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!
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!