Terry L. Simpson, EdD
Prof. of Secondary Education Emeritus
Maryville College
Education Blog

Preparing New Teachers Who Will  
be Successful First-Year Teachers 

Professor Rebecca Lucas (Maryville College, Maryville, TN) and 5th Grade Teacher LeSeanny Brannon (Calvin Donaldson Environmental Science Academy, Chattanooga, TN)

I began my teaching career in the fall of 1973. And during the next 44 years, I spent most of my emotional, mental, physical and professional energy in this profession. I have not regretted a day that I spent trying to make our profession more effective and stronger. I now live in Houston, Texas, and a few weeks ago I attended a middle school open house. I met several teachers and when I mentioned that I had retired in 2018 after 44 years as a teacher, each teacher responded with the same phrase,” I’m sorry.” By the time I left the open house, I was pretty angry. What in the name of God are we doing?  “I’m sorry?” In this day and age, our children do not need teachers who are sorry because they are only a teacher. Of course, our children in any age have not needed a teacher with that attitude. Please allow me to calm down. I taught at the middle school, high school, community college, and university levels. I taught in both public and private education in two different states. I have taught wonderful young men and women whom I will never forget. Like you, I have also talked those students who made me mad as H_ _ _.

However, I think there are reasons for this pervasive attitude in teaching. In 1990, I went to Maryville College and served in the teacher education program for the next 28 years. Around half of those years, I was director of teacher education. Even today, as then, Maryville College never offered graduate programs.  I asked for graduate programs in education on several occasions, but I was turned down each time. The college wanted to emphasize undergraduate research, and it continues with that un1que purpose. As I look back on the situation, I have come to a very interesting conclusion. This single focus on undergraduate education helped the teacher education program to focus on equipping successful first-year teachers. No one on our faculty ever taught graduate classes. Each faculty member supervised student teachers each year, including myself.  I think I may have learned a few strategies and skills that are essential for preparing first-year teachers to be successful.

Mentors

A number of years ago, we began requesting specific information from our graduates that would become a very special tradition at the College. We often told our graduates that they were not equipped to be a common run-of-the-mill teacher. We expected them to win teacher of the year year at some point in their professional careers. We then told them, ”When you are selected as teacher of the year, you must call one of your professors at Maryville College before you call your mother.”  It was amazing how many of them did just that. Several years back, I began to receive phone call after phone call from our graduates telling me they had just been informed that they were chosen teacher of the year. After a few days of these calls, I called Dr. Rebecca Lucas and told her that we had a panel in the making for our student teaching seminar. We eventually were able to get nine of these MC graduates to attend a student teaching seminar on a Wednesday at 5 PM. When we had panels of this nature, we never told our graduates what to say. However, I began to hear the same important advice over and over again. They would tell our student teachers that when you get to your new school, find the most positive and effective teacher in the school and make that teacher your new best friend.  What were our graduates trying to tell our student teachers? New, first-year teachers must have mentors in order to be assured of success.

As teachers and administrators in the profession, we have known for a long time how important effective mentoring can be. However, most of the programs have been ineffective and lasted for a very short time. Consequently, when you are hired as a new teacher regardless of whether your school has a formal mentoring program, you must find a mentor.

As I began my professional teaching career in the fall of 1973, I will never forget those who were my mentors, but I don’t remember the school having a formal program. Brenda Yarnell was my team leader on Team 8-A. I will never be able to repay her for the confidence she built inside of me. The other extremely important teachers were Catherine Gettys and Jean Wolfe. We had the best middle school principal on this planet, George Perry.

An Effective Discipline Management Plan

I will concede the point that some of you may take exception to the term I have used in this paragraph. However, I have seen new and old terms for classroom discipline and management come and go. The one I have chosen encapsulates the point I am trying to make. Teaching and learning in the classroom require discipline. Every activity and learning strategy cannot be fun and games. I am not opposed to incorporating fun and games during instruction. I think that I used these strategies very effectively. Yet, I tried to make certain that discipline was maintained in my classroom.

There is one question regarding acceptable consequences for inappropriate behavior in the classroom that must be answered for every new teacher. If this question is not answered clearly, then most of the new teachers in that school will fail. Before this question is answered, several sub questions must be answered for new teachers. When should I seek help from other teachers? If I asked for help, will they give me help? The answer is not always “Yes.” When should I take a discipline problem to the Vice Principal or Principal?  If I take a discipline problem to the principal, will the principal consider me a classroom management failure and not renew my contract for next year? How often is this scenario played out in our local school?

These questions are not frivolous, petty, or insignificant. When they are not answered, new teachers feel threatened, insecure, and unable to teach. If you apply to a school controlled by a few powerful parents and/or politicians, and the administrators and teachers do not control the school system, I would advise you to find another school.

Standards

When I began my teacher education career at Maryville College in 1990, the state of Tennessee had just passed new standards that would greatly alter the way Tennessee’s colleges and universities had been preparing teachers. Each college/university would be visited by a Board of Examiners who would be trained by the Tennessee Department of Education. Their job was to determine if the college/university was adequately preparing its teacher education students to master the standards required by the state of Tennessee.

Something very interesting happened in Tennessee at this point, which I think was the greatest decision that could have been made by the state Department of Education. As we planned for our first date visit in 1992, the State Department of education did not give us a list of courses to teach. Rather, they gave us a list of standards to meet. Consequently, Maryville College was free to design the required courses taken by teacher education students. At this point, I will only say that our curriculum design or teacher education program was unique and a perfect fit for the curriculum at Maryville College. Feel free to talk with administrators and principals in the schools in the East Tennessee/Blount County area, and let these folks tell you if our graduates were well prepared to handle the classroom.

After the standards are clearly defined and your teacher education students can identify those standards and understand how to prepare instruction so their students can master those standards, we have to move to classroom learning objectives. We always asked our teacher education students to answer two questions as they planned instruction. One, what will your students know when this lesson is concluded? Two, what will your students be able to do from the standpoint of new skills after this lesson is concluded? I can remember distinctly must first social studies supervisor from Knox County schools when I began teaching. She would walk into my classroom and look on my walls and bulletin boards and ask, “Terry, where are your objectives? How you know if your students have achieved what you wanted them to learn?” The name of this social studies supervisor was Ms. Jane Doyle. In 44 years in education she continues to be the best supervisor I have ever worked with. She retired from Knox County schools and entered seminary to become a Methodist minister; however, she soon died with a brain tumor. It was a sad day.

Hard Work

Both of my parents grew up during the Great Depression on small farms in rural southeastern Tennessee. Both families had nine children and neither of my grandfather’s ever drove a car or other mechanical vehicle. They farmed land on these mountainsides using either mules or horses as the source of power. My father was born in 1920 and my mother was born in 1921. My father quit school in the six grade to go to work and help his family. He was lucky. A relative and family friend was able to get him a job at the local hosiery mill. My mother quit school in the 10^th grade, and one day I asked her why she quit school. She replied, “The other students make fun of me because of the clothes I had to wear to school.” This experience had a powerful effect on her until she day she died.

After I finished elementary school, my parents were not able to help me academically. When I went off to college, I was terrified. I was afraid that I would fail and humiliate my parents. However, there is one gift they gave me for which I am eternally grateful: Expect to Work Hard! Why do you want to be a teacher? I’ve asked this question a million times in 28 years to determine if we should admit a student into the Maryville College teacher education program. I did not always get a good answer. “Because you have the summers off,” is not a good answer. As we began each new academic semester, I would always remind my students of three things in order to be successful: “Be early, stay late, and over plan!”

Positive and Healthy Relationships Between Students and Teachers

In the last 44 years of being a teacher, I have lost count of the number of teachers in both public, private and religious education that are no longer teaching because of inappropriate relationships with students. Some of these relationships ended tragically in murder. If we could scare our new student teachers into walking the straight and narrow way regarding this issue, it was worth the effort.

Leadership in this issue must be taken by the adult in the situation: the teacher. As a new teacher, you must quickly get a handle on two attitudes that can result in a premature end to your teaching career. The first is a question: “Do you need the approval of your students?” This attitude may seem harmless, but it is far from being harmless. It can put a teacher in a situation of compromise with students. Students can recognize this attitude as a weakness in a teacher very quickly play the situation to their advantage.

As a teacher you cannot be the friend of your students. Your students do not need another friend; they need a dedicated and caring teacher. There must be a gulf between you and the students in your classroom. This does not mean you cannot listen to your students, care about their needs outside the classroom, be interested in their other activities outside the classroom, or care about their social and economic needs. There are safe and wise approaches to take when relating to your students in these areas as the teacher. If you try to be a friend to your students, you will never be their favorite teacher.

Bless You My Children