Part 2 Mentoring Matters

I can relate to much of the information shared through my time as a new teacher.  All of the phases discussed as a new teacher are real and a mentor helped me through those steps to have a successful start to my career. I think there are many ways I could support a new teacher:
1. Guiding through building procedures, grading, meetings, and other building based matters.
2. Being present to listen to any successes or struggles.
3. Being able to provide any instructional techniques or strategies if needed through an informal observation.

I feel that I could help a new teacher in the items listen above, plus any additional question/concerns brought by the new teacher. I feel that an area of strength that I have to help new teachers is my ability to listen and to offer any advice they want or need because of my familiarity of the building.  However I may want additional support if my mentee is in a different building (different building procedures) or subject area (knowing their content to help with any instructional practices specific to content area).  I have been a mentor before so I feel I would be a helpful teacher mentor.

I can completely relate to the attiudes towards teaching.  I think every teacher regardless of the number of years you have been teaching goes through these phases on a yearly basis.  Septemeber is always exciting and uncertain.  You are excited to meet your new students but there is always the question if your strategies for setting routines, building relationships, creating an environment where all students feel safe and loved will work.  Even as a vetern teacher of 30 plus years there are times you feel overwhelmed and need to time to reflect and regroup. This is one of the beauties of teaching. You can always reflect, regroup and start again.  As long as you continue to believe that you are still learning and are willing to make adjusments - your students will grow and learn from you.

By conveying this to a new teachers, this may help them to see that they can do this -even when living in the disillusionment stage.  If they see that we are all monitoring and adjusting and that we too have lessons that flop and that's ok, we can encourage them to keep going.  Hence the need for a mentoring program.  Mentees need mentors that will make them feel safe to make mistakes and try again.  They need to see that as long as we are there for our kids and trying again each day to get better - that they will make a difference.  If they can feel that they are making a difference in the lives of their students - it gives them purpose so they can keep going - they can make this a career to be proud of. In this way we will retain our teachers and grow an amazing new crop of teacher!

One of the more salient parts of these articles was that teaching mentorships build relationships and leadership skills within new employees.  All of the new teachers I have mentored have not been new to the profession teachers, they have come to Sweet Home with numerous years of experience under their belt.  In that regard, I appreciate that the first two articles lean into the fact that mentorship is not just developing NEW teachers but new to the district teachers.  This year, I feel like the focus on my mentorship was on developing the school culture and leadership skills within my mentee.  

My strengths lie in my empathetic listening skills.  Being an excellent mentor means being a good listener. I like that listening skills were repeated in these articles.  This also means that there needs to be a balance between providing quality encouragement and feedback (from the TedTalk) as well as listening and driving discussion around what the mentee needs/brings up.  

I think my area of growth is to commit to more time at the end of the year for reflection.  When looking at the graph, I did not follow through or devote as much time to discussions about reflection as much as I did in the beginning when I felt like it was all hands on deck.  

In what ways can you relate...
I loved the first article about 5 reasons mentors are needed.   SH seems to be. getting experienced teachers, but I have found that my interns definitely need to learn our school's culture.   I spend significant time helping interns learn infrastructure and key personnel.  I think filling these knowledge gaps aid in teacher retention.  

Where do my strengths lie
I am confidential.   Through this program, I've have interns share their personal struggles and I feel I've been able to help with school/work balances.  To me, they are a whole person, not just a teacher.   I'm good at 'not sweating the small stuff' and feel I can help interns not focus on aspects of the job that hold less importance.

In what ways will I need additional support
As stated earlier, having common plan time is essential.   I love being able to check in during the day to see how things are going.  These check-ins help guide our mentor work outside of the school day.