she needs improvement, the process of cultivating expertise is nearly impossible to undertake independently. Geoff Colvin (2008) explained:
Without a clear, unbiased view of the subject’s performance, choosing the best practice activity will be impossible…. Very few of us can make a clear, honest assessment of our own performance. Even if we could, we could not design the best practice activity for that moment in our development—the type of practice that would put us on the road to achieving at the highest levels—unless we had extensive knowledge of the latest and best methods for developing people in our chosen field. Most of us don’t have that knowledge. (pp. 67–68)
In order to achieve success in the classroom, new teachers must develop expertise. However, they cannot do this alone. Beginning teachers can only reasonably be expected to succeed if they receive intentional, comprehensive support catered to meet their unique needs. We suggest that mentors can effectively provide this support.
The Importance of Support and Mentoring
The use of mentoring to help new employees develop expertise is not specific to the teaching profession. In fact, the most employee-friendly corporations in the United States emphasize mentoring and training. Every year, Fortune magazine partners with the Great Place to Work Institute to conduct an extensive survey of employees at different American companies (such as Google, Goldman Sachs, and Whole Foods). The survey includes questions about employees’ attitudes toward management credibility, job satisfaction, camaraderie, pay and benefit programs, hiring, communication, and diversity. Fortune then uses the results to publish an annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” In 2014, salaried employees of the companies on this list received an average of seventy-five hours of training per year, with some companies on the list offering hundreds of hours of training annually (Fortune, 2014).
Unlike these companies, school systems often fail to support their new teachers beyond a basic orientation to the school. Only twenty-eight states have laws that require or encourage districts to offer induction programs at all (Breaux & Wong, 2003). In 2004 and 2005, the MetLife Foundation surveyed eight hundred K–12 public school teachers with five or fewer years of teaching experience. Of these teachers, 18 percent reported that they were fairly or very likely to leave the profession (MetLife, 2005). The authors identified the following feelings as characteristic of new teachers who were likely to quit.
• Frustration that the school leadership undersupported or undervalued them
• Stress related to workload, expectations, or number of responsibilities
• Anxiety regarding lack of expertise
In a study of new teachers’ explanations for their career choices, Susan M. Johnson and Sarah E. Birkeland (2003) reported:
Of central importance in all of the teachers’ explanations of their decisions to stay in their schools, to move, or to leave teaching was whether they believed that they were achieving success with their students…. Our respondents reported that achieving success in their teaching depended largely on a set of school-site factors—the role and contributions of the principal and colleagues, the teachers’ assignments and workload, and the availability of curriculums and resources. In deciding whether to stay or leave, teachers weighed these factors and judged to what extent shortcomings in one or more compromised their chances of teaching effectively. (pp. 593–594)
How a school team supports, empowers, and connects with first-year teachers is critical to developing and retaining them. Without this support, new teachers can feel isolated and ineffective and oftentimes leave the profession before they have a chance to achieve their full potential.
The benefits of mentoring for new teachers have been well researched. Richard M. Ingersoll and Thomas M. Smith (2004) reported that new teachers who received support (such as a helpful mentor in the same subject area, common planning and collaboration time with teachers in the same subject area, and supportive communication with school leaders) were less likely to leave at the end of the first year than those who did not receive support. Alan J. Reiman, Kristen A. Corbell, Erin T. Horne, and Dina Walker-DeVose (2010) conducted a meta-analytic literature review—a synthesis of findings from a large number of individual studies—and found that new teachers generally associated the following factors with their own perceptions of success in the field of teaching.
• Mentor, colleague, parental, and administrative support
• Effective classroom management
• Reduced assignment load and workload
• Instructional resources
• Student success
The authors’ review of the research supports the idea that schools and school districts can positively affect retention by increasing new teachers’ perceptions of their own success through more comprehensive support programs.
Translating Research and Theory Into Practice
In subsequent chapters, we draw from the research and theory in this chapter and from sources such as The Art and Science of Teaching (Marzano, 2007) and Effective Supervision (Marzano et al., 2011) to discuss how to effectively support beginning teachers. Each chapter provides a number of strategies that we suggest mentors can implement to help support a beginning teacher both in the classroom and outside it. As mentioned in the introduction, as you progress through the remaining chapters, you will encounter comprehension questions to help you process the content presented. After completing each set of questions, you can check your answers with those in appendix A (page 71).
Chapter 2
DESIGNING AN EFFECTIVE MENTORING PROGRAM
The word mentor comes from Homer’s Odyssey, which tells the story of the Greek hero Odysseus and his voyage home after the fall of Troy (Brockbank & McGill, 2006). During his absence, Odysseus entrusts his son, Telemachus, to a wise friend named Mentor. While he does not replace Odysseus as a parent, Mentor does become a counselor, guardian, and guide to Telemachus. He offers the young man support, inspires him to face challenges, and helps him understand and embrace the difficulties that lie ahead.
Teacher mentors must fulfill a similar variety of roles in their work and relationships with beginning teachers. According to Laura Lipton and Bruce Wellman (2001), effective mentors offer comfort, create challenge, and facilitate a professional vision. They explained, “These functions can operate independently in specific situations, but in the greater context of the relationship they must be connected. Balancing these three elements energizes growth and learning” (p. 1). For example, it is important to help new teachers feel comfortable, but offering comfort without challenge may eventually foster complacency. Creating challenge without offering comfort, on the other hand, can heighten feelings of anxiety and failure. Offering comfort and creating challenge without facilitating vision can leave new teachers without a feeling of larger purpose, looking only at the ground beneath them but not at the road ahead.
When supporting beginning teachers, school leaders must provide more than a basic back-to-school orientation or a randomly selected partnership with an experienced teacher. In light of the complexities of the mentoring role, school leaders must carefully select mentors, support them as they develop relationships with mentees, and give them concrete guidance about the types of support they are expected to offer new teachers. Therefore, the mere presence of a randomly selected mentor is not enough. School leaders should design mentoring
