Mentors, Find One
Somewhere
around Halloween each year, I begin to hear from them. It takes about that long for my former
students, some first year teachers, some with years of experience, to have
caught their breaths long enough to email me. Often their emails are just quick notes to let me know that
they are doing well or that some idea or activity that we covered in class
worked well for them. But
sometimes the message is a cry for help. "What do I do about my fifth period where no one turns in their work?"
"Do you have any good ideas for teaching The Scarlet Letter or Hamlet or vocabulary or the persuasive essay?” "My second period class is out of control. What should I do?”
I
always try to answer their questions, but if they are beginning teachers, I
also ask if they have been assigned a mentor teacher or if they have a
colleague who can help. Often, though they haven’t been assigned a mentor
teacher or thought to ask a colleague. Even experienced techers can be reluctant to approach colleagues whom
they perceive to be negative or rigid. In both of these cases, no matter how
many years of experience they have, I urge them to find a mentor.
In The English Teacher’s Companion, Jim
Burke reports that his mentors have been books and people (413). For teachers, books that inspire, that
cause us to question and reflect can be great mentors for our teaching. Publications like Burke’s books as well
as professional journals like EJ can also help mentor us through rough times. These resources are especially valuable when we feel
isolated by time or philosophy from our colleagues.
But
better than books and journals, colleagues can be wonderful mentors. Burke reports that his mentors are the
teachers who “…. found the work, despite all its demands, worthy, rich,
exciting” (413). I always urge my former students to find teachers like this in
their schools and approach them with their ideas and questions. In addition to the fine mentors I had
in the English Departments at Oconee County High School and Cedar Shoals High
School, one of my early mentors was Bob Cummings, the art teacher at Cedar
Shoals. During my planning period
on especially rough days, I would often walk around the school to try to shake
off the day. One day I walked past
the art classroom and noticed that Bob had many of the same students that were
making my days painfully long. The
difference was that in Bob’s class, these students were working diligently and
passionately. How was this
possible? Seeing me staring from
the hallway, Bob motioned me to come in to see what the students and he were
working on. This was my first
visit to a workshop classroom. Years before Atwell’s In the Middle mentored me on the workshop classroom, I witnessed Bob putting it into
action. This accidental detour led
to numerous visits and lengthy discussions with Bob that helped me transform my
teaching and survive a rough year.
In
his book, When the Student is Ready, the Teacher will Appear, Calvin Sims reminds us that there are mentors
everywhere; we just have to look for them. I was ready for help and Bob appeared. Whether you are a beginning teacher or
thirty-year veteran, I hope that when you find yourself struggling you’ll look
around for a mentor. Whether it’s
a good book or article, the English teacher next door, or a colleague in a
different subject area, help is out there. We just have to look.
Burke, Jim. The
English Teacher’s Companion: A Complete Guide to Classroom, Curriculum, and the
Profession. 2nd Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003.
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