A DEFINITION OF "MENTOR"
AND "GUIDE-BUDDY" ROLES:
Providing Peer Assistance Structures
That Are Matched to New Teacher Experience
Barry Sweeny, © 1998
"New" teachers are employed every year,
but there is a large range in their life and work experiences. Some
are 21 year old novices in their first paid position. Others might
be experienced teachers returning to the classroom after raising
a family. Still others are changing careers. Another group are the
new to the district, but experienced staff. They each bring more
or less life and career experience to their new job, and they each
need more or less support from current staff. If you have taught
before, you know what questions you will need to get answered and
you can advocate for your own needs. If you are a true novice, you
may not even know what you don't yet know, so how can you ask questions
about those topics?
The assistance of other experienced staff needs to be tailored
to the needs and experience of these new employees. No one should
be "put through" programs they don't really need, while
others don't know what they need at all. Some programs define the
difference in new hires by calling teachers "new" or "beginning".
While this isfine, there are still major differences among what
could be included in each category. When it comes to assigning mentors,
"one size does not fit all", and more needs to happen
to customize the assistance provided.
When the author was a Mentor Program Coordinator (1988-1992) he
also coordinated the district's "Guide Teacher Program"
which addressed the needs of experienced but new employees or staff
whose assignment had changed due to transfer or change of grade
or course assignment. Here is how this was structured to work. It
is an approach every district should consider.
A GUIDE is assigned to any educator who has more than one
year of recent professional experience, and who is either:
A. New to the school district, or
B. Transferred within the school district to a new subject, grade,
or school.
A MENTOR is to be assigned to any employee just beginning
in the profession or to any new employee who has a year or less
of professional experience in another district.
IF a beginning teacher is assigned to two buildings
that teacher should work with a mentor in the major building and
with a "building" guide in the second building to ensure
that the person's needs are met.
Here follows a diagram to indicate how the roles of the Mentors
and Guides overlap and where they are distinct from each other.
- In the beginning of their time in the district, both beginning
and new but experienced staff deserve orientation (green area)
to the things for which they are responsible. In this respect,
the early work of a Guide and a Mentor could be very similar.
- After about one semester, the new but experienced teachers no
longer need much guidance from their Guide.
- Beginning teacher may need support and guidance from their mentors
for two to four years, depending on district expectations for
professional growth and on the state approach to licensure.
| MENTOR
=> |
A HELPER
ROLE |
1. ORIENTATION
TO:
The Building
The Curriculum
The School Community
Staff's View of the Profession |
<=GUIDE |
| A COLLEAGUE |
2. A FRIEND, LISTENER, &
CONFIDANT |
|
| A MODEL ROLE |
3. CHALLENGING & FACILITATING
THE PROTEGE'S PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY:
Acting as a one-to-one staff developer
Modeling the continuous search to be the best educator possible,
through openness to learning and to feed back from others |
|
