Feeding Our Young
James L. Drexler, PhD
Chair of the Education Department
Dean of Social Sciences and the Master of Education Program
Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Georgia
Sam was a natural in the classroom. With his deep belly laugh, his captivating baritone voice, a strong intellect, and a love for children, he was a great addition for our school. He was well trained, having bachelor’s and master’s degrees in his field. And since he had played college basketball, he was a logical choice for a coaching position. As one of our few minority teachers, this friendly, eager 6’4” African American was a school administrator’s dream hire.
And teaching and coaching is exactly what we assigned him to do—six sections of teaching each day, including four preps. He eventually had nearly 150 students, many of whom were freshmen. Added to this load were coaching the JV boys and girls basketball teams and serving on several committees (after all, don’t we want our parents to know the new black teacher, too?). And Sam was a willing, hard worker, never one to say no or “that’s too much.” He worked long hours during the week, and sometimes he even worked harder over the weekends in a vain attempt to keep up with all the grading and other paperwork.
By the way, Sam received no comprehensive induction or formal mentoring other than the on-again, off-again contact with his department head. Not surprisingly, then, after only 1 year of teaching, Sam left, and to this day more than 20 years later, he has not returned to the classroom. Sam was a classic case of burnout or, as one author defines it, new teacher “hazing”: “institutional practices and policies that result in new teachers experiencing poorer working conditions than their veteran colleagues” (Patterson 2005, 21).
Some might read this account and conclude that this unfortunate incident happened so long ago that things have certainly improved since then. In some schools and in some districts they have, but the statistics indicate that by and large, effective and comprehensive induction programs are still few and far between, especially in Christian schools.
On top of not effectively inducting and mentoring new teachers, schools often overload them with too many preps, give them the more difficult classes and students, and assign to them extra duties that often exacerbate the already existing feelings of inadequacy, fear, uncertainty, and frustration. It’s no wonder that many first- and second-year teachers quit. Educational leaders, therefore, find themselves coconspirators in perpetuating an unjust and inhumane practice: programming new teachers for failure. Chillingly, “some observers have dubbed education ‘the profession that eats its young’ ” (Halford 1998, 33).
“In the 1999–2000 school year, approximately 500,000 public and private school teachers left the teaching profession, with more than 123,000 of them attributing their departure to a lack of appropriate administrative support…. Nearly one-fourth of new teachers leave the profession after only two years, and one-third leave after three years” (Millinger 2004, 66, citing Ingersoll 2002).
The Alliance for Excellent Education (AEE)—in a significant, 80-page report—paints an even bleaker picture when it asserts that almost 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within five years (2004, 7)—a staggering statistic that has titanic financial, social, and academic implications for schools. The financial cost of replacing a teacher can be as much as $1.50 on the dollar when all costs are considered. In terms of social capital, the cohesiveness of the teaching faculty will suffer by a high attrition rate among teachers. And, most important, the academic achievement of students will be shortchanged as they experience a revolving door of teachers.
The AEE report asserts that “placing new teachers in the most challenging classrooms without comprehensive induction … is like putting newly licensed drivers in the top heat of a NASCAR race” (2004, 2). The report gives an apt metaphor: “Schools are leaky buckets losing existing teachers faster than they can take in new ones.” AEE also describes the effect on students: “The real crisis is created by the large number of beginning teachers who leave the profession teacher attrition—before they can become the kind of high-quality teachers who consistently improve student learning” (p. 7).
We can and we must do better for our teachers, our students, and our schools.
References
AEE. 2004. Tapping the potential: Retaining and developing high-quality new teachers. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.
Halford, Joan Montgomery. 1998. Easing the way for new teachers. Educational Leadership 55, no. 5 (February): 33–36.
Ingersoll, Richard M. 2002. The teacher shortage: A case of wrong diagnosis and wrong prescription. NASSP Bulletin 86 (June): 16–31.
Millinger, Cynthia Simon. 2004. Helping new teachers cope. Educational Leadership 61, no. 8 (May): 66–69.
Patterson, Mary. 2005. Hazed! Educational Leadership 62, no. 8 (May):
20–23.
Feeding Our Young 12.3