Mentoring for Excellence

by Priscilla Richardson

The ink is scarcely dry on most teachers' college degrees before they realize that turning classroom theory into practical experience is a challenge of awesome proportions. While student teaching provides some valuable hands-on experience, the aspiring teacher usually operates under the benevolent shadow of the "real" teacher, who provides a much-needed safety net in case of missteps in turning pedagogical theory into classroom reality.

Yet, however helpful the wisdom, counsel, and experience of the master teacher may have been, most new teachers confess to being overwhelmed their first year. Standing in front of 25 pairs of eyes as the teacher for the first time, the fledgling teacher suddenly realizes how much he or she was spared as a student teacher, and how much he or she has yet to learn.

Filled with doubts about his own ability, as well as questions he is too afraid to ask, the novice teacher often finds life within the four walls of his classroom a lonely place. Within that small arena, he may be haunted daily by the now seemingly misguided notion that he or she can actually teach. And where are his or her colleagues? Busy looking competent.

Yet, it doesn't have to be that way. Pair a veteran teacher trained in mentoring with a novice, and many problems can be resolved early on. Or allow veteran teachers to mentor each other in order to hone their individual skills. In either situation, mentoring pays huge dividends for the mentor and the "mentee" alike.

Mentoring Provides:

• A Friend in the Ranks. As both a friend and colleague, a mentor can provide valuable assistance and feedback about everything from how the school is run to how to stop the chatterbox in sixth hour from destroying the class. Teaching can be a lonely profession, and mentoring can be a vital key to dispelling it. Just knowing that there is a safe place to vent feelings and frustrations can help keep many teachers sane.
• Valuable Feedback Based on the Mentee's Agenda, not the Mentor's. Both novices and veterans can sometimes use an extra pair of eyes in the back of the room to see what they miss when they're concentrated on teaching the lesson. When do the boys in the back row stop listening? Where in the lesson does their attention begin to wane? A mentor teacher, asked to observe certain behaviors, can be an invaluable source of information.
• A Safe Arena for Experimentation. By observation, data collection, and discussion, mentoring provides enough feedback to make effective teaching techniques accessible. The mentor's role is one of information provider rather than evaluator, and as such, the feedback given can make a successful lesson repeatable — and a disastrous one avoidable in future incarnations. The mentee is given insight into what works in the classroom, and why.

Mentoring Honors:

• The wise mentor understands that his role is one of service rather than control. He looks for insight into the heart and mind of his mentee, and asks questions to pinpoint his mentee's goals, accurately setting his sights on helping him achieve those goals. Replicating himself in his mentee undermines the development of novice teachers.

Putting a well-developed mentoring program in place at a school can make the crucial difference in the quality of teaching of both novice and veteran teachers. It can also go a long way toward dispelling the fear and frustration that seem hard-wired into that first year of teaching, ultimately making the classroom arena one that resounds with success for those who toil within its walls.

More about effective mentoring/coaching may be found in the PLS course Coaching Skills for Successful Teaching™. Call PLS at 1-800-526-4630 or check the PLS Web site (insert link to: http://www.plsregistration.com) for the course closest to you.