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Just Do It For Me: The Roles and Responsibilities of A Teacher

Decent Essays

As new teachers leave the world of the University for the world of teaching, they often do not fully understand what is expected of them. The roles and responsibilities of a teacher can be vague and hard to understand when a new teacher is unwilling to ask questions of a mentor teacher, or the mentor teacher is unwilling to aid the new student. As Cathrine Le Maistre states in her paper, titled “Mentoring Neophyte Teachers: Lessons Learned from Experience” there is a much higher level of attrition after the first year of teaching than in any other year (2000). She believes that new teachers should be taught how to use their own minds, and not simply be given “manila folder of notes” (La Maistre, 2000. p. 84) and be expected to follow …show more content…

Also, if you plan on teaching someone, it is not enough to hand the student a set of notes and expect them to understand; a mentor teacher should look at their student teacher as a student, which is what they still are and explain the process to them like they are a student. Student teachers and first year teachers are very similar, and should not be treated the same as experienced teacher; they should be given more guidance so they are better able to become experienced teachers in the future. Since new or student teacher will not understand fully the roles and responsibilities of a teacher, it is up to the mentor teacher and other experienced teachers to guide them through the process of becoming a teacher. Most schools that hire first year teachers will have a mentor program in place, however, according to Thomas M. McCann and Larry R. Johannessen, authors of “The Role and Responsibility of the Experienced Teacher” explain how simply having a mentor program is not enough to guarantee the success of a first year teacher. McCann and Johannessen explain what makes a poor mentor program; one in which there is an over emphasis on specific meeting times, and the time commitment of such a program is actually counter-intuitive as both sides of the mentor relationship will become frustrated

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