Mutual support among beginning teachers
Beginning teachers share similar concerns and problems. Communication can help them share solutions, too.
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Related pages
- Conversations, questions, and answers for a beginning teacher: A kindergarten teacher begins her career with an excellent support network.
- Mentoring matters: How mentors can serve as role models, helpers, and colleagues.
- Building your own support network: How to take charge of your own professional development and break through the isolation of the classroom.
Related topics
- Learn more about beginning teachers, professional skills, and support.
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Walking into the cafeteria at the Staff Development Center on my first day as a teacher, I had no idea what to expect. As a first-year teacher, I was coming back to the school system that I had come from, but now I was going to be on the other side of the desk. I walked in and immediately found my school’s table. To my surprise, there were four other girls sitting there, looking just as nervous as I felt. After introducing ourselves, we immediately formed a bond that still remains strong.
All five of us were assigned either kindergarten or first grade positions, so we all had our classrooms on the same hall. We were able to talk and meet frequently in addition to our ILT meetings. Our ILT Coordinator, Lynne, had us meet monthly to talk about all of our problems and offer support to each other. We found that if one of us opened up to talk about something that was bothering us, at least one other person was usually having the same problem, and yet another had just found a way to solve the problem and could offer some help.
Lynne also brought in specialists, such as people educated in stress management or relaxation techniques. We met either before or after school and were always lured with candy and snacks for a sugar high to keep us going. Lynne also sent out memos and reminders about upcoming dates and tips for first-year teachers that were very helpful. She supplied us with "do’s" and "don’ts" for parent/teacher conferences and ideas for student awards for Awards Day.
Our second year started out much more smoothly, and we felt like we were seasoned teachers ready to face anything — all because we’d had such a great experience the previous year. We started out the year by meeting with the ILT2s. We’d had one teacher leave and another join us, so there were still five of us. The major goal this year was no longer just to survive another year in our classrooms, but also to create professional portfolios to receive our continuing teaching licenses.
We kept up our monthly meetings with our mentors and talked as a group about what we wanted to do to begin our portfolios. We decided that the motivation we needed to get started was to have all the resources to complete it in our hands so we would have no reason to put it off. The mentors got together and, with support from our principal, bought all five of us crates, file folders, sticky notes, page protectors, video tapes, and disposable cameras. The school was also able to purchase a new video camera for the mentor program.
As the school year continued, we met every month and discussed where we were in the portfolio process. Our principal allowed us to have a day at the Staff Development Center to write all day with our mentors and discuss the questions that we needed to answer and figure out what the questions were really asking. A little more than halfway through the year, the five of us became more concerned about the task of creating the portfolio in addition to keeping up in the classroom. We began meeting more frequently after school and on the weekends when we could just write together and bounce ideas off of one another. Since three of us had attended North Carolina colleges, we had heard of the portfolio before, and we were able to share the information and examples that we had seen.
The turning point for the majority of the group was the day that Cindi Rigsbee, the school system’s mentor coordinator, came from the central office to review our portfolios about a month before they were due. As many times as others had looked at our portfolios, we were still uncertain about them, and meeting with Cindi gave us all hope that we were on the right track. She looked at all of our portfolios to make sure that we had addressed all the questions correctly and had not made any major mistakes that could cause us not to pass. After that day, we all felt a lot better about our portfolios and saw the light at the end of the tunnel.
The most exciting day of the first two years of my teaching career was turning in my portfolio to Cindi after being so worried about it for so long. I definitely think that there is no way that it could have happened without the support of the mentors and other mentees at Southwest Elementary.
