Volume 7 Number 2
New Teachers: From Surviving to Thriving
Tracy Williams (left), mentoring coordinator, and Margaret Yount, president of the teacher's union, display the district's Distinguished Winners award.
WALLA WALLA, Washington— Amidst the arid bunchgrass and sagebrush plateaus of southeastern Washington winds a verdant river valley, steeped in history. The Walla Walla, Nez Perce, Cayuse, and Umatilla tribes once roamed this valley and fished in its rivers and streams. Lewis and Clark passed through during their legendary westward journey in 1805 and traded goods with the Native Americans. Not long after, the settlement of "many waters" — Walla Walla — was established as a fort and trading post, while the neighboring Whitman Mission became home to one of the region's first schoolhouses.
Evidence documents that this school's early teachers faced monumental challenges: the harshness of frontier life, for starters, plus the charge of teaching "reading and writing" and "the rudiments of agriculture" to the Cayuse and Walla Walla Indians, alongside the settlers' children. Unfortunately for one Judge Saunders, these challenges were augmented by a particular incident involving flying tomahawks when a dispute broke out between the mission's founder and a small band of Cayuse, ending the career of a promising young schoolteacher caught in the crossfire.
Although today's education challenges are decidedly different, they are no less formidable to new teachers saddled with enormous responsibility and often dodging the latest crossfire in the public education arena. It's no surprise that, without proper support, nearly a third of new teachers abandon the profession within the first three years and as many of half are gone within five.
But history is not repeating itself in Walla Walla where an award-winning teacher mentoring program has managed to boost the new teacher retention rate to 93 percent in the five years since the program has gone districtwide.
"It started out as a real grassroots effort," says Tracy Williams, mentoring coordinator for the district. Williams recounts her own experience as a first-year teacher in Walla Walla nearly 20 years ago, when she was one of 15 new teachers on a staff of 26. "We were lost," she says. "We'd stand around the copy machine and say, 'What are you going to do?' 'What are you going to do?' And we just tried to figure out how to teach on our own. So I was really committed to the fact that people who are new to the profession of teaching need some guidance and peer support."
About 15 years ago, Williams reports, the program started as "a voluntary, after-school kind of thing." Williams and others in the district took it upon themselves to take new teachers under their wings and tried to find ways to plan helpful workshops. "It was hit and miss," Williams says, "until, about seven years ago, we applied for a pilot grant from the state of Washington and got the resources to make it more formal."
Today the program is a finely coordinated effort carried out by the Walla Walla School District and the Walla Walla Valley Education Association. Working as a team, a school principal, the mentor coordinator, the local education association president, and an assistant superintendent pair up veteran educators with teachers who are either new to teaching or new to the district. In addition, the team provides training and ongoing support throughout the year to ensure success.
This collaborative process was recently recognized when the Walla Walla Mentoring Program was one of six programs across the country selected as Distinguished Winners in the 2001 National Education Association/Saturn/United Auto Workers Partnership Award for Teacher Mentoring Programs. Recipients were honored for their use of strong union-management partnerships to create outstanding mentoring programs for new teachers.
Current funding for the program comes primarily from Washington's Teacher Assistance Program (TAP), which provides approximately $1,400 per new teacher as long as the school district meets certain training criteria. This money is split between stipends for mentors and new teachers, and release time for participants to engage in classroom observations. The district provides additional financial support, funding the district coordinator's salary and footing the bill for training and materials.
This year, Walla Walla has 21 first-year teachers and 19 new-to-district teachers in the program. All 40 have a mentor.
Some even have two.
Each new teacher is assigned a "peer coach" and a "peer mentor." The peer coach is a veteran teacher who has taught the same or similar curriculum and can help the neophyte "develop a yearlong plan with the curriculum that they're actually going to teach," Williams explains. The focus is on the "what" of teaching, addressing specific course content. The peer mentor focuses on pedagogy, the "how" of teaching, with an emphasis on issues of performance and classroom management. When possible, one person fills both roles. When this isn't possible — for instance, when there is no "job-alike" in the building — two separate veterans are assigned the roles of peer coach and peer mentor. In these cases, the peer mentor will most likely be a veteran within the same building, while the peer coach may be from elsewhere in the district.
These pairings are monitored and adjusted when necessary. Today, for example, Williams and Margaret Yount, president of the teachers' union, are discussing changes. In one instance, they've decided to assign a new peer mentor to one of their new-to-district teachers, a 40-year-old veteran who may relate better to a contemporary than to the 22-year-old teacher originally recommended by the principal because of a similar job assignment. In another case, Williams and Yount discuss alternatives for a mentor who both think may be "overbearing."
"We want new teachers to succeed," says Yount, "because when teachers don't succeed, then you have plans for improvement and probation, and then a teacher is ushered out of teaching. Nobody wins. It's much better to train them, get them the right mentor in the beginning so that they're successful teachers."
But even with this thoughtful attention to matchmaking, mentoring goes far beyond the simple pairing of veterans and neophytes. According to research, programs that do little else than assign mentors inevitably fail. Training and ongoing support are essential elements of a successful induction program.
Like the valley's early inhabitants, Williams — the key figure in the development of Walla Walla's mentoring program — has demonstrated great resourcefulness. Elements of the program are based on a California teacher-training model developed by education researchers Ann Morey and Diane Murphy. Williams also utilizes references on instructional strategies and classroom management, notably work by Harry Wong. Additionally, Williams pulls useful information from any promising piece of research or tool she can get her hands on. This includes books, journal articles, Web sites, and even the odd movie classic when the situation calls for it.
"In training, I talk a lot about the qualities of a peer coach, the qualities of being a good mentor," Williams says. In short, she tells mentors to follow in the path of one wrinkly space gnome named Yoda. "Yoda doesn't tell," she counsels veteran teachers, reminding them of the wisdom exhibited by the Star Wars character. "He just asks questions and guides. Yoda doesn't see himself as superior. He doesn't come with all the march music and the regalia and the fanfare. He comes in the mud, with questions. He pulls it out of Luke Skywalker. He says, 'It's in you. You have the ability to do this,' and he helps Luke pull it out. And he's always there in Luke's head — his words echo. That concept works for me. The people who were my mentors — their words echo in my head. And you can't get rid of those, the little gems of advice."
Training also addresses how mentors can avoid common communication barriers with those under their tutelage. Most find it obvious that they should avoid criticizing, preaching at, or threatening their wards. But some are surprised to learn that general praise, reassurance, or diversion can shut down communication. "Too much praise can shut down a teacher from asking questions," Williams observes. "They'll say, 'Well, I'm supposed to be really good at this,' and so they don't ask questions."
District Elementary Science Coordinator Peggy Willcuts reflects on her first-year assignment, many years ago, as a fifth-grade teacher teamed with two very experienced male instructors. "I didn't want them to think I was this stupid, young, inexperienced little thing. So I kept to myself." Willcuts had questions about basic procedures for lunch and recess and how to deal with behavioral issues, but she kept quiet. "You know, sometimes, it's the really dumb questions that you need to ask. But you don't have anybody who's supposed to answer those, so you decide you're not going to ask and you hope, somehow, you're going to assimilate the information just by observing."
Many veteran teachers remember contracting strains of Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome, where they felt they couldn't let others see what they didn't know. That's why Williams provides tutorials for new teachers, including curriculum scavenger hunts and how-to lists for basic procedures. It's also why, at a training session with administrators and mentors, she promotes discussion of the "unwritten rules" of each school's environment and encourages mentors to share these insider tips with new arrivals.
Cindy Nass, a veteran at Prospect Point Elementary, says Williams "put us empathetically back in the shoes of being a first-year teacher again." Those shoes cover some rough terrain. According to the research of Ellen Moir, first-year teachers move through a predictable cycle. They slide from anticipation to survival and then disillusionment in the first half of the year. They go on to experience rejuvenation, reflection, and renewed anticipation by year's end. By understanding this cycle, mentors can gauge how best to support new teachers through the inevitable peaks and valleys.
When Lance Longmire came to the district two years ago, he was fresh out of grad school and starry eyed. "I was very idealistic," he says. "I thought I was going to hop in school, change the world. Everything was just going to go my way. Things didn't go as smoothly as I expected."
Like many new teachers, Longmire was given an especially tough first assignment. The latest in a string of bodies meant to fill a revolving-door position, Longmire became the Lead Special Education Teacher at Green Park Elementary. Charged with developing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for 30 kids, he had his hands full.
Longmire says Williams and Nass, his mentor, "saved my life." Nass walked him through initial IEPs and parent conferences, and shared invaluable techniques for classroom management and basic survival.
And, Longmire says, Williams shared one gem of advice that got him through the rough spots: Expect train wrecks.
"She told me that sometimes, when you're a first-year teacher, it's like a train wreck coming through. Sometimes things just get messed up and, the next day, you have to pick it up, put it back on the tracks and just keep on going. And I'd say that I derailed a few times. It was humbling. But it was good to know that was normal and that it's OK to make a mistake, and then pick things up and move on."
This concept of "failing forward" is an important lesson Williams attempts to impart. She says it is imperative that teachers are given license to try things that might not work as they attempt to improve learning in the classroom, and it is essential that the education environment allow failure not to be fatal. "Trying new things is essential to growth and achieving," she says. "Bret Boone of the Mariners wouldn't hit home runs if he wasn't making good attempts and striking out sometimes. You have to take the chance that you're going to make mistakes, and then learn from those mistakes. And know that, even in failure, we find things that improve performance." Williams says this is especially important in the culture of first-year teachers where mistakes will be made. "If veteran staff don't criticize them as much, things will get better for those new teachers faster."
Throughout the year, new teachers meet with their mentors, usually on a daily basis, for troubleshooting and guidance. "The first few months, it's like being on call," says Nass. "Then as the year rolls on, there are fewer and fewer questions and more conversations about how things are going instead of what fire is burning at the moment and needs to be put out."
Additionally, mentors and new teachers engage in assigned observation-feedback cycles, tied to their stipends. To further support teachers through that crucial first year, neophytes attend monthly workshops covering a range of topics, including such things as how to conduct parent conferences and prepare substitute plans.
Teachers who have been through Walla Walla's mentoring program have nothing but praise for it. Kenny Singer, who joined the eighth-grade staff at Pioneer Middle School last year, says, "I don't think anything prepared me better for teaching than working in this mentor program. I mean, being able to collaborate on curriculum, being able to talk about classroom management, being able to talk about how the day went or how this kid was so hard or, you know, wow, that class was really intense. Or a parent called me and was not happy, or even — woohoo! — a parent was so happy... Just being able to talk about the emotional roller coaster that is teaching was great."
Lisa Firehammer, Singer's mentor, says she also benefited from the experience. "The nice thing about the program," she says, "is that it's not all Ken asking me things. It becomes more of a collaborative relationship. It's not one teacher always getting help from another teacher. It's just teachers working together. It fosters that — the give-and-take that you really would like to have happen. Everybody's used to working together and talking things over, and we're just all really comfortable with collaborating. I think the fact that it's established around our district makes everyone more open."
Williams gives a Yoda-like nod. "We're trying to build a culture of collegiality," she says. "We don't expect teachers to teach in isolation. We want them to be models for students. We want them to be continual learners." For the district, the mentoring program has become a good recruitment tool. Judy Reault, assistant superintendent, says that with the current teacher shortage, "we're in a sellers' market. For teachers deciding between Walla Walla and another district, this may give us the edge." Certainly, Reault notes, "it has given our district the ability to maintain quality teachers."
Evidently so. While new teachers fall in droves around the country, those in Walla Walla stand steadfast and tall.
Now in his second year of teaching at Walla Walla, Singer shares a story about a fallen comrade: "I was at a wedding this weekend and met a woman who graduated with honors from Stanford, then got her master's in teaching. She taught for one year in California schools and she'll never teach again. I asked her, what was her year like? She didn't have a staff that she could talk to; she didn't work with anyone all year on anything; she had contact with her principal or vice principal only once or twice; neighboring teachers didn't talk to each other. It was completely isolating. And she was miserable because she had to do everything and she had no one to talk to about, you know, the problems or the good things. She had no support.
"And I told her if she had taught her first year in Walla Walla, she would still be teaching." 
Before a new doctor ever touches a scalpel, she watches at the elbow of an experienced surgeon. Before a rookie lawyer argues his first case, he typically sits "second chair," assisting a more seasoned colleague. Even a rookie baseball player usually has to work his way up through the minors to debut in The Show.
But new teachers? They're expected to shoulder all the responsibilities of classroom veterans, starting on day one. Worse, rookies often inherit the most challenging assignments in schools where teachers come and go as if by revolving door. Words of encouragement or advice from a veteran colleague can make a huge difference as rookies grapple with classroom management, lesson plans, and school procedures.
But in the hectic first weeks of school, "it can be easy to overlook new teachers or assume that somebody else is keeping an eye out for them," acknowledge Cori Brewster and Jennifer Railsback, authors of Supporting Beginning Teachers: How Administrators, Teachers, and Policymakers Can Help New Teachers Succeed, a new publication in NWREL's By Request series. Supporting Beginning Teachers outlines strategies that promise to improve the induction of new teachers so that they — and their students — get off to a better start. The authors outline three models that are finding more widespread use: formal induction programs, teacher mentoring programs, and school-university collaborations. Any of the models can be developed within a single school, across a district, or at the state level. But all of them require planning and the commitment of resources and time.
Formal teacher induction programs seek to introduce beginners to teaching methods and school policies, as well as to the "culture of teaching," the authors explain. Elements may include orientation; individual plans for growth and development; ongoing seminars; regular opportunities to observe and be observed by other teachers; opportunities to team teach with a more experienced colleague; action research; modified teaching schedules in which newcomers receive smaller loads, fewer preps, less difficult classes than teachers with more experience, or release time for professional development.
Teacher mentoring programs pair a novice teacher with a veteran or a team of veterans. Well-designed mentoring goes far beyond pep talks, and aims at maximizing the new teacher's effectiveness in the classroom. Supporting New Teachers underscores the importance of training mentors in order for such programs to be effective. Good programs take care to match new teachers with mentors who share such bonds as similar subject areas, grade levels, or teaching philosophies. In addition, the booklet points out, mentoring should not be tied to evaluation, and mentors should not be seen as "stand-ins" for principals. Regular times for mentors and mentorees to meet should be built into the school schedule.
School-university collaborations bring together the worlds of classroom practice and educational theory. Although models vary widely, such programs may involve university staff in leading seminars, training mentors, or facilitating discussion groups for new teachers. Although such partnerships are most likely to occur near college campuses, proximity is not essential. Technologies such as videoconferencing, e-mail, and electronic bulletin boards are making it easier for programs to be effective across long distances.
The booklet describes several programs in the Northwest region that provide hopeful examples of support for beginning teachers. As the authors conclude, "Schools that provide high levels of support for beginners will not only retain more teachers, but better teachers — and students will reap the rewards of a more positive and effective learning environment overall."
Copies of Supporting Beginning Teachers can be ordered at no charge by calling (503) 275-9720, or by emailing info@nwrel.org. It is also available online in HTML and PDF formats at www.nwrel.org/request/may01/index.html
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Date of Last Update: 12/21/2001 
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