The Challenge of Pre-service: What Would it Take?

Teachers learn best by studying, doing, and reflecting; by collaborating with other teachers; by looking closely at students and their work; and by sharing what they see. Linda Darling-Hammond

I wasn’t prepared for the complexities of teaching when I began my career as a teacher nineteen years ago, but I should have been. I attended a respected university with a strong reputation for their education program. I did my assignments, studied hard, passed my student teaching experience with flying colors, and graduated, eager for my first classroom.

As a beginning teacher, the realities of teaching bore little resemblance to the content-heavy theory I was taught or to the carefully structured and monitored student teaching experience. I spent hours prepping lessons and combing professional resources for any help I could get. I begged, borrowed, and stole ideas from veteran teachers often without truly understanding what I was taking. Mostly, I struggled alone, working long weekdays and weekends fearing someone would discover that I might not be ready to teach. In retrospect, I wasn’t teaching. I was surviving.

My story is well documented. Like me, most teachers greet their first classrooms with bright-eyed anticipation that gives way to survival and disillusionment (Moir, 2011). Like me, most teachers survive their first year, but too many don’t at great cost, with millions spent in misallocated resources, and untold disappointment. We teachers come to teaching with the belief that we will change, if not save, lives and the emotional toll of a failed attempt is staggering. It’s also unnecessary. Can we reverse a trend that suggests up to one half of new teachers will leave the profession within three years (Ingersoll, 2001)? Yes! And for those who stay, is there a way to capitalize on the energy and optimism new teachers bring to the table? I believe we can. As I look back on my own experience, I recall bewilderment. I was taught content, provided time to work in groups, assigned projects to tackle, and given opportunities to perform and be evaluated. So what was missing?

What it might take

Almost 20 years later, now coaching schools and districts across the country toward more effective teaching and leading practices, I have come to understand the missing pieces in my emerging years as a teacher. What was missing as I prepared and entered the system were learning experiences that inspired, energized, and consistently reminded me of why I became a teacher in the first place. I needed the structures to make this happen and to engage in the rigorous and relevant inquiry and reflection we now expect (or should expect) of students. I would have benefitted from learning experiences designed to encourage creativity and innovation. I needed to work with colleagues through extended processes of inquiry in response to challenges I was facing. And I desperately needed regular opportunities to apply and practice new learning with on-going coaching support and time to struggle and succeed with peers.

Many new teachers have mentors and this helps. Our experience suggests, however, that mentoring tends to focus on technical aspects of teaching – on nuts and bolts, such as how to do report cards. But applying new learning to the actual act of teaching? That’s where new teachers run adrift and need a different kind of support to navigate the critical relationships with students and the content they must learn. This is also where bringing in an expert may not be the best support strategy. While useful, modeling does not necessarily translate into the ability to act. For example, watching a flawlessly conducted Socratic seminar can seem daunting to a new teacher fumbling through the right questioning sequence. New teachers are likely to feel the same instincts I had as a first year teacher: hide in fear that anyone should know that I might not be ready to teach. 

Instead, the social fabric of adult learning communities holds much promise to grow the capacity of the system where long term success of teachers is dependent upon a collaborative culture of peers but it must bridge the gap between preparation and practice, not exacerbate it. In reality, many preparation programs keep up with important trends in education and now build capacity among their students for collaborative practice. But what happens when a new and highly collaborative teacher encounters a school culture that holds privacy of teaching as a primary value? Harvard Professor Richard Elmore estimates that on average, the value of collaboration gets “beaten out” of new teachers within three years (Elmore, 2005). So if they’ve survived their first year, it’s most likely behind a closed door.

Bridging the Gap

We do know what it takes to help new teachers so that my story is no longer familiar. What’s needed now is the will to make that happen and the leadership to build these practices across institutions. One idea we, at Abeo, are exploring is the creation of collaborative practice networks of pre-service and practicing educators to jointly investigate the causal connections between learning and teaching. Collaborative structures such as these hold promise to cross the divide and support more seamless transitions into the complex maze of teaching so that, unlike me, teachers do not conclude their first year under a cloud of disillusionment.

We can do better.

 Chris Hoyos is a coach and partner with Abeo School Change.