For those who know me well, they know that the need to support and mentor new teachers is my passion.

An Observation

The years that I spent observing new teachers, as a principal, gave me a tremendous insight into how things can go well, when your teachers have a support system that’s there for them, like a safety net, in the form of a strong committed mentor. The teachers that I knew that were working with a mentor, when observed seemed more vibrant, enthusiastic and focused when they delivered their important curriculum content to students. They were confident in their ability to teach a lesson or unit of study, and openly shared that they had worked with their mentor teacher, often one I had suggested, to develop the lesson beyond the text-book recommendations. They were proud of the way the mentoring collaborative was working to enhance their teaching abilities and that this relationship was also helping them to form their own teaching style. In the same way that the mentoring relationship was inspiring new teachers, those who didn’t have a mentor were discouraged and struggling to the point of failure.

A Commitment

Part of my commitment to the new teachers I hired every year, was to insure that they had support, particularly in the way of a mentor. I would take the time to assess the personality of the new teacher and pair them with an experienced teacher on staff who had made a commitment to me, to take a newbie under their wing. We spent time in the early weeks in a “New Teacher Boot Camp” on campus where mentor and mentee would pair up, after-school with me and lay out the mentoring plan for the year. Those new teachers that kept the commitment to meet and collaborate with their mentor continued to soar, those that didn’t, flat lined.

Reconnecting

When I’d meet with new teachers that did not keep their mentoring commitment to ask why they’d not followed through, they’d say that they were sure that they didn’t need any help, could do it on their own, or were too busy.  When asked if they had a sense that their lessons were lacking and delivery of instruction was weak, and could a mentor have helped with this…the resounding answer was always, YES! It was also accompanied by the ardent plea to support them to reconnect with their mentor and rekindle that mentoring commitment.

It was always a source of great pleasure to see those new teachers that were struggling alone, begin to blossom when they recommitted to the mentoring relationship.

Mentoring Matters

A mentoring commitment is not easy, but mentoring matters. It takes hard work on the part of the mentor and mentee, but it’s work that I believe is worth the effort. The mentoring relationship matters to the teachers participating because it’s a tremendous valuable support to their personal and professional development. I also believe that the mentoring relationship matters and is equally as important to the children, our students, because they are the benefactors of better teaching and learning that are a result of this mentoring collaborative.

My goal, going forward, is to post reflections from educators both new and experienced who can share their story of how the mentoring relationship supported (or supports) their teaching, here, on Mentoring Mondays.

I hope you’ll join me and come back to visit, future posts.