Teaching is one of those unique jobs where you don’t really get any job training once you’ve been hired. Sure, you took classes in college devoted to running a classroom one day. You wrote papers and possibly shadowed teachers in action. But you get the job and bam! You’re thrown to the wolves and all those things you read about or ideas you saw on Pinterest don’t work out in real life quite like they did in your head.
And if you were lateral entry into education, you really had to figure it out on your own.
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By now, you’ve probably learned a few things about what works, what doesn’t, what’s a big deal, what you can let slide, and how to create relationships with your students. But just because you’ve stepped over some hurdles, doesn’t mean everyone in your school has. Helping new teachers flourish can be a job just as important as helping students reach their full potential.
- No excuses. It’s easy to find a reason not to help that teacher. He works with a different grade level; her classroom’s all the way on the other side of the building; she already has a mentor assigned to her; he probably knows what he’s doing… And it might be accurate. Maybe there’s already a mentor teacher involved, maybe the new teacher is on a different hallway but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. It’s about creating a community of supportive educators and maybe you need to be the one to get it going.
- Pop in. Don’t build it up to be more than what it is. Stop by in the morning just to check in and see how the new teacher is doing. Help with any questions about the school’s policies or the best way to handle a difficult situation with a parent. Check in at lunch and see how the teacher’s handling the day. Answer any questions that have come up. Walk by that teacher’s room after school to see if they need help with anything.
- Share, share, share. Share your ideas. Share what you’ve done successfully. Share your lesson plans. Share how you fought the battles that young teacher is currently facing. Offer your solution for talkative students or a wild class (hello brain breaks!). Share your expertise on getting parents to work with you. Share the most effective way to plan a class party. Share your favorite lab (looking at you, glow sticks). In fact, sharing is one of those things we should make sure we’re doing with all the teachers in our building, not just the newbies.
- Identify. Don’t be afraid to admit that you struggle with things today. Young teachers don’t need the impression that veteran teachers never face difficult situations. Instead, they need to see that we struggle but still find a way to move forward. Allow young teachers in your building to see that you don’t have it all figured out but you’re making an effort every day to be better than you were yesterday.
- Value them. It’s important not to belittle a young teacher or make them feel like they’re a bother. When a young teacher speaks up at a meeting with a good idea, value it. Don’t just assume they don’t know anything because they’re young. Make sure they know how much they mean to the school. Young teachers often get the cold shoulder but the truth is, we all started where they are.
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LearnEd Notebooks provides teachers and students with an innovative notebooking solution. We specialize in providing educators with a unique curriculum that allows you to break free from conventional methods of instruction and spend more time on labs and inquiry-based science. We provide the framework of an interactive notebook with the flexibility of teaching strategies that seamlessly integrate with each teacher’s own methods of instruction. Our complete programs include printed student notebooks, digital presentations, and access to teacher resources — each focusing on diverse learning styles and engaging instructional strategies.
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