The “care and feeding” of new teachers

Abstract

Any metaphor that likens teachers to infants is not likely to be popular with the school staff, but the new teacher (especially a beginner) is sometimes as dependent on help from others as a new-born babe. Effective staff members aren't just born, i. e., graduated from the teachers colleges; they need care and feeding as they grow and develop into competent, mature teachers. This is not a criticism of the neophyte teacher so much as it is just the nature of things. However, it does reflect on the dearth of practical pre-service experience in the teacher preparation period. Although most teachers colleges have practice teaching on an organized basis, there is usually little attempt to provide experience in such areas as extra-classroom duties, teacher-administrator-supervisor relationships, curriculum planning, and community-school relations. Partly as a consequence of this, the beginning teacher on his first job has not only a need to be oriented to the school and community, but also some very important needs in regard to a general induction to his