What It’s Like to Support New Teachers During a Complex School Year
Ing-Mari on the right with students on graduation day 2021.
So much is being asked of teachers, whether they’re new to the profession or have 20 years of classroom experience under their belt.
Even with the intense demands they are facing, veteran teachers were eager to join our pilot program as Virtual Instructional Coaches and Building Mentors to provide New Teachers with the support they need to succeed. And they need support more than ever.
“This afternoon, I was talking to a teacher, and she said, ‘I feel like I’m falling apart, but I don’t know what I need,’” Kristina Pittman related. Kristina is in her twenty-second year of teaching English at the high school level and said “these last two years have been the hardest. The amount of stress New Teachers are under is more than I expected. It’s constant.”
As an ELP Building Mentor in the Farmington School District in Michigan, she serves as a support and sounding board for three New Teachers. “We meet as a team every few weeks and discuss how it’s going,” Kristina explained. “I always start with, ‘How can I help you?’ and I let them drive the conversation.”
Bill Bauman, an ELP Building Mentor in the Osseo School District in Minnesota, follows a similar strategy: keep the proverbial door open for whatever New Teachers need. “I am working with five mentees,” he explained, “and because of my current role in the district, my schedule is more flexible. I’ll stop by and check in with them every week. I’m trying to do everything in person, because teaching is an isolating profession, and our building is very big.”
The cost of isolation from remote learning is a steep one. Ing-Mari Ryan, an ELP Virtual Instructional Coach based in Minnesota, is in her twenty-fifth year of teaching and remarked that “the New Teachers I’m coaching haven’t had a regular classroom experience. I’m in a school where we’ve lost a few people who said, ‘It’s too much, this isn’t sustainable.’”
Luckily, many New Teachers aren’t there yet. “I’m working with three New Teachers,” Ing-Mari said, “and the resilience I’ve heard from these teachers has been a surprise, as has their ability to stay focused on the students. I’ve been so mired in my world; it’s been one step in front of the other for almost two years. To hear how they’re managing has been enlightening.”
As it turns out, support and learning is a two-way street in the ELP program. “It’s an excellent opportunity to train the next generation and for us veteran teachers to learn from them,” Kristina pointed out. “They have a lot of energy, are optimistic and have unique ideas and perspectives. They can motivate and inspire us just as much as we can motivate and inspire them.”
Aric Foster, an ELP Virtual Instructional Coach in Michigan, takes his role as motivator seriously. “I remind the New Teacher I’m working with that we are making a difference in the lives of kids every day. New Teachers need vocational support, they need teaching strategies that will help them, but they also need those little pieces of encouragement.”
Bill echoed that sentiment. “Little things you do can make an impact, like just being available,” he said. “And you never know how big that impact on a New Teacher might be.”
Kristina is hopeful that one impact of ELP will be teacher retention. “That’s one of those most urgent issues we have in education today,” she commented. “So many teachers are leaving the profession and these last few years in particular have been challenging. The more we can do to support and train New Teachers, the better.”
Aside from helping their New Teachers grow into the profession, these veteran teachers agreed they have grown as well.
“I really enjoy the professional development I’ve been getting,” Ing-Mari noted. “My school uses a different framework, and revisiting the Danielson Clusters framework has been really powerful, along with talking to the New Teachers about where they see themselves in the framework.”
Aric added, “It may seem like ELP is just an opportunity to give, but I accidentally get as well. I am learning and growing as a coach and an educator.”
Looking at what’s next for ELP, expanding the program is top-of-mind for Bill. “Our district has struggled with a formal program,” he said. “We might have 150-160 New Teachers enter our district in any given year, and there’s one person to work with them.”