No Teacher Left Behind?

This is a response from a case study referencing the plight of a novice teacher that has ultimately given up on attempting to control her classroom and is fearful of approaching the principal to voice her concerns.

Why haven't they come up with a federal initiative called "No Teacher Left Behind?" In the case of a struggling novice teacher, everyone (whether they know it or not) in the school community has a responsibility to ensure the teacher's success if not for anything but student learning. The novice teacher in question displays a vital need for a supportive environment in her school and classroom. She struggles with overcoming barriers of personality clashes, classroom management, student motivation and building relationships with others. It seems that this teacher needs to build her confidence before she can feel comfortable in her classroom as the sole authority figure. Whether or not that personal growth occurs is up to the more experienced members of faculty and administration and the time they spend offering guidance and support during this formative stage. If I was the principal, my responsibility as a school leader would be to do everything in my power to ensure the safety and education of all students, faculty and staff. This includes being a role model for appropriate behavior through establishing a positive school climate and culture. In this case, the new teacher has felt no support from her surroundings and had no one to reach out to for help. This would be as much my fault as it is the fault of her colleagues (where are your ethics, people?) and her assigned mentor (who is being paid additional monies to guide a new teacher in the classroom.)

Now, as principal, my only recourse would be to rectify the mistakes I've made and reverse the hopelessness my new teacher feels while attempting to salvage valuable instructional time with the students. It is obvious that this teacher has lost all certainty that she can handle her assignment, but at the same time she has great potential to become more than what she is right now. Acheson and Gall speak of the importance of trust and comfort within the teacher/administrator relationship. I would take steps to make sure that the new teacher would feel comfortable and at ease with me before I present her with an announced observation for professional development purposes. This may take some effort on my part, but if I am to help figure out what the exact issues are in the classroom and how to remedy them, I will need to have the most effective observation the first time I enter her classroom. Time is of the essence and student learning is at stake. Together we will identify her concerns and focuses for my observation and discuss them during our planning conference. While I recognize that this is the real world, and theory sometimes does not fit easily once put into practice, I truly cannot blame anyone but myself if the teacher performs horribly on the observation. My purpose would be to catch up on some much needed professional development using the Directive-Informational approach (Glickman Leadership for Learning), where instead of revoking the power of the teacher entirely, I would give her suggestions and allow her some say in the way she runs her classroom. Autonomy is my goal because there isn't enough time in the day to hold every teacher's hand during difficult times. I would also revisit my mentor choices and seek out some teachers that would be valuable assets to the developmental process of this teacher, and create 'peer coaching' pairs, or even 'critical friends' groups in order to take some of the anxiety out of the improvement procedure. Long-term goals would include changing the clique-like nature of behavior of individuals in the faculty and improving the school climate so that no one feels intimidated to seek help when it is absolutely necessary. Again, able teachers create able students: if no child is to be left behind, that can only happen if we first make sure that no teacher is being left behind.