The beginning was awful, Laura recalled, describing her first days of teaching science in an inner-city middle school. She hadn't begun with high expectations for professional support:I assumed that the teachers would be unsupportive, sort of that sink-or-swim mentality. . . . I assumed that I was all on my own, and that it was me or nothing.Yet she was still surprised by the lack of organized induction. When she attended the district's orientation meeting for all new teachers, she found nothing there to help her begin her work as a classroom teacher. A day had been set aside when “we were supposed to come to our schools and get oriented,” but Laura's principal “didn't do anything.” In fact, Laura only learned which classes she would teach when she received the schedule at a faculty meeting the day before school started.
In an effort to understand new teachers' experiences and determine best practices in teacher recruitment, support, and retention, the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education is conducting a five-year, qualitative study of 50 new Massachusetts teachers. Results from the first phase of the study, in which Project staff interviewed first- and second-year teachers in diverse school settings, indicate that, unfortunately, Laura's experience is not unusual.
Esther, a former engineer in the space industry, came to teaching through an alternative certification program. She described her district's orientation program for new teachers as “an indoctrination to the district, to the union. We got all that stuff. They talked about benefits and health care.” But at her school site—where she would succeed or fail with her students—there was nothing: “Here it's pretty much, ‘There's your classroom. Here's your book. Good luck.’”
Robert was similarly dismayed as he prepared for the opening of school and his first day as a new teacher. He had come to teaching after 30 years as a lawyer, having recently earned a master's degree and teaching certificate from a traditional teacher education program. When he was informed about the school's formal orientation meetings, he thought, “Wonderful. They'll introduce me to everything. I'll know what's going on.” He had hoped to learn about the school, his colleagues, the school's technology, and anything else he might need to know to do his job well. Instead, he said he got “none of that,” only a series of meetings about general topics, without any focus on “the way [this school] actually does things.” He said flatly that it was “a joke.”
Some new teachers were warmly welcomed in their schools, introduced to their colleagues, and provided with information about the classes that they would teach. Very few, however, were engaged in discussions about the pressing, school-specific questions of curriculum, instruction, and classroom management that most concern new teachers: What is expected of them at this school? What can they expect from their students? Which teaching strategies work? Which don't? What curriculum and books should they use? How should they organize their classrooms or their grade books? How will they know if their students are learning what they're trying to teach?
Laura was assigned a mentor who might have helped her answer such questions over time. He taught a different grade and subject, however, and they met “zero times.” Many new teachers in our study went through their first months of school believing that they should already know how their schools work, what their students need, and how to teach well. When they had questions about their schools and their students, they eavesdropped on lunchroom conversations and peered through classroom doors seeking clues to expert practice. Having no access to clear answers or alternative models compromised the quality of their teaching, challenged their sense of professional competence, and ultimately caused them to question their choice of teaching as a career.
Wanted: School-Based Professional Development
Unfortunately, the mismatch between the needs of these new teachers and the support they received reflects the experiences of countless new teachers across the United States. The questions and uncertainty that new teachers bring to school require far more than orientation meetings, a mentor in the building, directions to the supply closet, and a written copy of the school's discipline policy. What new teachers want in their induction is experienced colleagues who will take their daily dilemmas seriously, watch them teach and provide feedback, help them develop instructional strategies, model skilled teaching, and share insights about students' work and lives. What new teachers need is sustained, school-based professional development—guided by expert colleagues, responsive to their teaching, and continual throughout their early years in the classroom. Principals and teacher leaders have the largest roles to play in fostering such experiences.
Diverse Paths to Teaching
The variety in backgrounds of today's new teachers increases the importance of providing useful and sustained professional development at the school site. The current teacher shortage and changes in certification requirements in many states have led schools to hire teachers with varying degrees of preparation. Many novices have completed traditional teacher education programs that include extensive coursework and student teaching. Some have completed full-year internships with master teachers in professional development schools. Still others are entering teaching through alternative certification programs that have only a summer component, which includes both coursework and practice teaching. Finally, an increasing number of entrants with no preparation at all take on full-time teaching assignments with emergency certificates.
The new teachers in our study who attended only summer preparation components reported feeling unprepared to teach, but they were not alone in their expressed need for ongoing school-site induction and support. We found that the daily, complicated demands of teaching left even those teachers who had extensive preservice training wanting more. They yearned for school-site support and professional development as they chose and adapted curriculums, planned and implemented lessons, and managed classrooms.
New teachers also enter the field at different points in their professional careers. The current cohort of new teachers includes both the 22-year-olds entering teaching as a first career and the mid-career switchers who have left what they found to be unfulfilling work in such careers as sales, law, or engineering. Our survey of a random sample of new teachers in New Jersey indicated that 46 percent were career changers who were, on average, 35 years old. We also found that, in New Jersey, more mid-career entrants than first-career teachers came to teaching through such abbreviated routes as alternative certification programs. These mid-career switchers often bring to the classroom strong subject-matter competence and mature job skills, but they lack knowledge about and experience with students, curriculum, pedagogy, and the daily routines of schools.
The Importance of a School's Professional Culture
Most of the new teachers we interviewed hoped to find support and guidance in their schools, but some were more fortunate than others in entering environments that addressed their needs. To learn about the assistance they received, we asked teachers about their interactions with their colleagues and their principals. When did they meet? What did they talk about? Where did they go for help or ideas about what to teach? Did they have a mentor? If so, how often did they interact, and what did they discuss with the mentor? Had someone observed them teach, and did they receive helpful feedback? As our respondents described their interactions with colleagues in their schools, clusters, departments, or teams, three types of professional culture emerged.
Veteran-Oriented Professional Cultures
Some teachers found themselves in what we called veteran-oriented professional cultures, where the modes and norms of professional practice are determined by and aimed to serve veteran faculty members. According to the new teachers, these schools, or subunits within schools, typically had a high proportion of veteran teachers with well-established, independent patterns of work. Sometimes collegial inter-actions were cordial in such settings; sometimes they were cold.
Regardless of the type of teacher interaction, these schools were not organized to engage new teachers or to acquaint them with expert practice. New teachers who experienced veteran-oriented cultures in their schools generally remained on the —s, without induction into the professional life of the school. Respondents often said that veteran teachers were highly skilled, but new teachers, who might work across the hall from those veterans, had no access to that expertise.
Such was 22-year-old Katie's experience in her new elementary school. She was clear about what she thought would be “the best kind of support for a first-year teacher”:Someone to meet with regularly to just talk about anything and everything, what's going on in your room; someone who can come in and observe you and make practical suggestions.
Katie found herself isolated from her veteran colleagues, who seemed to know how to teach. Despite the high skill and good intentions of her first mentor, Katie did not get what she knew she needed:I'm very isolated from her. . . . I met with her a few times and I was always welcome to go in her room and take a look at her materials and borrow anything that she had. But she just didn't have the time to come in and observe me and really talk with me practically about the things that I could do in here.
Novice-Oriented Professional Cultures
Other new teachers described working in what we labeled novice-oriented professional cultures, where youth, inexperience, and idealism prevailed. These school sites generally included two types of schools: start-up charter schools staffed largely with new recruits, many of whom had no formal preparation as teachers, and urban schools that were poorly organized or in disrepair and, thus, repeatedly experienced high turnover as teachers left for better work settings. In these schools, with so many new teachers, there existed an abundance of energy and vigorous commitment—but little professional guidance about how to teach.
Gwen, a 23-year-old novice teacher, taught in an urban school where, in her first year, most of her colleagues were close to her age and also new teachers:So it was really difficult last year. And there was no set way of doing things. Everything was just kind of up in the air. It was chaos.
She and her colleagues had no access to experienced teachers to guide them in their difficult work. Although she acknowledged that things began to get better in her second year, she explained that, in her first year, “we felt like we were just kind of drifting along in our own little boat.”
Integrated Professional Cultures
Finally, there were teachers who were fortunate to begin their teaching careers in what we called integrated professional cultures. These schools, or subunits within schools, encouraged ongoing professional exchange across experience levels and sustained support and development for all teachers. Such schools did not endorse separate camps of veterans and novices; rather, teamwork and camaraderie distinguished these work settings.
New teachers in schools with integrated professional cultures believed that their expert colleagues not only understood the importance of mentoring but also benefited from the mentoring relationship. New teachers who found themselves in such schools seemed to be better served—and, thus, more able to serve their students. In addition, initial evidence from our longitudinal study suggests that new teachers working in settings with integrated professional cultures remained in their schools and in public school teaching in higher proportions than did their counter-parts in veteran-oriented or novice-oriented professional cultures. In other words, the professional culture of schools may well affect teacher retention over the long term.
Laura had been assigned to work with a cluster of 7th grade teachers who served 110 students. Working together, that cluster of teachers developed an integrated professional culture. The school schedule provided a daily block of time when they could meet to discuss their students and coordinate what they would teach and how they would teach it. Laura's new colleagues in the cluster had 4–14 years of experience, and, fortunately for her, they were eager to share what they knew. After the second week of school, when two of her colleagues saw Laura in tears after she had walked students out at the end of the day,They circled me and brought me up [to the classroom]. . . . They said, “OK, this is what you have to do.” And that's when [my cluster leader] taught two of my classes. . . . They took me under their wings and just said, “OK, here are some very specific things you can do.”
The cluster leader, who taught in the room next to Laura's, had just been certified as an accomplished teacher by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. When she realized that Laura's mentoring experience was inadequate, she stepped in, meeting with Laura daily at lunch, watching her teach, and modeling effective classroom management strategies.
Laura credits her colleagues in the cluster with helping her gain the skills and confidence to continue teaching:Without them, I wouldn't be here. There is no way. I wouldn't have survived. . . . After the first three days of school, I couldn't see how it could ever work.At the end of the first semester, she reported, “I feel supported, and I feel like people listen to my ideas.”
The Importance of Organized Support
Neither conventional inservice training, with its intermittent after-school sessions dealing with such generic issues as student services or assessment policies, nor the periodic visits of the school district's curriculum coordinators or academic coaches to new teachers' classrooms are enough to meet teachers' ongoing needs. Laura received more than just moral support from her colleagues: Structures were in place that enabled the teachers in her cluster to plan lessons and discuss students together, to visit one another's classes, and to hone their teaching skills together.
On-Site and On-Time Professional Development
Schools must provide new teachers with on-site professional development and make sure that new teachers have access to help on short notice when a lesson goes awry, a student is not responding to the new teacher's repertoire of teaching strategies, or a parent requires an immediate conference. New teachers need mentors who have time to observe and offer advice or a small team of colleagues that they can convene for help on short notice.
Effective Principals
New teachers who found themselves in integrated professional cultures described their principals as visibly engaged in both the daily life of the school and the professional work of the teachers. These principals focused on the improvement of teaching and learning, visited classrooms, and provided feedback. They arranged school schedules so that expert teachers could teach model lessons or meet with new teachers one-on-one or in small groups. They helped teachers prioritize professional goals, recommended conferences or institutes that teachers might attend, and cultivated a professional culture in which teachers were collectively responsible for student and teacher learning.
Teacher Leaders
The practical, ongoing support that new teachers received from experienced colleagues in integrated cultures indicates that teacher leaders also have crucial roles to play. For example, veteran teachers might serve as mentoring coordinators, model teachers, team leaders, and in-class coaches. Schools can draw on the expertise and leadership of teachers certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, as Laura's school did.
New teachers flourish in an integrated professional culture that encourages teacher collaboration across experience levels, but veteran teachers also benefit from such professional exchange. In addition to the obvious rewards of mentoring for both parties, new teachers often possess skills—such as integrating technology into the curriculum or interpreting data from standards-based assessments—that veteran teachers need. Schools that gear professional development to both the ongoing induction of new teachers and the continual renewal of veteran teachers serve all educators well—thus enabling them to serve all their students well.
