“I am here. I am in this classroom. I am responsible for teaching these children. I am here – does anyone see me? Does anyone care?” When the bell rings and classroom doors close, even though there are children in the room and there are other teachers in nearby classrooms, every initial educator feels alone on the job. And their feeling of being alone does not stop after the first day. Being the only adult in their classroom is their new daily reality. It is not until their Horton hears their silent cry with an “I hear you and I see you and I care,” that they will breathe easier and settle into being a teacher.
Hortons are professional teacher friends.
Ask teachers about their long-term teacher friends and most will name and describe a teacher or small group of teachers they met in their first days and months as a classroom teacher. Many say their friends found them, they did not find their friends. An early teacher friend is a Horton, just like the Seuss elephant who singularly heard the microscopic community of Whoville. A teacher Horton hears and sees starting teachers and connects with them. But not every teacher is so lucky as to have a Horton.
Hortons and professional teacher friends are different than friend friends. Hortons and teacher friends band together, like kids from the same neighborhood who create invisible understandings that withstand the tests of time. Through their common moments of joy and tribulation, teacher friends make teaching a wonderful career.
Some teacher friends will be other starting teachers, and some will be veterans who “clicked” into a friendship with a young teacher. Many will be job alike teachers – people who teach the same subjects or the same grade levels or share other similarities in their teaching assignments. A Horton is a particular veteran teacher who makes a unique professional connection with a newcomer teacher.
Very few Hortons are school-assigned mentors. Mentors fulfill assignments, Hortons fill needs.
Starting teachers who do not have PTFs typically do not last long as teachers. Although low compensation, extra hour work, and low public esteem are listed as the major reasons for early career resignations, the lack of PTFs is a significant contributor to job dissatisfaction. Consider teachers in your school who resigned in their first years. Did they have Hortons? Bet they did not.
Hortons are just Hortons doing what Hortons do.
Hortons come in all shapes and sizes meaning there is no singular characteristic that describes them.
I saw a Horton knock on a new teacher’s classroom door, walk in, introduce herself, and at once strike up a friendship. Until Horton’s retirement, they were professionally and personally inseparable.
Another Horton watched a new teacher for several days, found a seat next to the rookie at a meeting, and without fanfare began to help a new colleague to understand and interpret information that was being presented. Sensing a willing veteran opened the rookie to sharing his trepidations about school and listening to professional guidance.
Some Hortons view a new teacher as a team member knowing that a strong teaching team requires strong teachers. They prioritize making a rookie part of their team. They also have the insight to coach toward best practices not just talk about them. Their soft explanations and demonstrations exemplify professional collegiality.
Athletics, arts, and activities provide easy Horton connections. Teacher shortages also beget coach and director shortages. Many first-year teachers accept or are assigned extracurricular contracts as part of their employment. Being part of a coaching or theatrical staff or being an activity advisor connects a new teacher with other school adults and creates a unique relationship with school parents. Coaches, directors, and advisors are visible, and extracurricular visibility creates teacher visibility.
Most Hortons are persistent. They know a first-year teacher faces many challenges and will have good and not so good days at school. By recognizing and acknowledging a rookie’s good days, they make a newcomer more receptive to consolations and suggestions when improvements are needed.
Hortons are more likely to be Hortons out of school as well. If they are parents, they help to lead and guide the activities their children join. They join and attend community activities. Their capacity to share is internally not externally motivated and reinforced.
Schools create solitary teachers.
That reads a bit harshly, but it is a true statement. School isolates teachers, starting teachers especially. It happens in these two ways.
First, school principal attention to a new teacher lasts a proverbial ten minutes after the teaching contract is signed. Administrative assistants and school secretaries take care of new teacher onboarding. The principal quickly shifts to the search and hiring of other vacant teaching positions or to any other crisis that dots an administrator’s daily calendar. Once a starting teacher is shown to her classroom, she is on her own.
This is not a criticism of principals. The pandemic and post-pandemic responsibilities of a school principal have changed significantly. The stress of finding and keeping faculty and staff is only one of many, though it may be their most important task.
Second, classrooms are “black boxes.” Most teachers close their classroom doors because what happens in their classroom is their business and no one else’s business. Visitors to classrooms are rare because every other person in the school has their own classroom or job responsibilities. Everyone in school does their job in relative isolation to each other. A math teacher is her classroom is as invisible as a custodian sweeping halls or cleaning a toilet during class time. Exceptions are in the school kitchen; the hustle and bustle of preparing student snacks and lunches requires constant teamwork.
How and why does this happen?
New teachers are easily lost in late August, September, and October. Everyone at school gets into the hype of a new school year. Teachers have new assignments of children to teach, and all fall sports and activities garner the enthusiasm of new seasons. Excitement surrounds and sweeps up starting teachers, but it does not overcome the isolation of their black box work. First-year teachers drift into the backwaters of a new school year.
Doing a good to exceptionally good job in the first year decreases visibility. Problems get attention, but doing well gets no attention. A first-year teacher who is poorly prepared, communicates badly with students and parents, and has trouble with school deadlines, especially if these deficits reach the school board, will have frequent and pointed conversations with a principal. A rookie whose peer, student, and parent relations are okay to good, even exceptionally good, will sail into the second semester without drawing notice. They fit into the expectations of veteran teachers and are lost in the overall impression of “no problems with that one.”
Schools are stingy with accolades and positive reinforcement. Consider the news releases about your local schools to confirm this statement. Athletics get the most press. School musicals and plays come next. Upside academic performances are overshadowed by the downside state assessment news releases. And most teachers humbly avoid the limelight. Good news reflects on students not teachers.
January and February are important months for first-year teachers. Statutorily, teachers who will not receive a continuing contract must be given written notice by the school board. This may be the first time a board member has heard the names of first-year teachers who were not associated with peer, student, or parent problems. At the same time, Boards consider next year’s budget and school staffing. If layoffs are necessary, the order of layoff is “the last hired is first fired.” Some teachers are one-year teachers in multiple school districts when school financing is lean across the state.
Invisibility looks and feels like this.
A first-year teacher is a mailbox in the school office. Communications come to the mailbox not the person. A rookie has more conversations with the school secretary and custodian than any other teachers.
Invisibility breeds hesitancy. First-year teachers are slow to speak in department, grade level, or school faculty meetings. Few veterans call on them for an opinion. As new teachers, they are silent and viewed as peers-in-training. They go to meetings silently, sit silently, and leave silently.
Most arrive at school early and leave late because they are new to their curriculum and need time to prepare lessons and lesson materials. As early/late people, they do not mingle with their coming and going colleagues.
They eat alone in their classrooms. Being alone breeds loneliness.
The Big Duh!
There is a happenstance when a Horton hears, sees, and connects with a new teacher. The number of teachers who resign their positions in the first three years of their career tells us there are not enough Horton connections. Sadly, there are excellent potential teachers in those resignation – they find success in their next careers.
If we intend to build a high-quality teaching faculty in every school, we are required to close the happenstance ratio. I suggest that we keep retiring Hortons, those in their last years as classroom teachers, to serve as post-employment Hortons. Let’s just label them as Hortons, a new, very part-time faculty position. Hortons will not teach students, they will teach teachers how to acclimate to productive, active faculty members. Unlike mentors who may fulfill assignments, post-retirement Hortons continue to fulfill needs.
Let’s set a goal of reducing early teacher resignations by 20% by hiring Hortons. A Horton will pay for herself in the savings the district will not need to spend on constant turnover replacement costs. More importantly, Hortons will save teaching careers that otherwise end too early.