Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality recently released the third report of a multi-year study called “Teaching in Changing Times”. The current issue is entitled “Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long Range Plans” and is available on either site. Previous reports have focused on new middle and high school teachers and new teachers from alternative programs.

The report caused me to reflect once again on my earliest teaching experiences. I began my teaching career in the Boston area over 40 years ago during “changing times” as well. The social and cultural turbulence of the 60’s and 70’s was in large part external to the school house when I began, but not for long. The reason I mention this is not to rehash those impacts in any great detail, but it is worth noting that the greatest changes I saw were the burgeoning diversity, first racial and then ethnic, and the changes in special education. My training did not adequately prepare me for even the tranquil classrooms of children I encountered early on. With little formal support I struggled on my own for the most part to accrue the necessary skills to increase my effectiveness. I find it striking that new teachers today with vast improvements in their training remain overwhelmed in these same two areas.

In this survey new teachers gave high marks to their overall preparation and felt confident and prepared as they entered their first teaching assignment. That is consistent with my observation of new teachers in Connecticut over the last decade. In spite of the criticisms hurled at Schools of Education nowadays, preparation today is vastly superior to that of previous generations of teachers. It should be, if only because we now know so much more about the process of learning.

One area where these new teachers indicate that their training did not adequately prepare them was for the diversity of today’s classrooms. The big surprise in this finding is that new teachers in suburbs were more likely to complain about this than their colleagues in urban districts. It is not that they were not exposed to diversity in their coursework, but that it did not help - 76% said it was covered in their coursework, 60% said it only helped “a little” or “not at all”.

A second area of concern where new teachers feel they need additional support is special education. They were overwhelmed by the number of students identified as having special needs and less than a majority (47%) felt that their training helped them “a lot”.

One thing that is clear from this report is that we need to systematically listen to new teachers as they express the strengths and weaknesses of both their training and early on the job experiences. One of the greatest determinants of whether new teachers will stay in the profession is the degree to which they are supported as they transition from the abstraction of their training to the sometimes harsh realities of today’s classrooms.