A Sense of Belonging: Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers
By Jennifer Allen
(2009, Stenhouse Publishers)
Reviewed by Marti Schwartz
Teacher, Novice-Teacher Educator (Rhode Island)
Teacher Leaders Network
I loved this book! When I began reading it in early September, I approached it through the lens of a coach/mentor for a group of novice teachers who spent a week with me in a seminar this past summer. From that perspective, I found the subtitle intriguing and hoped for good advice.
Shortly thereafter, in a moment of optimism, I agreed to come out of semi-retirement and signed on for a totally new professional experience: after 32 years of elementary teaching, I was suddenly facing urban high school students on a daily basis — as a quasi-novice!
These two roles — new-teacher mentor and rookie high school teacher — kept me reading Allen’s book, when I could find time to breathe. As each chapter unfolded yet another piece of the support plan under which Allen operates, I found myself wishing that I could magically whisk away and live in her town and work in her school, under her guidance.
The program that Allen and her Maine district (Waterville Public Schools) has established is one that sounds so reasonable and supportive that one can only wonder why this isn’t being practiced everywhere. If, as Allen says, “almost 50 percent of all new teachers leave our profession after only five years,”(research cited on p. 3), then our educational system is wasting a tremendous amount of time and energy by not supporting novices everywhere more fully. To keep retraining new recruits while five years of experience walks out the door is just plain foolish.
Allen makes it look simple: set up a routine that supports teachers with monthly meetings, assistance in planning, time to observe others, and guidance in teaching their own classes. She makes no mention of how this is all funded, and one wonders how, in these difficult times, the district is able to support each of these pieces. And, though she offers many inspiring stories of those novices, she does not offer any data about the retention rate of the new teachers in her district. But these are peripheral issues; the blueprint she offers is one that seems sound, replicable and intriguing.
Writing in a collegial, inviting style, Allen offers many stories of her own past experiences as a new teacher as well as examining the athletic adventures of her children and herself through the lens of the teaching and learning that takes place in the hands of a gifted coach. Her stories are spot on — we can easily grasp the guidance and wisdom being offered, even before she points it out.
The plan of teacher support is frequent, intensive, individualized, and brilliant. As a literacy coach Allen works, first, to build relationships with new teachers even before the school year begins (just as many of us try to connect with our students mid-summer, to ease their anxiety and generate their enthusiasm for the tasks ahead). Once a month new teachers are released for the day — spending the morning observing in classrooms, and the afternoons debriefing and planning, with guidance and support.
Allen works “in a first-year teacher’s classroom three times a week for at least 45 minutes, and supports them in their second or third year at least once a week or as needed.” (p. 6) This gives her the opportunity to get to know the students (and their demands or quirks) on an immediate basis, and allows the novice the chance to see a seasoned teacher work with her own students — sometimes experiencing the same challenges that she herself has faced. In partnership with a well-prepared coach, the novice can learn multiple ways to handle those challenges from a practitioner who has dealt with many, many challenging students and classrooms in the past.
Giving and interpreting assessments and using student work to guide instruction are key learning goals for novice teachers under Allen’s wing. Again, teachers are given two days out of their classroom (for fall and spring assessments) to administer, score, and analyze the assessments. For those of us who have tried to balance such work while teaching at the same time — this seems like heaven!
“The second and third years of teaching are an opportunity for new teachers to define themselves as educators. I see these years as an opportunity for new teachers to refine instructional practice and put together the pieces of the curriculum,” states Allen (p.59), noting that she continues “to support them in a way that nurtures them to become the teacher they want to be.” While Allen certainly has some ideas as a literacy coach of what “best practice” looks like, she seems wise enough to enable teachers to discover what it looks like for them.
Allen supports her teachers in other ways: providing them with student-sized dry erase boards, microcassette recorders, mentor texts, books to add to classroom libraries, writer’s notebooks, and other classroom supplies. Having spent 30 years in a suburban public school system, I must report that almost all of those supplies came out of teachers’ own wallets. But we also didn’t have a literacy coach, or someone who so passionately, wisely, devotes her time to ensuring that good things are happening in ALL classrooms, not just a chosen few. Should your own school experience be less supportive, reading through A Sense of Belonging will give you many concrete ideas about ways to improve your own literacy instruction, begin a study group, or venture into the realm of classroom visitations.
What Allen has given her novices is the gift of time: time to talk, reflect, observe, share, grow and learn, all with gentle, appropriate support. Additionally, the time is built into the novices’ teaching lives — professional growth does not require that precious moments be stolen from their non-existent “free time.”
What Allen has given to all of us is a powerful model of strengthening the practice of novice teachers, in a book that is enjoyable to read and inspiring to emulate. “New teachers are establishing lifelong habits of collaboration and reflection…” (p.91), she writes. And I have to agree: her novice colleagues, their students, and the educational system of Waterville, Maine, will surely reap the benefits for decades to come.
