(Notes from a Thursday morning workshop at the NWP Annual Meeting, revised after a very long day.)
Roundtable 1: Balancing the immediate needs of new teachers with an inquiry approach
There were two presenters, both of whom have a lot of experience running Writing Project sites that deal with all sorts of new teachers in high-turnover districts. Philadelphia and Boston have a lot of Teach for America participants, plus career-changers and teachers just out of school. This creates a lot of difficulties for maintaining continuity.
Dina Portnoy, Philadelphia WP, presented first. New teachers come from three places—young people straight out of the masters or pre-service programs, second career people, and Teach for America. The New Teacher Initiative used technology and building websites to promote teacher inquiry among the new teacher group. They used the KEEP Toolkit to simply collect and present data in an easy way. An inquiry into practice course—second year teachers who are working on certification/masters—pairs writings by teachers (many in NWP) paired with theoretical pieces that informed those writings. They used Blackboard, and wrote a lot about it. Also, teachers in the program have to develop their own inquiry questions. Issues are typical NCLB/urban schools issues. One new teacher was science department chair by October. TFA people tend to be put in these kinds of schools. Also, there is a need for immediate strategies for everything, especially classroom management, that all brand-new teachers (especially alternative certification teachers) have. Also, who’s going to stay and for how long will they stay? TFA is a 2-year commitment. 97% stay second year (higher than retentation rate for new teachers in traditional cert programs), 40% stay beyond second year.
Steve Gordon of the Boston WP presented next. When someone begins teaching, they want support and to belong to a community, but they are intellectuals who want to become teachers. How can we support that? How do you support a commitment to the craft? Starting problem—how do you recruit new teachers to join a new community that’s not officially required by the school district? Boston WP offered a retreat on Nantucket! Funding for inquiry classes is an issue—BWP is affiliated with UMass Boston. The cost to run the program can be prohibitive. You need your class to be a year long. BWP’s first inquiry class was only one semester, which wasn’t enough time. The second one (about publishing) was a full year. Publishing dignifies intellectual thinking. The numbers dropped as the year went on—you have to attend to recruiting new people while you’re creating a sustaining culture of people who are already on board. They talked to people two years after they participated to follow up.
I still think of myself as a new teacher—I’m in my fifth year, but I’ve been in two different districts. I’m still finding my way. Part of the reason for my participation in this workshop is selfish—I am an unabashed nerd and want to find out about the sorts of inquiry projects that other new teachers are working on. Another part, though, is more altruistic. I feel that since I am so new, both to the profession and to the Writing Project (just joined the CWP leadership council this year) that I can be a voice for newer teachers. So many WP people are highly experienced or retired and while I trust that they have our best interests in mind, I think it is important to have the voices of newer people represented. A question I have is whether the participants in the inquiry course were able to maintain/sustain their community after the course ended—did they get together in writing groups or something like that, or did they drift back into their own corners of the school district? I think that maintaining that continuity would be really important, especially since my impression is that it’s very hard to complete an inquiry project and get it to the point of publication in just one year. That ongoing support (not just by WP core members, but by inquiry class participants) seems vital.
Roundtable 2: Modifying sites’ work to meet the needs of new teachers
Vickie Brockman, Winthrop Writing Project (SC)—teachers with less than 3 years experience aren’t invited to summer invitationals, but they have monthly dinner meetings (Thursdays, white tablecloths) that deal with issues DRIVEN BY WHAT THEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT. There’s a summer program for new teachers—after 2 summers of that, they are invited to summer institute. But how do they stay involved in the monthly meetings? They have conversation partners, whose job it is to keep conversation focused at new teacher dinner meetings using a protocol. The key seems to be to talk to people who are one step removed (3-5 years experience) rather than someone with 30 years of experience. Little pieces of work at a time for new teachers. Everyone gets some ownership, and leadership people are grown from the start. A book study group didn’t work. LISTEN TO THEM AND CHANGE FOR WHAT THEY NEED. Southern Nevada— is the 5th biggest district in the country, basically Vegas + surrounding areas. 8,000 new teachers in last five years. What is a new teacher? There are lots of alternatively certified teachers. A traditional mentoring system didn’t work for SNWP any better than it did for the Las Vegas school district, which no longer has a new teacher induction program. Inquiry is the most overlooked portion of new teacher training—they think they want people to show them how to take attendance, but really need reflection/research. It’s important to have new and veteran teachers work together to have these conversations. NWP has expanded work geographically while getting deeper. How do you keep TCs on the same page? How do you keep them involved in the WP? How do you feed new teachers into the WP? Lasts five days. Work through use of protocols, how are they used, designed, etc.
Writing is KEY to protocols—doesn’t matter what the protocol is about. You can have smaller groups at different schools, led by trained TCs. This is how the CWP can get involved with reaching both new and veteran teachers.
New teachers in CT are pulled in many directions, as I’m sure they are everywhere. In our 2nd year, we complete the BEST portfolio, which is a four-pronged reflective monstrosity that takes basically from October-May to complete. That’s the main focus of the 2nd year, and districts in CT find themselves trying to support their new teachers in this pursuit while also demanding that they prepare their students for the now-mandatory-for-graduation standardized testing system that’s in place in the state. Last year was my 2nd year in CT, so I did my BEST portfolio, but I also had participated in the CWP summer institute the summer immediately before. I think my experience there was what got me through the Teaching of Writing portion. I wonder if there’s a way for WP sites to help new teachers through these certification program requirements.
New teachers are people to be worked with, not worked on.
WP sites are a home for all teachers, not just experienced teachers.
There’s a dichotomy between inquiry and actual practice—it’s not just another new thing they need to do, but it should be a part of their practice. The answers are there. It’s a practical way to conduct business every day.
