Teaching New Teachers
This year, Crescent’s Centre for Boys’ Education (CCBE) took on a new challenge: introducing student teachers to an independent school environment. We’ve developed relationships with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University and plan to create a partnership with one more faculty of education.
Why bring in student teachers? First, education faculties typically direct their teacher candidates toward the public education system. There’s nothing wrong with this, but their candidates miss many career-defining opportunities in the independent sphere. Second, working with student teachers is an excellent way for current teachers to improve their practice. Experienced educators learn a lot by teaching new teachers how to teach.
Teaching someone how to teach sounds like a Zen koan: “Can a teacher teach teaching?” You can teach them the mechanics of teaching: having a lesson plan, having units move towards a specific goal, following the curriculum (or learning how to interpret it creatively), and meeting all the requirements outlined in Growing Success and other ministry documents. Teaching, however, requires more than mechanics.
Sometimes, you get great advice that sticks with you throughout your career. I found my first placement twenty-five years ago challenging until I received a great tip from my associate teacher. “Projects,” he said. “When prepping multiple courses, get one or two of your classes to work on a project to take the pressure off. It was great advice that reflected years of classroom experience, which I still follow today.
However, great advice and mechanics won’t help new teachers master one of the most important things: finding their voice. This nebulous process takes time and does not come naturally for every teacher. Not everyone can be a stern, disciplinarian math/science teacher, a cool history/English/geography teacher, or a backslapping good buddy coach. Teachers need to figure out their classroom personality—a genuine version of themselves that will allow them to teach and connect with their students. Watching an experienced teacher navigate a classroom can be a great learning experience for a new teacher seeking a voice and style of their own; being the institution that those up-and-comers seek out benefits Crescent, too.
