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By Lyn Jerde
Fred Poss was one of the lucky ones. As a first-year
teacher in an Eau Claire junior high school 31 years ago, he received
a team-teaching assignment that paired him with an experienced, gifted
colleague – someone who could work closely with him, answer his “silly”
questions, and show him aspects of teaching that he could not learn in
college.
 Fred Poss |
Poss, who teaches English at Eau Claire’s Memorial
High School, had a mentor.
Now, he heads a work group which, among other things,
seeks to ensure that all of Wisconsin’s beginning public school teachers
have highly qualified mentors.
“For most beginning teachers,” he said, “it’s
not unusual, especially in bigger districts, for them to show up the week
before class starts, and have someone show them where their classrooms
are, show them where the books are, and that’s it.”
Providing mentors to new teachers isn’t just a
good idea. It’s the law.
Starting in the autumn of 2004, Wisconsin’s new
professional standards for teachers requires all public school districts
to have mentoring programs in place.
Many school districts claim to offer mentoring for new
teachers, Poss said, but few actually do it adequately.
“Mentors are not really the same thing as buddies,”
he said. “Buddy programs may last no more than the first two or three
weeks of the school year. A buddy may show you how to use the copier,
where the bathroom is, and the procedure for lunch. But mentoring offers
a long-term relationship, with observation and confidential feedback.”
Ron Jetty, a teaching and learning consultant for WEAC,
said the mentoring requirement is part of the new licensure system for
teachers under PI 34, the comprehensive new law that will change the way
Wisconsin’s public school teachers get and keep their licenses.
For up to five years, a beginning teacher will hold
an Initial Educator license (see sidebar), which will include a formal
relationship with an experienced teacher who is trained to be a mentor
for new teachers.
Unlike the supervising teacher for student teaching,
Jetty said, the mentor will not have direct authority over the new teacher’s
licensure status. Instead, mentors will provide a confidential colleague
relationship where new teachers feel safe to bring up any questions and
concerns.
“For a mentor relationship to work,” Jetty
said, “people must be able to speak freely with each other.”
Poss said he can envision beginning teachers asking
their mentors questions such as “What is the most effective way to
communicate with our principal?” and “What are the unwritten
rules for teachers in this school building?”
Mentors also observe the new teachers in class, and
offer time-tested techniques for engaging a roomful of students in learning.
They can offer advice on how to deal with a particular behavior problem,
how to talk on the phone with an irate parent, or how to make the most
constructive use of parent-teacher conference time.
It will take two key ingredients for the mentor program
to succeed: quality training and, of course, money.
As for money, that’s largely up to the state Legislature
– and Poss hopes that mentoring will not become just one more unfunded
mandate.
Jetty said the costs of mentoring come not only from
extra pay for the mentors, but also from relieving them of some of their
classroom duties to allow them to devote adequate time to their protégées.
In some districts, he said, the most effective way to
provide mentors might be to temporarily assign mentor teachers exclusively
to mentoring.
Poss said the Milwaukee school district assigns about
10 to 12 teachers per year exclusively to mentoring, or to working with
teachers experiencing difficulties.
But some smaller, financially strapped districts may
have a large number of new teachers (because their salaries are lower),
and few veterans available to work as mentors.
Poss said each district can set up a mentoring program
tailored to the district’s needs and resources.
Poss said about 65 Wisconsin school districts have pilot
mentoring programs, funded through a DPI grant. Among those is the Eau
Claire Area School District, where Poss helped initiate the program 12
years ago because “we saw a need for it.”
Poss’ work group has devised a three-day training
program to help prepare school districts to train mentors. The program
includes an overview of PI 34, discussion of the needs and issues of beginning
teachers, and essentials on how to set up mentor programs in school.
However mentoring is accomplished, Poss and Jetty agree
it’s a worthy endeavor that will likely have long-term positive consequences
for the quality of Wisconsin’s public schools and the job satisfaction
of Wisconsin’s teachers.
“One point of this,” Jetty said, “is teacher retention. If all districts provide mentors to all their new teachers, those teachers are more likely to stay, and districts will be able to keep their experienced teachers.”
Resource page on teacher licensing law
Posted December 21, 2001