Support for All New Teachers

This year has made me notice the desperate times we have in the eduction world. I am experiencing first hand how important it is that we figure out a way to support new teachers.

The education world already has a bad rap. We don’t get paid enough. It’s a demanding job that just seems to be piling more on teachers. We deal with challenging kids. 

And yet people are still going to school to become teachers. So why is it that when these teachers finally make it to their first classroom we throw them in there like we are feeding them to a pack of wild dogs??

If we had some sort of support system in place for EVERY new teacher (not just the ones who show they need it), I bet the retention rate of new teachers would soar. This support system can’t be after school sessions that they can attend, because let’s be honest we are all exhausted at the end of the day. It can’t be extra professional development that takes them out of the classroom because the classroom is where they need to learn and grow. It needs to be in the moment, personalized, what can I help you with today type of support.

I know that some schools can provide this support with a reading specialist or math resource teacher who can go into classrooms and help out, but what about teachers who don’t teach reading or math? At some point PE, music, and art teachers were new too. What about schools that are so stretched thin that these people are subbing in classrooms every day? Then what happens to that support? I know that my current county has a mentor program, but I’ve seen a lot of new teachers in and out of my building in the past few years and I’ve never seen anyone there to mentor them. I see administration try to support new teachers, but they always seem to be in meetings, dealing with behavior problems, or trying to tackle the never ending list of items they are being required to do too.

I don’t like to see people struggle, especially when they are trying. I have seen new teachers come in excited about their first classroom, then that excitement fades after a month in when they feel like they are drowning. Classroom management is tough. Trying to navigate curriculum and understand how to modify it so that the specific kids in your classroom can learn is not easy. Keeping up with attendance, grades, meetings, passing out and collecting forms from the office. It’s a lot. I get overwhelmed sometimes and it’s my tenth year of teaching.

So when are we going to realize that if we want to keep teachers around so that we aren’t struggling to hire new ones each year, we’ve got to support the ones we already have? I don’t have the end all be all solution either, but this could start with having a mentor or coach in every single building. Yes that’s extra money in the budget. If we can continue to purchase all the computer programs in the world to try and help out students, we can afford to purchase a person to help out the teachers.