First Rites

NEA Student members are just starting down the path into teaching—with NEA-Retired mentors lending a helping hand. More...

Closing the Distance Divide—Virtually You Want In?

Ruby Davis remembers her first teaching job, at Saratoga Elementary School in Omaha, Nebraska, back in 1964. She was 21, from a small town in Arkansas. "I felt I was well-prepared academically," recalls Davis, "but there were so many day-to-day things I still needed to learn."

Fortunately, Ellen Harrell, a first-grade teacher with 15 years of experience to share, was right next door. "She took me under her wing," Davis says. "For the first day of school, she helped me get my classroom ready," decorating the bulletin board and making nametags. "When the parents dropped off their children, everything was in place."

And as long as Davis remained at Saratoga, Harrell stood by her, offering advice and support. "Having someone to turn to made all the difference for me," Davis adds. "I knew I wanted to do the same for someone else."

She's keeping her promise. Retired from classroom teaching after more than 30 years, Davis now works part-time as staff liaison for a mentoring program in the Omaha Public Schools. And in 2003, when the NEA-Retired invited Nebraska and other affiliates to help launch a new Intergenerational Teacher Mentoring Project, Davis and her colleagues were among the first to sign on.

In Nebraska and a growing list of states, the Intergen-erational Teacher Mentoring Project offers retired teachers an ideal opportunity to give back to their profession by supporting tomorrow's teachers. Developed by NEA-Retired in collaboration with Generations United, a Washington, D.C., policy group, the project pairs retired teachers with education students in their junior or senior years in local colleges. Mentors and students work together for three years, taking the young participants through their student teaching and their first year in the field.

Studies show these early years are critical; it's estimated that 40 to 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession in their first five years. In a 2004 report, the Education Commission of the States concluded that this "revolving door" in and out of the profession is largely responsible for chronic teacher shortages and staffing problems in schools.

Mentoring can't do much about low pay or out-of-field teaching assignments, but it can ease the way for newcomers. As new teachers become more confident of their skills, their mentors also can make them feel valued and supported—foreclosing one of the key reasons that many give for leaving the profession.

The Intergenerational Teacher Mentoring Project offers some additional benefits, says NEA-Retired President Jim Sproul. Being outside the school system, retired mentors taking part in the project do not evaluate the students. This means that the young person can feel safe bouncing questions and problems off a mentor without worrying that it's going to get back to a professor or principal. Working together for three years gives mentor and protégé time to form a trusting, personal relationship that will grow along with the new teacher's career, he adds.

Moreover, retired teachers have decades of practical experience to share and insights about NEA and the importance of a strong union that newbies need to hear. "Young people sometimes take things for granted, like sick leave and tenure," says Sproul. "They don't realize that our members fought hard for these things. That's something they should know."

Since 2003, NEA-Retired has offered grants of up to $5,000 for state teams to develop programs under the Intergenerational Teacher Mentoring Project. Teams from a handful of states have received training from Gener-ations United and Temple University's Center for Inter-generational Learning at NEA-Retired regional meetings.

Donna Butts, executive director of Generations United, says each program must have a champion, "someone who passionately believes in the intergenerational approach and can rally others."
Nebraska is lucky enough to have three champions, still active in the program, who attended the first training at a 2003 NEA-Retired regional meeting in Reno, Nevada: Davis; Joe Higgins, the secretary of the Nebraska State Education Association-Retired (NSEA-Retired); and JoLynn Funk-Julius, who was then president of the Student Education Association of Nebraska (SEAN). Back home, the team shared their enthusiasm with Tom Black, president of NSEA-Retired and Maureen Nickels, NSEA UniServ director and staff consultant for NSEA-Retired.

"We recognized it immediately as one of the best ideas NEA-Retired ever came up with," recalls Black. The Nebraska team decided to focus their efforts on the Omaha-Fremont area and three local colleges, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the College of St. Mary, and Midland Lutheran College.

From the start, the Nebraska group clicked, says Nickels. "Our team has worked dynamically together. We have students who are 20 or 21 years old working beside retireds who are 60-plus. But when you see us together, there's no age gap. We are one."

In the intergenerational spirit, retirees and students joined forces to speak to college classes and meetings of retired teachers, touting the benefits of the program. "It's amazing how the students, in particular, bought into this," says Higgins. "We thought it might be tough to convince them, but they were quick to see the value of having someone who would listen to them and say, ‘Well, here's how I might have handled this.'"

On the other hand, some retirees initially worried that mentoring might take too much of their time. That concern proved to be unfounded. "The time commitment is really just as much as you want to put into it," says Janel Wilbern, whose post-retirement schedule includes working as an adjunct professor of mathematics at a community college and as a certified trainer for the Kansas University's Learning Strategies Curriculum. "Based on my own experience, I have encouraged other retired teachers from our district to get involved."

Last February, the Nebraska team brought 10 pairs of mentors and protégés together for a kick-off celebration at a popular Omaha restaurant. The mentors and their protégés were matched at random, but they bonded quickly.

One of the pairs, ex-math teacher Duane Humphrey and Erin Reed (then a senior studying elementary education at the University of Nebraska-Omaha), hit it off right away. "She's an outstanding person and we both had an interest in education, so that was a natural bond," says Humphrey. "She's the type of person who could probably teach anyone a few things!" For her part, Reed, a former president of the student program at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, says she appreciated that Humphrey provided "lots of encouragement" as she finished her student teaching assignment and began her job search.

JoLynn Funk-Julius, matched with Nebraska retiree Janel Wilbern, also benefited from some job search coaching. "The market was really tight," Funk-Julius says. "I would have been discouraged, but Janel suggested I consider substitute teaching. She said it was a way to gain experience and network while I see what kind of place I really like."

Now settled into a long-term substitute post, Funk-Julius feels confident she can ask Wilbern for advice on just about any topic. "A few years from now, when I have children, I can see myself going back to her and asking, ‘Now, tell me how you juggled motherhood and a career,'" she laughs.

For Midland Lutheran student John Owens and his NSEA-Retired mentor, Tom Hall, the connection came initially from golf. "John is a member of the golf team at the college and I like to play the game a lot, so that gave us something to talk about," says Hall. From trading stories about golf, it was easy to make the transition to student teaching, career planning, and other topics, adds Owens. "Nobody else in my family is a teacher, so it's nice to talk to someone who's been in the profession. Tom has a lot of good and valuable information that he's passing down to me."

Most mentors and their protégés keep up with one another by phone or e-mail. Nebraska's team uses part of its NEA-Retired grant to pick up the tab for travel expenses and an occasional meal so pairs can chat face to face. The team also brought the group together for a reunion/celebration of the first year's efforts last October. Another gathering, to launch the second set of pairings, is scheduled next month.
News of the Omaha team's success has spread statewide, and other cities are clamoring for programs of their own. For its second year, Nebraska plans to start a program in Lincoln, pairing mentors with students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Black says. A year later, an additional team will pair mentors with University of Nebraska students in Kearney and Hastings.

Nationally, the Intergenerational Teacher Mentoring Project also is growing. Teams from additional state affiliates will be trained at regional meetings this spring, and NEA-Retired expects to have trained teams in every state by 2007.

As Nebraska and other states refine their programs, it's clear that mentors see themselves as winners, too. "We love teaching and we want others to love it as much as we have," says Wilbern. "There is no other profession where you can touch the lives of so many people and make such a powerful impact on the future of our nation. The profession has been good to me, and I'm glad to pass that along."

—Barbara Jacob, author of several books on travel, also has written
for USA Today, The Washington Post, and Modern Maturity.

Closing the Distance Divide—Virtually

You could call it "mentoring on demand."

The Ohio Education Association's (OEA) Student and Retired groups have collaborated on an innovative Web-based program that takes traditional interactions with mentors—phone calls, e-mails or face-to-face meetings—a (virtual) giant step into the future.

Called "Cybermentoring," the program links Ohio Student Education Association (OSEA) members with a searchable database of mentors from the Ohio Education Association-Retired, who have volunteered to share their experience in virtually every grade level and content area.

Like many big states with extensive rural areas, Ohio has grappled with the challenges of distance in bringing mentors and students together. "Our students were talking about getting their own Web site, and things just clicked," says Nancy Wonson, a retired teacher who helped get the program up and running. "We realized we could use the Internet to link students with retired teachers, and distance would be no object."

To use the site, students log on with their member numbers and search the database using criteria that range from general to highly detailed.

"If you wanted to learn more about teaching physical education in the third grade, say, chances are you could find a match," says Joanne Gay, Region IV director of OEA and the state organizer of the student program. Students contact the mentors via e-mail from the secure site.

All correspondence flows through OEA's server, says Wonson. "If students and mentors go on to develop a camaraderie, they can share their personal e-mail addresses on their own."

Now being piloted in OEA's Northeastern Region, the Cybermentoring program eventually will connect all 1,000 members of OSEA with OEA-Retired members anywhere in the state—or the world.

—B.J.

You Want In?

If you're a retired teacher With EXPERIENCE AND wisdom to share, chances are there's a teacher-to-be who could benefit from it.

The following states have programs up and running and would love to hear from Retired members interested in mentoring:

Kentucky
Contact: Kathy Jo Pullen
877-893-3205
kj444@aol.com

Illinois
Contact: Donna Mannering
217-544-3081, ext. 261
dmannering@nea.org

Nebraska
Contact: Maureen Nickels
402-475-7611
mnickels@nea.org

Virginia
Contact: Ruthann Kellum
757-723-2076
ruthann501@aol.com

NEA-Retired has provided training and grants to other states as well. Check with your Retired program to find out how you can get involved in your state.

Go to:
www.nea.org/retired/about/statebystate.html for help getting in touch with your state's Retired program.