Diversity And Diversity In Education

Without a teacher, doctors would not be able to save the millions of lives that they do every day, nor would an engineer be able to lay out a civilization's prospective future, nor would a politician learn to lead and represent—there is a root to all, and education is what fuels the flame of growth and prosperity. The current educational policy and reform is taking the preconceived notion that there is something magical about teaching and assuming that all teachers can teach. For instance, former President Barack Obama’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is a revival of the 50-year-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA); both fortify the relationship between national law and commitment to ensuring the success of the nation’s students—America’s

Journalist, Jackie Mader, transcribes a discussion concerning how to build a better teacher workforce led by California Representative, Susan Davis, between educators and teacher trainers. The consensus was that new teachers are ill-prepared for the classroom and lack the guidance in having to navigate through the emotional hardship that is accompanied by students of color. With the likelihood of a teacher encountering students coming from a background of domestic violence, divorce, loss of a family member, homelessness, or a drug addiction at a low-income school, Colleen Labbe, a Boston teacher says that the current teaching programs do not prepare teacher to identify those signs and relay to their students that their classroom is a safe place. With diversity trends showing no sign of stopping, it would be in the best interest to teaching programs to teach and implement effective ways to address this growing commonality impacting this nation’s

For novice teachers, studies show that about 17 to 40 percent of them will quit within the first five years. Many reasons exist as to why, with popular trends including: low pay (where beginning teachers earn 20% less than their college degree earner counterparts), dissatisfaction with compensation, better career opportunities, challenging working conditions, personal reasons, lack of support for new teachers, and inadequate preparation. Most notably, the factors that go hand-in-hand are teacher preparation and support through mentorship. If teaching institutions are not thorough with their preparation, veteran teachers at the novice teachers’ school would be the next available option. A mentor’s expertise within the school, given their tenure, should nurture a new teacher into becoming effective and efficient. A mentorship is defined as “helping novices speed up the learning of a new job or skill and reduce stress of transition, improving instructional performance of novices through modeling by a top performer and socializing novices into the profession of teaching” (Podsen & Denmark, 2000, p. 31). The purpose of a mentor is to provide structure and stability beyond what is taught at instructional education programs; guidance while in-field. While California fledging teachers are required to undergo through the Beginning Teaching Support and Assessment (BTSA) program for 2