Mentoring new teachers
June 20th, 2008 at 07:09pm Mary Kaull
In Belvidere School District’s new budget, there’s money for 3.5 mentors. That’s money well spent. While teacher satisfaction is at a 20-year high, according to a 2006 MetLife national survey, retention of teachers is still a trouble spot.
The first year of teaching can be a tremendously isolating experience, and being guided by veterans can keep a good teacher in the profession. Rockford School District uses retired teachers on a stipend. Read more on the topic in Monday’s Our Views on the Opinions page.
Also, are you a teacher? Were you fortunate enough to have a mentor? Or, did you really need one and didn’t get it? Please respond on this blog and let us know.
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2 Comments Add your own
1. marilu bechard | June 23rd, 2008 at 5:29 am
I was a first year teacher in RPS#205 last school year and I had a mentor. He was the only thing that stood between me and insanity. He witnessed how unresponsive the administration was to my pleas for books, a phone and a computer in my room and removal of disruptive and sometimes dangerous students. I was hit and cursed at by students. He could do nothing to change my abusive circumstances. I came to teaching late in life (my 50’s) and I will not go back to teaching. Sometimes mentors are not enough.
2. E. Hand | June 24th, 2008 at 7:02 am
I teach at Prairie Hill School in S. Beloit, and we have had a mentoring program for 7 years. Unlike Rockford or Belvidere, our mentors are current classroom teachers. I have always wondered how helpful a retired teacher can be when they are not facing the same current problems those first year teachers are. Or what a full time mentor actually does? How can mentors be effective if they are now out of the classroom? It is hard for a new teacher to feel like you relate when you are not in the trenches too? I am happy to say that our rentention rate is 100%. The teachers the district hire and choose to keep have stayed. It has been a wonderful resource for our new teachers, and being in an awesome district doesn’t hurt.
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