new teacher articles

Mentoring: It’s your right

Aug 13, 2009 11:44 AM

Time was when new teachers were handed their keys, given their attendance books and thrown into the classroom to “sink or swim.” That was a formula for disaster so the UFT long ago determined to get new teachers the ongoing support they need, especially as they begin their careers as educators.

Today, first-year teachers who have not had prior teaching experience are entitled to one-to-one mentoring throughout their first year.

“Mentoring is the most crucial piece of new teacher induction,” notes UFT Vice President Aminda Gentile. “It is not just a matter of helping a teacher master lesson plans. Ultimately, it is the key to student success.”

As a first-year teacher, you should have a mentor assigned to you in the first weeks of the school year. A mentor is an experienced teacher assigned to provide a minimum of two periods of collegial support weekly. Even if the administration and other people working in your school are helpful, you should have an official mentor to turn to for assistance.

Your mentor — whether it’s another classroom teacher or a lead teacher — has been trained extensively in how best to support you. This may include doing demonstration lessons, co-teaching with you, offering suggestions about classroom management and helping you plan your lessons. Your mentor can assist you to diagnose student work and help you connect to people and instructional resources in your school and beyond. Your mentor supports you in the context of a collegial, nonjudgmental relationship where discussions are confidential and not reported back to your principal.

Though their primary focus is to guide new teachers toward enhancing their skills, mentors also enable new teachers to become members of their school community. They know the school and the school system and can make it easier for new teachers to adapt to a school’s unique culture and to a vast school system that can feel overwhelming for any new teacher, especially one who is new to the city.

Providing mentors for new teachers used to be the responsibility of the central Department of Education, but the DOE transferred that responsibility to principals. Unfortunately, many principals have put mentoring on the back burner and this valuable opportunity has often fallen through the cracks.

You can help yourself — and help the union fight — to keep the crucial peer-to-peer mentor teacher program from becoming an endangered species. Simply ask your administration about who your mentor will be. If you believe you are eligible and have not been assigned a mentor by two weeks into the term, see your UFT chapter leader or send an e-mail to mentoring@uft.org.