Leadership Resources

A concern for retaining new teachers led the government of Ontario to establish programs that offer professional support in the initial years of their teaching career.  As a result, the 'New Teacher Induction Program' was developed and monies have been set aside to fund various associated initiatives.

School or District Leaders must consider not only the needs of their new teachers however, but also the ways in which mentoring relationships may benefit teachers (and future leaders perhaps) at various stages of their teaching career. Since the teaching profession is not simply the accumulation of a set of static skills, the types of processes that a culture of mentorship contributes to the profession (such as opportunities for setting and reviewing goals,  giving and receiving feedback, integrating new learning into current practice) are of benefit to all teachers.

In the leadership role, you are challenged with the task of appropriately resourcing staff to support a collaborative culture, both financially, time allocated and your own involvement in the process.

Where to start

Every school, teacher and district is unique. The first thing you might consider is conducting a 'needs assessment'. Listen to the concerns articulated by the teachers and staff at your school. Where are they feeling the least confident? Keep in mind that for many new teachers, they have had insufficient time and opportunity to practice what they have learned, and may feel ill prepared for most of the first year. Teachers have told us that their anxiety is generally high, and that bouts of tears are common. As a leader, your support and the support of a mentoring community can go a long way to alleviating their anxiety. For example,  how might you support their work with special needs' students? Are they in need of classroom management strategies? Perhaps they are unfamiliar with the resources available for second language learners. Are their concerns unreasonably focused on provincial assessments?

If there are commonalities to their concerns, you might consider grouping some teachers together to address particular issues. Small schools often form 'mentoring teams' or offer support within their 'families of schools'. Consider too, how you might establish school/university mentoring practices that might facilitate a two-way sharing of resources and communication that can benefit students. For example, Mary Lou Morton writes of the 'challenges and rewards of mentoring teachers in the areas of their choice' as one place to begin. In her article, she works with two third grade teachers and writes about what she has learned through the process. (see, Practicing praxis: mentoring teachers in a low-income school through collaborative action and transformative pedagogy, Mentoring and Tutoring, 13(1), 53-72).

Consider what the 'induction' of new teachers is really like. Think about the message the new teacher internalized in Clara's story:

In a study to determine what was most and least effective in terms of support during their first year of teaching, a few themes emerged that school/district leaders might want to consider:

• Provide basic start-up materials for each classroom, with appropriate, functioning technology;
• Provide direct support in the form of observation, feedback and written materials;
• Maintain visibility and contact;
• Hold separate meetings for new teachers;
• Maintain confidentiality;
• Offer continued, ongoing support on an individual level;
• Be supportive and willing to listen;
• Provide planning/meeting time for mentor and new teacher;
• Ensure that high needs students are evenly placed in teachers' classrooms, not allocated to certain individual teachers;
• Provide clear expectation of roles and responsibilities;
• Delineate correct channels for problem resolution;
• Provide extra start up time in the beginning of the school year;
• Create teacher 'focus groups';
• Arrange for classroom visits, or 'demonstration teachers' to visit classroom;
• Provide a handbook for teachers that includes policies and procedures;
• Access to a professional lending library;
• Offer specific targeted training in areas identified by new teachers;
• Delineate correct channels for problem resolution;
• Do not ask mentors to serve in a supervisory (evaluative) role;
• TIME: for reflection, for assimilating, for talking and sharing with colleagues.

Mentoring Networks

What 'networks', if any, were in place when you were considering a leadership role? What networks exist in your organization now? Do the networks reflect an attempt to broaden the professional leadership pool to include potentially marginalized populations?

Alternative mentoring frameworks evolved out of a desire to expand opportunities for diverse communities of professional practice. Alternative mentoring is designed to challenge the hierarchical nature of organizations through dialogic interaction and relationship building, in which the commitment is about learning and sharing. This is a shift from past conceptualizations in which mentoring was concerned with the enculturation of novices to align with the status quo. Teacher mentoring relationships are positioned in flexible ways today, which account for the individual teachers' funds of knowledge, prior experience and learning and the ways in which they contribute to the reciprocal nature of the relationship.

Think About:

Often when perusing materials designed to educate those in a leadership position on the many ways to create the appropriate and necessary conditions for a 'culture of mentorship', the words, 'encourage', 'ensure', 'insist' or 'remind' are used. The current climate in education is such that actions today, will most certainly speak louder than words. If you truly want to see change happen, then model it. Show your teachers, through your example, what effective mentoring looks like. Arrange, through timetabling or other means, the necessary time to devote to building a culture of collaboration and mentorship. Make the school and administrative offices places that teachers (and students) want to be. Practice 'selective abandonment' of those practices that no longer support current curricular goals so that teachers get relief from some of their former responsibilities as you ask them to take on new ones. Remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi, 'Be the change you want to see in the world'.