The mentor & apprentice relationship is a single of the oldest & most important in the history of civilization.
Think back hundreds of years, before any kind of current technology, & in an era when almost everyone never l gained to learn or write for their whole lives, but back then, if you wanted to develop a skill or a craft, you had to find someone to teach you, there was no other way! An apprentice might spend years studying from the mentor, until a single day they were a mentor.
That is what I am experiencing now, as I teach our young cousin the basics of Heating & A/C repair. He is certainly excited about studying the Heating & A/C trade, but I had to caution him that the people I was with and I would be going slow & doing it the right way. The two of us started with the basic tools every Heating & A/C tech relies on, my cousin carried the tools, he inventories the tools, he cleaned the tools. He l gained the tools by touch, which is a vital skill for Heating & A/C work because that comes up every single day, however after he learns the tools, then I start with basic oil furnaces & ductwork. Modern cooling systems are incredibly complex so it’s best to start with the simpler oil furnaces. The two of us eage gradually into the work, studying every single step of the process before moving on. It will take years, but eventually he will be an ace Heating & A/C tech with an encyclopedic expertise of the tech. As a mentor, our goal is to turn our apprentice into the type of worker who surpassed me in every way, & then becomes a mentor too.