ORIENTATION MONTH REFLECTIONS

CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT AND TEACHERS FREEDOM

My pre-service programs did little to prepare me for the realities of
classrooms,
including dealing with unruly students. A bigger bag of classroom management
tricks would have been helpful (Fry, 2007, p. 225). I am feeling particularly
overwhelmed by the most difficult students. Student in my classroom is having a
significant impact on my interaction with the remainder of the class. I don't have the
professional skills to deal with this extreme behaviour.

Another concern that I commonly identified is a lack of guidance and

resources for lesson and unit planning. In a recent survey of more than 8,000 Teach
teachers nationwide, 41 percent said their schools or districts provided them with few
or no instructional resources, such as lesson plans. When classroom materials were
provided, they were seldom useful; just 15 percent of the respondents reported that
materials were of sufficient quality for them to freely use (Mathews, 2011). Although
such curricular freedom may be welcomed by veteran teachers, it appears to be a
burden for new teachers like me, who has not yet developed a robust repertoire of
lesson ideas or knowledge of what will work in their classrooms (Fry, 2007). Case
studies have observed novice teachers struggling "just trying to come up with
enough curriculum" and spending 10 to 12 hours a day juggling lesson planning;
grading: and the myriad demands of paperwork, committees, and extracurricular
assignments (Fry, 2007, p. 225). It's worth noting that many schools that have
successfully raised low-income students' achievement have taken a distinctly
different approach. Rather than letting new teachers sink or swim with lesson
planning, they provide binders full of model lesson plans and teaching resources
developed by veteran teachers (Chenoweth, 2009).

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ORIENTATION MONTH REFLECTIONS

Mentors as Support providers

Brannan and Bleisten (2012) conducted a study to investigate the novice
teachers perceptions of support. Results revealed that novice teachers are in need
of support and what they want is support like pedagogical ideas, teaching
resources, and logistical knowledge provided by colleagues, mentors or both (p.
534). They also want to receive additional feedback from mentors and affective
support, which shows that they find the assistance useful to cope with the
challenges. They emphasized the importance of the need to be heard and
appreciated when they were heard and received affirmation in their teaching
practice. With a slightly different area of emphasis, Mann and Tang (2012) examined
the role mentoring plays in novice teachers professional development, support and
socialization in their case study. They examined the support novice teachers
received from their mentors over a full year and the nature of this support.

As Worthy (2005) states, novice teachers in Hong Kong are often expected
to perform effectively and assume full teaching responsibilities right from the first day
on the job (as cited in Mann and Tang, 2012, p. 473). Therefore, they need some
kind of support to survive this period easily. Results reveal that mentors play a very
important role in supporting novices. Mann and Tang (2012) also focused on the age
and experience of mentors, and examined whether or not these affected the
relationship between mentors and novices. They found that having an experienced
mentor was not necessarily an advantage. This is evident in my PPGB programme in
which I had the most positive relationship with my mentor who had good teaching

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ORIENTATION MONTH REFLECTIONS

experience and our relationship is as peers based on willingness to collaborate and

help one another.
I would like to claim that mentors are good sources of emotional and practical
support, perceived as more approachable, and with more attainable suggestions.
Carter and Francis (2001) also stated mentors are better at emphasizing and
recalling what it is like to be a beginning teacher (as cited in Mann and Tang, 2012,
p.485). As an alternative, there might be two mentors, with the experienced mentor
playing a more advice giving role and the relatively inexperienced mentor playing a
collaborative and empathetic role. In this way, the novice teachers can benefit from
two mentors to meet their different needs. Personally, I experienced the benefits of
having a mentor who is there to explain all the difficulties as mentioned above. I
appreciated when my mentor listened to me, offered help when I needed and shared
their experiences with me.

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