Reflection

The state of Alaska has a wonderful (and that's saying a lot when you're talking about state programs) new teacher mentoring program. Basically, they pay veteran or retired teachers to be "mentors" to a whole bunch of first- and second-year teachers. In a lot of other places, you're assigned a teacher mentor who's also currently teaching. This means that it's up to both the new and veteran teacher to (a) give a rat's ass about a mentoring program, and (b) have and set aside the time to meet. In hiring people to STRICTLY mentor, Alaska's facing up to the reality of teaching: if it doesn't affect tomorrow's lesson, it can wait until there is no tomorrow's lesson to worry about.

My mentor is mentor to myself, three other young teachers in my school, plus a bunch of other teachers in other villages. She has taught in rural Alaska for years, and knows her shit. She's not a boss, she's not a student teaching supervisor. She knows that some lessons, on some days, are just not going to be awesome because you just can't take the time to analyze all lessons from every angle. The first day the mercury rises above 60 in the village, you're NOT going to get much done after lunch, unless you (a) are both a sadist and a masochist, loving both to torture and be tortured, or (b) do what a bunch of classroom teachers did today and decided that a science lesson on local birds or plants involving a walk to the river was on the schedule. Sometimes good enough really is good enough. Strive for the best, of course. Just don't get too down on yourself when you acknowledge that a nature walk is going to be much more productive than a classroom lesson on plant parts. At least you acknowledged it.

Anyway, yeah, mentors. Ours, awesome. From what I've heard from teachers with different mentors, theirs are also awesome. They basically gives us what we need. When I was in the middle of my hellish month of language testing, she made photocopies and fetched students. She's sorted books for people. She's taught lessons so we could observe other teachers. So much of my learning this year has come, directly or indirectly, from her.

See? Government programs CAN be productive!