Teaching Is Much Harder Than You Think

In our paper we talked about how teaching is harder than most anticipate and research shows that a high percentage of teachers are leaving within the first five years of teaching. Many states are adapting a mentoring program, which sets a trained mentor, with a new teacher. A study conducted by SRI Education discovered that teachers working with trained mentors who offer the new teachers’ regular feedback, the students may receive the equivalent of up to five months of additional learning.

The same study by SRI which studied the teacher and student outcomes for 3 years (2013-2016) between a group of teachers who had received New Teacher Center mentoring and another group of teachers who didn’t receive any mentoring. The students who had the group of teachers with NTC mentoring outperformed the students in the other groups and had higher standardized tests.

Stacey Barrett, a 10-year teacher, who has mentored several teachers, stated that “As a result of an effective teaching mentoring program, new teachers will develop a strong sense of resilience to the challenges and changes that plague the field of education and cause teachers to flee.

” (Barrett, 2016). She also gives us tips on how to effectively mentor new teachers.

1. Match the teacher with the right mentor based on records of success, and who is the right fit.
2. Give the new teacher opportunities to plan with the mentor teacher and peers as well as learn “best practices” from job embedded professional development.
3. Make the new teacher feel welcomed and part of the school family
4. Expose the new teacher to authentic teaching experiences and allow opportunities for rich reflection on a daily basis
5. Let the new teacher handle all types of discipline to develop strategies.
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6. Support the teacher to attend professional development in order to grow.
7. Model for the new teacher how to institute a consistent and effective classroom management plan.

Many teachers are nervous and scared to mess up on their first day and by adapting the mentoring program we could help new teachers to know what to expect and be prepared when going in to teach. The programs could be set up in a way where the mentor could teach the first block, and the new teacher could teach the second block. This will allow the new teacher to learn from the mentors the ways to handle the class and set up a teaching program. Receiving constructive criticism can help teachers to look at what assets each student brings.

In the article a 3rd grade teacher was asked before she started teaching and said “ when I first started teaching, I was nervous and afraid to mess up.” She received a mentor that gave her constructive criticism. In the article, it talks about how one time in the class the 3rd grade teacher, in frustration, asked a student “are you serious?”