Goodbye too soon

The list of links that need to be described includes Altruism Gone Wild, but alas, Fellowette, AGW’s blogger, has come to an end. I mean as a fellowette – she is leaving teaching. Here is her last day. For the record, Fellowette was a first year high school English teacher in a big school in the Bronx.

If you get a chance, go look, hunt through her archives. This is first year teaching in NYC, in the Bronx. That’s how it really looks. Sad, funny, and frustratingfrustratingfrustrating! Maybe Fellowette hadn’t planned to stay very long, but with these conditions, who has a choice?

Click below for more

If we see another Fellowette walk into our schools we usually assume that he a) might not make it through Year One, b) will make it long enough to collect his masters and leave, or c) might want to stay longer, but will be out by his fifth year.

And then we ignore him. He’ll go away soon enough. We don’t waste time and effort training, helping, giving advice…

This is so incredibly wrong. And that is what happens most of the time.

This has to change. Each new teacher is a new colleague. They have come into a very tough profession, in a system that doesn’t function very well. We need that person to become a new good teacher, to last, to prosper. Wouldn’t it be nice to be surrounded by competent, experienced colleagues? Well, they all start out new. (Think about that)

New teachers need to be advised, mentored (formally and informally). Hand them lesson plans. Why should they reinvent the wheel? (and badly at that. I hope you don’t snicker at their weak efforts). They are precious. They need to be protected from aggressive administrators. They cannot necessarily fend for themselves. Make sure that supplies are shared. That they learn about rotation (so they don’t get awful classes year after year until they quit). They are young. They will say stupid things. Forgive them. They will be lousy with paperwork. They won’t know what forms to fill out. Hold their hands.

Teach them.