Gabrielle Wiebe- Stories of Beginning Teachers: First-Year Challenges and Beyond



Roehrig, A. D., Pressley, M., & Talotta, D. A.

            (2002). Stories of beginning teachers:

            first-year challenges and beyond.

           Notre Dame, Ind.: University of

           Notre Dame Press.

Stories of Beginning Teachers: First-Year Challenges and Beyond is a helpful book for pre-service and first year teachers, combining research results with narrative.  Instead of simply listing what to do or remember in hypothetical to-do or advice format, this book exposes the struggles of first-year students as told in their own voices.

This book has four sections: Introduction, Overview, First-year stories, and Daily challenges. The introduction outlines the conception of the book and details the twenty-two categories of challenges identified in first-year teachers' case studies.  This project is an addition to Simon Veenman's 1984 research and Kevin Ryan's 1970 approach of providing teachers with case studies in his book Don't Smile Until Christmas: Accounts of the First Year of Teaching.  (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 5)  While Stories of Beginning Teachers starts by alerting teachers to 22 issues, it emphasizes that they are only potential problems and most first-year teachers only experience some of these.  The editors also grouped the twenty-two challenges, presented as prose as well as in tables, into five larger categories:

1. self-challenges

2. student challenges

3. professional responsibility challenges

4. challenging adults associated with the school setting

5. outside-the-school challenges

                                  (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, pp. 16-17).
 

The second section of the book presented an overview of "the challenges reported by beginning teachers in the Notre Dame teacher education program" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 49).  It gave the context of the research conducted and presented many findings in prose, tables, and charts.  It concluded that the most noticeable problems for beginning teachers remained the most prevalent challenges for experienced teachers.  This led the editors to suggest, "Much more time and effort in teacher education should be directed at learning how to deal with challenging students" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 77).  Because of this study, the Notre Dame teacher education program has adjusted its structures to attempt to better prepare teachers.

The most substantial portion of this book was the third section, which presented reflections by eight first-year teacher on their entire first year.  Each story was prefaced with a third-person synopsis as well as questions to help the reader reflect while reading the story.  The story was written in first person, mainly highlighting challenges and struggles related to the new job.  The experiences of the contributing teachers included those in elementary, middle, and high schools. 

Amy's story took place in a high-needs elementary school with challenging students and a lack of resources.  She told of constant reflection and revision in her teaching strategies, describing that she had to establish a positive classroom culture before she could start teaching academics. 

Sarah's biggest concerns were classroom management and discipline.  Although she came in with many exciting ideas, she had to adapt, or even abolish, of many of her original ideas as she witnessed their failure in execution.  She outlined methods that did not work, and the reasons she chose new techniques.  She also struggled with student and parent interactions and organization.  She concluded by recognizing that she learned a lot in her first year and introduced new plans for her second year. 

Kimberly reflected on the challenges of motivating and teaching specific students with significant struggles in various aspects of their lives, spanning from a student with dyslexia to a student who survived a near-fatal car accident.  She also struggled with taking time to care for herself.  She experienced feelings of failure and identified the many important parties who saw her through the difficult times. 

Daniel struggled daily with many small challenges and reflected that by October he had become mean, due to feeling overwhelmed with teaching unfamiliar content and student misbehaviour, among other things.  His story concluded when his bag disappeared on April fool's day and he did not dismiss his class until it was returned to him. 

 

Michael struggled with personal relationships with individual students who annoyed or challenged him, and had to discover how to find common ground or interest on which to build relationships with these students. 

Chris taught junior high and had to change his open door policies, intended to build positive relationships with his students, when groups of female students wanted romantic attention from him.  To avoid false allegations, he had to make himself less available to his students.  He also struggled with finding ways to motivate students to engage with his content.

Kelly's challenges manifested themselves in the form of adult relationship struggles.  She did not feel like she fit in with the teaching staff, but appreciated having other first-year teachers as roommates.  She disagreed with administration on issues.  She was even confronted by parents, including one father who told her she was an awful teacher and that she should quit. 

Dennis taught high school and burned himself out by taking on too many extracurricular commitments.  This manifested itself in physical health struggles and he had to learn to recognize and stick to his limits.  As a coach, parents also confronted him with demands.

Since the body of this book considered yearlong challenges or major incidents, the final section of the book presented reports on daily challenges experienced by teachers.  Teachers were called and asked to reflect on the challenges of only that specific day.  This section also interviewed second year teachers, pointing out to readers how many skills teachers had gained with one year of experience.  This chapter gave readers insight into various events that might be daily occurrences, and how teachers are constantly making decisions on how to deal with problems, many of which are resolved instantly.

The book concludes with the recognition that teaching is a problem-solving profession and encourages new teachers, stating that "although the new teacher will face multiple challenges every day, most are solvable" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 224).  The editors clearly identified themselves "as constructivist teacher educators" and described that their "philosophical perspective is that school should be student centred" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 225).  They proposed that universities could help teachers during their practicum placements by providing more clinical supervision support and direct training in student related challenge mediation.  Here is their final advice:

"Our advice to the beginning teacher is to be ready to be challenged.  Be confident as well that you are equal to most of the challenges that confront you, and that much of your job as a teacher is to solve the day-to-day problems that are the 571 potential challenges of teaching reviewed in this volume.  Know that there are no canned solutions, but find inspiration in the many stories in this volume of young teachers who were not much different from you, who often served their students and schools well by getting very good at generating solutions to problems on the run"

(Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 230).

 

As the editors pointed out, there are no cookie-cutter solutions to the many challenges teachers may face.  Thus, I will not critique the strategies which the teachers in section three employed.  Each situation is multi-faceted, and these specifics dictate how a response will be accepted.  There are no contradictions within the book, as it clearly approaches the topic from authentic, individualized, and experimental experiences.  I appreciated the approach that the text takes, because I think that it walks the line between hypothetical scenarios and black-and-white answers well.  There is a power in story-telling that allow teachers to ponder how they will react alongside the narrator, while witnessing the authentic decisions made in the face of challenges.  As we have discovered in our readings, the world, and the classroom, are complicated places, with many theoretical approaches available to teachers.  In making decisions, teachers must use the resources available to them and strive to do their best for their students and for themselves.

I also appreciated the value placed on research by the editors.  They used their research to improve their teacher education program at Notre Dame, and I would be interested in seeing the University of Manitoba move in a direction with more practicum and stronger support for teacher candidates during their time in the field.  The editors clearly articulated this need: "An important message in this book is that even the best beginning teachers often can benefit from support, although different types of support than those required by the struggling teacher.  The teacher educator community needs to seriously consider what it can do to make beginning teaching as fulfilling as possible for the best of the young teachers, the young people we should most want to encourage to remain in teaching for the long term" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 230). 

Starting the book by presenting the findings of their current research, as well as the research of the past, provides context for the individual stories.  Although every teacher encounters their own combination of challenges, we as teachers need to remember that we are not alone in that fact that we encounter challenges.  Every teacher must be a problem-solver throughout her or his career, but the first year brings with it challenges en masse.  It is hopeful to see that many teachers continue in their career despite the trying first year, and that while challenges persist, the benefits of teaching outweigh the obstacles.  The editors' sending words suit the message of the book well: "You are about to begin a great odyssey, and many of you have it within you to meet its challenges" (Roehig, Pressley, and Talotta, 2002, p. 230).  I hope to meet many of my classmates as colleagues in the future, and that we all find encouragement in the survival stories of those who have gone before us!