first opens his home, and then innumerable professional doors to Dylan, paving the way for Dylan’s voice to emerge. Seeger is sometimes out front, and sometimes literally in the wings, utilizing his own hard-won credibility and access to make space for the younger man to do his thing.
I will not be a Nobel Prize winner, but I do know, deeply, that I have been the beneficiary of life-changing mentorship. More than twenty years ago, when I was a brand-new 6th grade teacher, I was assigned – and ignored – at least three mentors provided to me by the New York City public schools. I was 21, overwhelmed, and somehow, in spite of my inexperience and ineptitude, too full of hubris to see the gift I was being offered. Even a few years later, when I started at a new school and was told that I had been assigned a mentor, I bristled. In my mind, I wasn’t a new teacher anymore and could manage on my own. Lucky for me, the Assistant Head ignored my hesitation, and my work with Abby Shapiro began.
Abby, who is retired now, was not only an exceptional teacher of high school students, but a funny, generous, and patient teacher and coach for me. She met me where I was, let me lead the way, offered advice and, crucially, let me make my own mistakes. I remember at least one (though I’m sure there were others) ill-conceived assignment I designed for 11th graders that resulted in equally ill-conceived essays, hard to read and virtually impossible to grade. Abby knew the assignment would flop, but she didn’t prevent me from doing it. Instead, she gave me the space to screw up and then walked me through how to make it better the next time. When I harped on what a crappy job I’d done, she reminded me that it was worth a shot – no one ever died from an English class, a lesson I carry with me all these years later.
One of the things that struck me about the portrayal of Seeger and Dylan’s relationship, and how it mirrors my own relationship with Abby and other mentors I’ve been lucky to learn from over the years, is how much mentorship is about humility.
Jewish tradition teaches us that in its truest form, humility is not about meekness or fading into the backdrop, but rather about knowing how much space to take up in different contexts. It’s knowing when to step up and into our power, and when to step back and let others shine and lead. It makes sense that in the film, we see Seeger, with his experience and wisdom, struggling to do just that – stepping up when it helps, and stepping back to let Dylan be his full self, even when that self and its expression might not be fully fledged, and even when it is in conflict with Seeger’s own work and goals. Being willing and able to model that kind of humility is its own form of mentorship, one which I’ve been lucky to experience, and which I loved seeing onscreen.
The myth of the self-made person is, in fact, not only a myth, but a dangerous one. It discourages us from asking for help and masks the ways that we need guides to help navigate the structures and power grids that make up our world. Perhaps most importantly, the narrative of individual genius and achievement undermines the opportunity for us to see each other’s talent and light, and to nurture it, not for the sake of our own egos, but in service of a larger belief that each of us has something inherently valuable to offer. Great mentorship makes us better, it makes us more connected, and it reminds us to be humble. It is a tool for passing down hard-earned knowledge, for relationship building, and for discovering things about ourselves that we didn’t yet know. One of my mentors, Mara, often says that we all have something to contribute, and we all have something to learn. We all deserve to have people in our lives who see the world through that lens, and it is a good reminder that we can be those people ourselves.
