Last week, the NY Times featured a lengthy piece on teacher mentorship programs, entitled, “As Apprentices in Classroom, Teachers Learn What Works.”
What are mentorship programs?
The idea is that teachers, like doctors in medical residencies, need to practice repeatedly with experienced supervisors before they can be responsible for classes on their own. At Aspire, mentors believe that the most important thing that novice teachers need to master is the seemingly unexciting—but actually quite complex—task of managing a classroom full of children. Once internalized, the thinking goes, such skills make all the difference between calm and bedlam, and can free teachers to focus on student learning.
Aspire Public Schools‘ program serves as the main focal point of the piece, which ultimately takes a stand in favor of these programs. Frankly, I have trouble understanding why they’re controversial at all.
Having attended an elite graduate teaching program and spent five years in the classroom, I can say, unequivocally, that I learned the vast majority of what I know about teaching while teaching. And I didn’t even have the benefit of a mentor! Teaching is too complex, too instinctual, and too relationship-driven to be learned exclusively (or even primarily) through study. It is through practice, rather, that teachers really learn to teach.
As evidence, consider the wisdom of Aspire’s program, which starts with classroom management: something with which all new teachers struggle, no matter how many books they read on the subject. Good classroom management manifests in a culture of learning—built on rules, routines, and trust—and requires constant maintenance throughout a school year. It is not a simple bag of tricks. It can’t be taught; it must be learned.
Classroom management is also fundamental to good teaching. No matter how masterfully crafted a lesson plan may be, how charismatic the lecturer is, or how wonderful the reading for class was, an undisciplined and disorderly class will not learn. Classroom management doesn’t make for a great class, but without it, there’s no chance for one. Appropriately, then, it is also the foundation of Aspire’s mentorship program. Teachers are introduced to the most important element of their practice as it becomes relevant, and master it through practice.
Extrapolating from this example, I would argue that all teachers, regardless of experience, should learn this way. Mentorship, targeted support, and personalized professional development is more effective than one-size-fits-all, passive, trend-driven presentations. That also is our philosophy atTeachBoost: eval and PD should combine to give teachers what they need, when they need it. Give our instructional leadership platform a try; like educators, it’s how we learn.
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