Luke Rapley
EDAP 7802 (2nd hour – Saturday)
Dr. Bill Kruskamp
This spring, I was assigned as a mentor to another teacher in my department. Because my school has grown very fast over the past few years, the number of new (teachers with less than 3 years of experience) has greatly increased. This large influx of new teachers has created a shortage of trained mentors at my school. I am not a trained mentor; however, I was chosen to be a mentor because I have been teaching for over eight and the administrator that assigned me to be a mentor felt that I could offer a plethora of general teaching knowledge. Normally, I am somewhat reserved and do not get into other people’s business and I keep to myself during the school day; however, I have maintained an open-door policy for my mentee. I was not sure what I could offer my rookie colleague. Initially, I helped him get his grade book setup properly and made sure he had all of the proper forms completed for the beginning of the semester. This seemed to lift a big weight off his shoulders because he could concentrate more on lessons and teaching, rather than all of the other little things. I had not taught the courses he was teaching so I was not much help with his planning and pacing; however, I looked over his plans to see how he was going about teaching his lessons. Also, I introduced him to another colleague that has taught the classes he was teaching and he turned to this person many times during the semester for pointers. The mentoring experience was very eye-opening. Many of the little things that are second nature to me now can cause huge roadblocks for new or inexperienced teachers. I never put much thought into all of the little things because I have created a method of taking care of them with little hassle to my schedule. Through working with my mentee, I was able to minimize many of these little roadblocks and allow him to concentrate most of his energy towards the classroom and his lessons. This experience made me more aware of the many problems new teachers face and it has shown me the importance of having a good mentor program present in the school. Without a mentor program at a school, new teachers can easily become overwhelmed with the little things and become burnt-out before their careers even have a chance to start.