Teacher Recruitment and Retention

"Most teachers do not make it past year five."  That is what I heard over and over again my first couple of years teaching.  Ouch.  The truth is; if you can make it through year one, you can DO ANYTHING!"  

Teacher retention in Agriculture Education is not great.  According the National Association of Agriculture Education (NAAE), nearly 50% of new teachers exit the profession within the first five years. That was a statistic I did not want any part of.  However, it was not an easy task.  My first year was incredibly difficult.  For starters, I was 22, and looked the exact same age as a high school student.  I also was following in the footsteps of a beloved teacher after his retirement of a 33 year career at that school, and the cherry on top, was that I was the first female ag teacher in the valley, ever.   I had my work cut out.  So what has kept me here? 

A number of situations contribute to my retention. 

1-      I have an amazing Master Teacher who mentors me when the need arises.  It is important to note that this is NOT in past tense.  She played a crucial role the first few years, and I probably called her three times a week that first year, but she has continued to be my support system. 

2-      My agriculture colleagues in the regional district checked in on me regularly.  What made this a successful program was the fact that they checked in on me.  I was terrible about asking for help, and rarely did.  They would call and invite me to dinner, or offer to drive me to our next meeting, and spend that time visiting about school and our personal lives.  This time was so valuable.  They would let me know that they went through the same thing, and I was going to be ok.  I was teaching the right stuff, and doing a good job at it.

3-      The building staff became my family.  I cannot tell you how many times I sat behind the desk in the office to vent, and the secretary just listened.  The other teachers were always available for insight. 

4-      As a building, we have Tuesday morning staff meetings to keep up to speed with students and activities. We share our student concerns, and do you know what we find out?  Everyone else is having the same problems.  So we devise a game plan, and we stick to it together.  We also have collaboration for 1 hour every Wednesday afternoon.  This time is carved out for professional development. 

5-      The teacher who I replaced was there to support me.  I can remember sitting in my classroom in July (no one told me I could turn the AC on by clicking the button) devoting hours to getting my classroom ready, and trying to figure out what the heck I was going to actually teach, when I heard a knock on the window.  It was the former teacher.  He saw my pickup parked outside and wanted to check in on how I was doing and see if I had any questions.  He gave me his number and told me to call him anytime. 

The underlying theme here is feeling supported, people coming to me, and not waiting to be called, and time to address issues I was having.  Now, 12 years later, Washington and the NAAE have a couple strong programs that are also helping retain teachers in the agriculture education field.  Our state association host a new teacher orientation twice a year, and the NAAE sponsors a TEACH AG campaign.  This is targeted more towards recruiting teachers, but I would say it helps remind teachers about how important our job is, and why we do it.

I know this article was focused towards Ag Ed, and many examples may be more common in small schools, but I think every teacher would do well if they had similar support.  Are there examples of support maybe from large schools that have helped you, or you feel would help a new teacher?

Strengths-Based Leadership

I have just finished reading chapter 8- Strenghts-Based Leadership in the book The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros.  A nice takeaway from the chapter was the idea that "If we are going to empower our students, we must help them find what they love and create learning experiences that encourage them to develop their strengths."  Hello!? So the questions are:

1. How can we play on our students' strengths to make their weaknesses stronger? 

    This is a very broad question.  I feel that in order to actually answer this question I would have to go through my entire class list and explain each of their strengths, as they will all be different.  To address the question as best as I can in a broad sense, I can change things for the class as I see them happen.  For example; many of the classic shop students have a hard time working on and turning in their textbook homework assignments.  I see this is happening, so how can if work their strengths? I could change the chapter assignment to a work order for the shop.  Now there is practical paperwork, and I can deliver the information from the chapter through a class demonstration. 

2. How would you go about finding your students' strengths in the first few days/weeks of school to help throughout the rest of the year?

    The great thing about Waitsburg School District is the fact that we are quite small.  This means that I already have a pretty solid knowledge of my students.  That of course is not enough.  The staff is also very good about sharing information.  This to me is a double edge blade at times.  It is great to get information on a student, but I am very careful about not letting that information give me a pre-conceived notion about a kid that may not be completely accurate.  One of my favorite games to play is 2 truths and a lie.  This does a few things for me: 1- I find out what there favorite summer activities are, and 2- I can tell if they are serious, silly, or looking to push the envelope.  

3. How do we mold learning as a student's "dream job" while they are in school?

    The great thing about the subjects I teach is that they are literally jobs that the student could begin to work at as soon as they finish my program.  My students may ask, “Why are we doing this?”  Most of the time I feel they are just asking that to get a rise out of me, and they are used to saying that to their other teachers.  They know before I begin my rant why they are learning this, and that they can/will use these skills in the “real world.”  I treat my shop classes just as if they were on the work site.  Their grade is tied to the amount of time they are on the job.  I would like to start adding items such as time cards, work invoices, and such to the daily routine.

These review questions are allowing game to dig deeper into Couros's theory and think about my own classroom and students.  I am excited to be planning for this school year.  

The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros

This blog is being resurected  to help me dig deeper into the content of the book The Innovator's Mindset.  This book is providing wonderful content that is getting me excited and thinking about the up coming school year.

Today's task is to discuss wether I am a classroom teacher or a school teacher.  According to Couros, a classroom teacher is one who does great things with his students inside the classroom walls.  A school teacher does that also, however they move beyond the classroom and engage with staff and students outside of class time.  

I can say fairly confidently that I am a school teacher.  I would actually say almost all of the high school staff I work with are school teachers.  We work very hard to emphasize the importance of cross curricular training, and share ideas, equipment, and even our own time to help each other.  I do not believe in keeping any information to myself.  Who is that really benefiting? When I share ideas, and someone else actually uses them, I receive feedback that helps me improve the activity in ways I hadn't thought about.

There are many opportunities for me to be more school centered when it comes to the students themselves.  Organization is not one of my strengths.    That being said, in the morning I am always rushing around to get ready for the day.  This is a time that I could be visiting with the students and getting to know them better.  I spend a LOT of time with the FFA members, but I do not connect as well with the general ed students.  A part of me always wishes for a 1st period prep so I do not have students coming in early to put their stuff on the desk, with then results in them staying to visit.  Really?  Come on Nicole.  I was that kid.  I needed that interaction with my teachers (who I held with such high regard).  I know how important that time can be to a teenager.  My goal this year is to have my act together in the mornings so I can spend that time interacting with my students. So fingers crossed I have last period prep to get my act together for the next day.  :-)