Something Better

Mentoring Matters
January 2001

Why we're losing good teachers and how to keep them

When students enter the classroom on the first day of school, they are anxious and impatient. They have a million expectations and a million thoughts and fears.

For new teachers, it's much the same. But while students can take their seats and settle in slowly, first-year teachers cannot. There are lessons to be taught, schedules to learn, supplies to be found, curriculums to be followed, names to memorize.

Like those before them, first-year teachers are thrown into the profession with two jobs to do-teach and learn to teach.

How well they do both often determines how long they will last in the profession.

"The beginning teacher must perform the full complement of teaching duties while trying to learn the duties at the same time," says Harry Wong, one of the country's leading education speakers and author of The First Days of School. "That's like asking a pilot to learn how to fly while taking a planeload of passengers up for the first time."

Challenging first years linked to attrition

In professions such as medicine and law, new hires spend much of their first years learning from and interacting with veteran colleagues. In education, however, the predominant induction method for beginners has been "sink or swim." This has prompted many observers to dub the field "the profession that eats its young."

Critically acclaimed author Esme Raji Codell, in her book Educating Esme: Diary of a Teacher's First Year, says: "They talk about the rewards and gratification in teaching school...they don't tell you it's like joining a monastery or going to hell or sleepwalking or being afraid, as afraid as you were when you were small."

Few teachers, in fact, relate positive experiences about their first years. Most experienced teachers shudder to remember their inductions, and newer teachers tend to tell of survival despite, rather than because of, the support they received.

Individual anecdotes of new-teacher stress are backed by statistics on teacher migration and attrition. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nearly half of today's beginning teachers will quit the profession within five years. A recent report by Education Week suggests that the most talented new educators are often the most likely to leave.

Experts warn that while school districts are clamoring to hire their share of the projected 2 million new teachers needed because of increasing teacher retirements and a booming student population, a more pressing problem remains. It's not how to attract new teachers into the field, they say, but how to keep them once they are on the job.

"Teaching is the only profession that expects its novices to fly solo," says NEA President Bob Chase. "New teachers need practical, ongoing support in the classroom."

New teacher support pays off

One in every five teachers is new to the profession this year, according to Market Data Retrieval. But if the staggering teacher attrition rates continue, less than half will become career teachers.

Among the many reasons: little on-the-job support. New teachers often get the most challenging assignments in hard-to-staff schools. They enter school systems with a dreamlike vision, only to come face-to-face with harsh, unexpected realities.

Almost two-thirds of beginning teachers are younger than age 27. As a group, they seek careers that will bring personal development, growth and experience. They value being part of decision-making processes, working in teams, having variety in their routines, being praised and rewarded for work well done, and having the freedom to be creative, not stymied, in their jobs. That climate is too often not present in schools.

One thing is clear: when veteran teachers take the time and energy to incorporate new teachers into both the school culture and the Association, everyone wins.

Ellen Moir, director of the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project, agrees: "Schools must transform into institutions that nurture new teachers and their students, that sustain teachers and the teaching profession," she says.

Moir says that the best way to retain good teachers is by designing schools that are good places to teach-for both the novice and veteran. In many cases, creating a positive induction experience for new teachers is an essential component of this reform.

Moir's Santa Cruz New Teacher Project, a 16-district consortium led by the University of California, Santa Cruz, is a good example. Since 1998, it has been supporting the efforts of new teachers with mentoring programs, cohort meetings and one-on-one counseling. In 12 years, less than five percent of participating teachers have left the profession. It is also working here.

Across America, school officials are working in concert with Associations to establish systems that will give new teachers the nurturing and support they need to survive the critical first years. According to a recent U.S. Department of Education study, this effort is working. They have found that beginning teachers who participate in new teacher induction programs are nearly twice as likely to stay in the profession as those who don't.

Helping each other to advance the profession

"There may be differences between veteran and new teachers, but when it comes to what is really important-the children-almost all of us are on the same page," says Teri Dozier, senior advisor to former U.S. Department of Education Secretary Richard Riley.

A 20-year veteran teacher, Dozier worked on the department's new-teacher efforts.

"Despite other lines of work that promise high status, rapid advancement, and quick riches, the majority of new teachers enter the profession for the same reason those before them did: to make a difference in the lives of children," she says. "Whatever our differences may be, we must use this commonality-this passion for teaching-to advance the profession."

By that, Dozier means putting into place mechanisms by which teachers, like other professionals, share and collaborate with each other: for example, common planning periods, shared office space and forums to exchange ideas.

"We're not teaching in our grandmother's classrooms, and in 30 years, new teachers won't be teaching in ours," says Dozier. "In order to redefine and revolutionize our profession, we must collaborate together, share support and resources and use each other's unique talents and interests to make this the best profession it can be."

Bridging the gap

Both new and veteran teachers can do some concrete things to prepare themselves with the knowledge and skills to excel in their profession, and to erase the isolation that so typically comes with the job. These ideas may also bridge the gap between new and veteran teachers.

For new teachers

• If you weren't assigned a specific colleague mentor, recruit an unofficial one who will serve as your role model and whom you can hold up as a symbol of the success you want to be.
  

• Look to experienced teachers who have become good teachers. They share some identifiable characteristics: they have earned the esteem of colleagues, are nurturing and patient, are devoted to the profession and have a "passion for teaching."
  

• Be proactive in getting all resources-faculty handbooks, curriculum guides-that will give you an idea of what you are expected to do.
  

• Ask a colleague to show you how to use the programs and equipment that you will need on a regular basis.
  

• Seek out information about teaching, especially areas you feel you need more information about. Find books, Internet resources, anything that will improve your knowledge and skills.
  

• Take professional development classes. If your school does not offer anything you are interested in, contact your district office or local community college.
  

• Equip yourself with knowledge about current research-based, best-known teaching and assessment practices. Books by Eric Jensen or Renate and Geoffrey Caine will start you out well.
  

• Join professional organizations and subscribe to journals. Doing this keeps you informed and helps alleviate feelings of isolation.

For veteran teachers

• Ask new teachers to help you pilot new curriculum, team-teach, organize a teacher inquiry group, write grants or serve on a school-site council.

• Show new teachers how the Association is a progressive agent of change by touting professional development opportunities and events that will engage them in the profession.

• New teachers may feel so overwhelmed with the demands of the job that they focus only on survival, not on self-fulfillment. Help guide these new teachers to an understanding that they must take care of themselves first. In so doing, they will become more productive and caring teachers.

• Encourage new teachers to write down their thoughts and hopes for their careers. If they can reflect often on this original passion for teaching, they might be more likely to stay when things get tough.

• Be a positive role model to new teachers by openly sharing your own ways of keeping teaching meaningful.

• Befriend a new teacher. Many need someone to have coffee with on a regular basis - where they can feel safe, say anything on their minds, discuss new ideas and changes they want to make in their classrooms, and share their successes and failures without worrying about supervision and evaluation.

For more information about professional development offerings, contact Teaching and Learning Director DeeAnn Aull or (573) 634-3202. For information on the MNEA Student program, contact Organizing Director Steve McLuckie, or (573) 634-3202.