If this is your very first week teaching as a certified professional teacher, welcome to a wonderful profession.
Perhaps these are your first days teaching in a new district, if you recently moved communities.
Or you may be teaching a new grade for the first time, a new curriculum area, or exploring new teaching strategies.
A life in teaching is full of new beginnings and changing circumstances. Our colleagues are our best resource to offer immediate support, helpful feedback and situated challenge through a mentoring relationship. Engaging in a learning-focused, non-judgmental, collegial relationship means we don’t have to meet the challenge of new beginnings all on our own. Listen to Evan Wilson describe how she moved to a new community and was supported by her mentor in her first year of teaching primary in Dawson Creek.
Over half the school districts in British Columbia offer a formal mentorship program to support teachers new to the profession, and teachers changing assignments. Please visit district programs to find the mentorship program in your district and who to contact. This website also provides resources for new teachers, mentors and mentor leaders. If your district does not offer a mentorship program, this is a great time to ask, “why not?” The New Teacher Mentoring Project has formed a Provincial Mentorship Resource Team that is now able to help with development of a cohesive mentorship program in districts across BC. Email adavies@bctf.ca to find out more about the team and how they can help.
And welcome to a new school year, whatever ‘newness’ this September brings for you.
A new teacher’s perspective on the benefits of mentorship (5 min video).