Let the sun shine back in

New teachers enter the classroom filled with hope, creativity, and compassion. Yet, says Nancy Nagel, nearly half of them leave the profession within five years, many having lost the very qualities that inspired them to teach. “The landscape of the K-12 classroom has changed dramatically in recent years,” says Nagel, associate dean of faculty and professor of education. “The teacher in a typical fourth-grade class with 32 students may have 8 to 10 students who speak English as a second language, and more than 50 percent of students who rely on free or reduced-price school lunch programs.”

To counter the exodus from the classroom, the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, under the leadership of Dean Peter Cookson, has launched Oregon’s New Teacher Initiative. Its goal: create a statewide program to support new teachers.

A core team of graduate school faculty fanned out across the state to help districts integrate the plan into schools. The bold venture provides site-based programs to support new teachers, trains mentors to work with new teachers, and engages new teachers in conversations that, says Nagel, “provide the context for reflection and for supporting colleagues”—and for restoring hope.