An Administrator's Guide to Better Teacher Mentoring [Paperback]

This book address a major gap in the current mentoring programs at the secondary level. Staff development resources are often concentrated on helping new teachers be successful in their early school experience. Yes, a good idea, but a limited vision. Meanwhile many veteran teachers go without the mentoring assistance they need to be effective classroom teachers. While a few become mentors themselves, many veteran teachers just settle, slowly giving up, and become at risk of failure, burnout, and thinking only of retirement. This book is a call to school superintendents, building administrators, department chairs, school board members, union leaders, parent leaders, and teacher educators to address the need to provide ongoing mentoring forallteachers.William L. Fibkinsis an author, consultant, trainer, conference presenter, and he has led a number of successful secondary school reforms projects at the middle, junior high, and high school levels. He holds degrees in counselor education and school administration from Syracuse University. His experience includes director guidance; school psychologist; student assistance counselor; and teaching school leadership, administration, and counselor education courses at the graduate level. To find out more about him and his work, visit williamfibkins.com.

I highly recommend this new edition of Bill Fibkin's book on mentoring. Over the years, I have worked closely with teachers in both primary and secondary education. In my experience the well-trained, collaborative teacher may be the one consistently responsive adult in a child's life. Many of us retrospectively credit a teacher for our own productive adult lives. Bill's prescription of mentoring is a critical asset for both experienced teacher preservation and new teacher retention. The mentor learns anew by supporting a grateful young colleague, and the young teacher grows in respect to self and chosen profession. Better yet, isolation is relieved for both. l#"