Meet the Teachers
by Camille Hedrick, Potomac Falls High School
Original text © 2004 Camille Hedrick
Mentoring Matters 3
All participants felt that it was essential that principals actively support the mentoring process. As Nell said, “He should show support for all mentoring, but as a guide, not necessarily taking it on himself. He needs to initiate the interacting between teacher and teacher.”
They talked about how social activities with their colleagues made their jobs easier. Katherine described a veteran who made it a point to welcome her when she first arrived at the school:
She came down and introduced herself and said we were “Nubian sisters” and that if there was anything at all she could do to help me, told me where to find her in the building. She would come down at least that first week, that first couple of weeks, just to check on me to see if I was okay, which I thought was kind of cute.
These career-switchers discussed various outcomes of collaboration such as sharing lesson plan ideas, and strategies for working with students and parents. As Christine put it:
Here everyone is willing to share and help out. On the Bio team…we do that. I mean, sharing tests, worksheets, labs, going into each others’ classrooms and making suggestions. We’re in each others’ rooms all the time.
Sergiovanni (1996, 1994, 1990) believes that schools should be collegial, and promotes a school culture where teachers are committed to each other and the values of the school community. Schools are learning communities, where professionals feel connected through their commitment to shared purposes, and obligated to their profession and each other. Schools are communities of shared values organized around interdependent relationships which nurture and bond their members.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) work focuses on the continuously changing interactions between a developing person and the environment in which that development takes place as the process is influenced by the relationships between the settings within the environment, as well as those contexts in which they revolve. His research is especially applicable to schools, since schools are learning communities where all members are developing people. The environment of a school is its culture. Sergiovanni (1996) defines school culture as the beliefs and assumptions about the workings of the school, which inform teachers concerning acceptable behavior.
