From heaven to reality through crisis: novice teachers as migrants

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From heaven to reality through crisis: novice teachers as migrants Naama Sabar* School of Education, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 61390, Israel Received 11 March 2002; received in revised form 29 August 2003; accepted 17 September 2003

Abstract This study focuses on the process of novice teachers’ adjustment to the teaching profession and to school culture in Israel. Forty-six beginning teachers who participated in a support program for novice teachers were interviewed extensively during their first and toward the end of their second year of teaching. The findings indicate how the transition and adaptation that novice teachers need to make in their new schools has much in common with that of immigrants in a new country. The experiences of immigrants provide a lens through which to investigate the stages that novice teachers go through. Similarities and differences between the two groups are examined, pointing to the implications of this analogy to novice teacher induction, teacher training, and attitudes of school principals. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Novice teachers; Immigrant teachers’ adjustment

It’s so different from being a student-teacher. Every day I feel that I am being tested; I am afraid that I will not live up to my own expectations. In most cases, things go differently than what I planned [she sighs]y. Now I know that I haven’t even started my teacher education. I have so much to learn. I don’t know if I will ever be able to. I seldom really feel good. Frustration is the feeling I almost always go home with [tears].

Preface Teacher’s voice: ‘‘I am very excited,’’ Elana said enthusiastically when I met her at school at the novice teachers’ preparatory meeting about a month before the beginning of the school year. ‘‘I keep thinking about what I will say on the first day of school and I’ve rehearsed it again and again. I only hope that there is not going to be a [teachers’] strike, as I feel quite readyy. I didn’t always plan to be a teacher. I finally decided two years ago and now I feel that this is what I really want to do,’’ she said cheerfully and with conviction. Three months after we first met, Elana said, emotionally, *Tel.: +972-3-5343432; fax: +972-3-5354427. E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Sabar).

Prolog Soon after I began to interview novice teachers in Israel about the support program they were attending, intendizng to compare the various

0742-051X/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tate.2003.09.007

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forms of support that were provided to them (Millet & Sabar, 2001), I began to get the feeling that I had heard their stories before. Not from the same people, nor in the same places, but the concerns were familiar: the illusions, the hopes and expectations, the despair, the crises, the sense of loss and grief replaced by compromise, acceptance and adjustment. Even the emotional intensity was similar. Before our departure, we were tense and excitedy. At the same time, we had great doubts. We were going into the unknowny. Today, I often ask myself why did we come here. I don’t like it here, no one told me the truthy. Is this not reminiscent of Elana’s voice in the opening section? It didn’t take me long to realize that this was an echo of the words of immigrants to Los Angeles in the 1970s, whom I had interviewed a decade earlier for another study (Sabar, 2000). I have also studied school children who had immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union (Malik & Sabar, 1995; Resnik, Sabar, Shoham, & Shapira, 2001) and thus have had substantial experience with immigrants of various ages and at various stages of their experiences in a new country.1 The literature I read at that time mapped out stages of adjustment similar to those of novice teachers, though the immigrants’ ordeal was much longer than that of the novices before most of them became adjusted. The similarities between how the immigrants and the novice teachers constructed and interpreted their new reality were so striking to me that I decided to share this observation. Immigration has traditionally been associated with crisis. From the story of the people of Israel going out of Egypt to the ‘‘masses struggling to breathe free’’ on Ellis Island, thousands of works of literature and art have described the hardships that immigrants experience and the price they pay to fulfill their dreams. I felt that the novice 1

For my study on Kibbutzniks who immigrated to the US (Sabar, 2000), I interviewed immigrants from other countries as well to see if their immigration experiences were similar to those of the Kibbutzniks. The echoes here are taken from these interviews.

teachers in our study found themselves in somewhat similar situations, even though this is not how they are viewed. My purpose in this article is to point out that the main stages of socialization when entering the teaching profession can be compared to the process of adjustment that immigrants undergo, by using voices from both groups. I would like to offer a new framework through which we can view novice teachers’ experiences and to open a window, for those of us who deal with beginning teachers, through which we can perhaps learn from the Israeli experience with immigrants.

1. Introduction Beginning teachers tend to leave the profession earlier than, for example, beginning nurses (Hayter, 2000) or beginning pharmacists (Gupchup, Singhal, Dole, & Lively, 1998). Farber (1984) found that only 59% of the new teachers who teach in neighborhoods with significant social or racial tension remain in teaching for more than 4 years. According to Gold (1996), nearly 40% of all novice teachers leave the profession within 5 years. Armstrong (1984), Van Mannen (1991), and others have found that novice teachers with high academic status are the ones that drop out of teaching in the early years. Geva-May (1995) found that in Israel, the general situation was even worse: only 50% of those who entered teacher education institutions were still teaching 5 years after graduation. A number of factors are associated with this situation, including professional and social integration into teaching (Chapman, 1983; Chapman & Green, 1983). The latter, in my view, parallels immigrant acclimatization to a new culture. This article rests on the sociological theories which claim that the many difficulties that novice teachers encounter stem mainly from their need to adjust to the organizational norms of the school, and to the actors surrounding the school, including local authorities, parents and the community at large (Connelly & Diens, 1982; Shulman, 1987), and, more generally, to the school culture and milieu. Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt (1999) note

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that for trans-national immigrants, success depends ‘‘on preserving their original cultural endowment, while adapting instrumentally to [another society]’’ (p. 229). The beginning teacher is a stranger who is often not familiar with the accepted norms and symbols in the school or with the hidden internal codes which exist among teachers and students. In this respect, novice teachers seem to resemble immigrants who leave a familiar culture and move into a strange one that is both attractive and repellent—the ‘hope and despair’ situation. The decision to emigrate, or to go into teaching, leads them on a long voyage during which they experience the new and the unknown. In many ways, this is also the case for every person who moves from the training mode to actual employment—there needs to be a process of adjustment. Teachers, however, are different from other professionals in several respects, one of which is the expectation that they introduce into the schools the innovations they acquired in the training institutions, for example, alternative assessment or cooperative learning. The conflicting need to adjust and adapt while at the same time being expected to introduce the most recent methods brought over from the teacher education institution into the school, makes their ‘instrumental adaptation’ more difficult. Unlike novices in nursing or medicine, who in Israel first go through generic training and then while being trained for the local context are still under supervision, teachers do not experience a gradual transition to taking full responsibility for their work: Once they have finished their internship, they alone are responsible. An additional difficulty lies in their having to undergo their own adjustment while at the same time functioning as socialization agents for their pupils. Their role as socialization agents does not wait for them to adjust—it begins from day one.

2. The conceptual framework 2.1. The stranger Schutz (1944) defines a stranger in our civilization as an adult who tries to be permanently

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accepted, or at least tolerated, by the group of people which s/he approaches, at work, at school or socially. Like other strangers, novices in any field are different from the group to which they wish to belong. Often what is perceived by the veterans as ‘‘business as usual’’ is viewed by novices as bizarre and peculiar compared to what they know and based on where they come from. While for veterans, the cultural codes are the tools which help them to function; for the stranger, these codes are the problem since they need to be deciphered (ibid.). Bewildered by the new rules of the game, and not knowing whether the environment will view them as being incapable, lacking control or, worst of all, unfit if they seek help, strangers prefer to close up and avoid the social environment—an environment which in any case does little to bring them closer to the group. Novice teachers are strangers in the sense that they come from one normative system—the teacher education institute—with a clear set of norms of behavior, and try to enter another one— the school—whose norms are unfamiliar and different from theirs. They want to belong to the in-group which is often a cohesive group of teachers with accepted norms and habits. The knowledge they come with is often contradictory or irrelevant to the knowledge they need in order to cope when concrete problems arise in school (Ezer & Sabar, 1992). Similarly, Feiman-Nemser and Buchman (1987) note that novice teachers in the US come into teaching from a teacher education institution where there is freedom for decision-making, where the organizational climate is open to change and where personal relationships are very different from the hierarchical structure and culture that exist in their new school. In addition, novices carry with them a cultural load from their own experience as students—what Lortie (1975) referred to as the ‘‘apprenticeship of observation’’—which also shapes their perspective of what goes on in the school. Even if the school that novices enter as teachers seems similar to the school they attended as pupils, the reality is different. The language may be the same but the discourse is not. Their new role as teachers causes them to perceive things differently.

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The cultural difference between the teacher education institution and the school, and the inconsistency between the knowledge the novice teacher comes with and that needed in the new environment increase the feeling of strangeness. These differences between their expectations and the reality are major causes for the novice teachers’ sense of depression and turmoil (Conway, 2001; Ezer & Sabar, 1992). They also greatly affect the processes of desocialization and resocialization (Bar-Yossef, 1986) that novices undergo in their first year of teaching. Desocialization involves disillusioning and shedding much of their former culture—that of their own K-12 experience and of the teacher education college—or at least those components that are unrealistic in the new culture, e.g., lofty educational ideals like turning the school into a magnet for children. Resocialization involves adopting essential components from the new culture, e.g., teaching crafts and survival skills that are relevant for the particular school context. Novices are theoretically aware of many of these components but internalizing them demands acquiring a ‘teachers’ perspective’ through which to interpret the school situation in a new way. Such internalization takes time. Conway (2001) found that even those interns who anticipated low points did not expect them to last as long as they did. The encounter with different physical conditions and the lack of awareness of how the system works from the inside may cause a sense of helplessness and impotence. Confronting different modes of thinking and new codes of personal relationships, discourse and behavior, all affect an individual’s self-confidence and result in social marginality (Lewis, 1962).

belong. Marginal people live under high stress and have difficulty coping with most of the situations they face. They particularly need the support of people who understand them and are thus attracted to other marginal people. Novice teachers clinging to one another is a well-known phenomenon in schools. They build a ‘human wall’ to protect them from the negative vibes sent their way by the veterans who also pass on their own frustrations and complaints (Kainan, 1994). Because novices are new to the team, they do not understand the jokes, the gestures or the important gossip (Richert, 1997). In other words, novices are not part of the team’s biography. At the same time, veteran teachers often view novices as a threat to existing conventions and to the comfortable routine. For this reason, and to protect themselves against the influence of the novices, veterans often emphasize novices’ marginality by disregarding them or rebutting their suggestions (Bullough, 1989). Hargreaves (1981) refers to this as ‘contrastive rhetoric’. The enthusiasm and the energy with which novices often enter the school invest a sense of unrest into the established patterns of the team. Marginality leads to loneliness in novices who don’t share their difficulties or the problems they face with others, in spite of the fact that they are in desperate need of professional help (Bullough, 1989). Since the 1980s, a great deal of thought has been given to support systems which can help the novices to enter the profession more successfully (FeimanNemser, Carver, Schwille, & Yusko, 1999; Gold, 1996; McDonald, 1980).

2.2. Marginality

Immigrants do not usually immigrate alone. They have their families, and more significantly, they often have social networks which play an important role in the adjustment to their new social environment. Anderson and Christie (1982) state that every group of immigrants has a certain type of social network, which may be either a burden or a resource for the immigrant. The network operates like a safety net, providing practical and emotional support in adjusting to the new country, including access to contacts and

According to Breznitz (1979), marginal people are strangers who have left one social or professional framework and wish to join another, but, for various reasons, are not yet full members. Novice teachers, in addition to being strangers in their schools, are also marginal to it since they lack confidence in their behavior and in their social status and are thus dependent on the good will of members of the group to which they wish to

2.3. Social networks

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information, but at the same time, decreasing their desire to integrate into the new country and blocking their upward mobility in the receiving society (Mitchell, 1969; Sabar, 2002). Novice teachers come to school alone. They are also in need of a social network. In a large school, this may be provided by the group of novice teachers who have entered the school in any one school year. Or it may be provided by a special universitybased support program, or by school mentors who try to speak the novices’ ‘language’. Such support can be viewed in terms of Coleman’s (1988) social capital perspective. According to Coleman, social capital ‘‘comes about through change in the relations among persons that facilitate action’’ (1988, p. 100). Coleman relates to two aspects of social structure that facilitate social capital. The first is the closure of social networks which is necessary for the emergence of effective norms and trustworthiness, and the second is appropriable social organization within multiplex relations which allows resources of one relationship to be appropriated for use in others (e.g., information, obligations, etc.). For novice teachers, networks and support systems are the key to successful adaptation.

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(1997) specified the role that mentors can play in influencing beginning teachers according to six different aspects: example, coaching, practicefocused discussion, structuring the context, emotional support and devised learning experiences. The Report of the K-16 Teacher Education Task Force of the American Federation of Teachers (Report, 2000) recommended strengthening induction programs for novice teachers by providing funding for the selection, training, and compensation of school mentors whose task is to teach, support, and evaluate beginning teachers. In the conclusion to her literature review of beginningteacher induction, Gold (1996) suggested the need to create a vision of the future of support programs, one element of which is recognizing that ‘‘beginning teachers are affected by the impact of all of the elements in their environment during these impressionable years’’ (p. 589). These complex contextual variables have been recognized of immigrants as well (Stewart, 1993). Thus, this paper aims to demonstrate how the primary stages of immigrants in their host country are similar to those of novice teachers in terms of needs and difficulties. It suggests that insights from some success with immigrant absorption in Israel could perhaps be adapted to novice teacher induction.

2.4. Support for novice teachers A great deal has been written about beginningteacher induction. Today, most states in the US have induction programs. Some are mandatory, others voluntary; some provide support to all beginning teachers, others to only a small percentage. Internship programs for beginning teachers can rely on at least three major sources: tutors in the teacher training institutions, mentors in the schools, and in-service workshops or seminars. In Israel all three frameworks exist, yet none is mandatory. The general aim of all the frameworks is to help beginning teachers by providing psychological and instructional support (Gold, 1996). House (1981) refers to four types of support: emotional concern, instrumental aid, information, and appraisal. Feiman-Nemser et al. (1999) argued that beginning-teacher induction needs to have three components: support, development and formative assessment. Calderhead and Shorrock

3. Methodology This paper grew out of a study which examined novice teachers, all female, between the ages of 25 and 35, who trained in three different institutions, during their first two years of teaching between 1995 and 1997 (Millet & Sabar, 2001). All taught in public junior and senior high schools in the central part of Israel. The 46 teachers in the study participated in a beginning teacher support program initiated by the Ministry of Education called ‘‘Support in Absorption’’. Similar to such programs in other countries (i.e., Ownby, 1997), the program operates in all Israeli teacher education institutions and its aim is to help beginning teachers in their first or second year to ease the transition into teaching by providing emotional and professional support. Still, not all beginning teachers choose to join these voluntary programs.

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In each institution, the program is coordinated by an experienced teacher educator. At bi-weekly meetings at the teacher training institution, classroom experiences and problems such as classroom management, parental involvement, and homework loads are raised, shared, discussed and analyzed. (For details on the program, see Millet, 1998.) The program coordinator supplies professional literature or tips on relevant strategies, as the need arises. The study aimed at exposing, analyzing and comparing the styles of three coordinators; however, this paper deals with an unintended finding which arose from the qualitative, open nature of the study. The paper capitalizes on the beauty of qualitative research and on one of its major strengths: the ability to expose emerging, not preconceived phenomena, and to describe and interpret them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000). As a result of the direction that the study took, this paper will mainly present findings from interviews with the novices, and less from discussions with the coordinators. 3.1. Data collection In-depth interviews were carried out with the novice teachers, focusing on the broad theme of their experiences as teachers. The aim of the study was presented to the interviewees in general terms in an attempt to learn from what they had experienced as novices. Interviews were carried out several times during the novices’ first year of teaching, as well as toward the end of the second year when they were asked to give a retrospective account of their teaching experience. The interviews had their own dynamic, fed by the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewee, during which the interviewer intervened only when necessary for clarification. The interviewees discussed their feelings briefly or extensively, as they wished. At a certain point, after the general picture became clear, the novice teachers were asked to expand on episodes previously mentioned. According to Schutz and Luckman (1974), this approach, which raises certain episodes in the consciousness of the interviewee, provides not only description, but also the interviewee’s perception

and interpretation of the meaning of the episodes. This helps the interviewer to understand how the interviewees construct reality. Meetings with the teachers took place both at the training institution and at the schools, at the teachers’ convenience. Many of the bi-weekly program sessions throughout the year were observed and recorded, though not all, because of the large number of meetings in the three institutions. The teachers’ descriptions of their school experiences and the problems they encountered were documented. The interviews highlighted the novices’ selfperception, their awareness of changes in their pedagogical, didactical and self-knowledge. Interviews just prior to and at the beginning of, the school year were carried out with only a few novices in each of the three groups to learn about their expectations. In addition to the interviews, frequent informal conversations were held with the novices, either on the telephone or face-to-face. Interviews with the coordinators that focused on their mentoring style were carried out at the end of the yearlong program. Throughout the study transcription, analysis and comparison of the narratives was performed using the constant comparative method (Strauss, 1987). Emerging themes and recurring patterns in individual interviews and conversations stimulated analysis of the larger data pool. Pooling data from a number of informants in the different groups and types of schools were carried out in order to increase the validity of claims.

4. Findings and discussion The phases in novice teachers’ development are presented in four sections: I begin with a significant portion of interviews with Lily and Rachel, two novice teachers, as a basis for the three sections that follow: Fantasy, Reality and Adjustment. Each section deals with a phase in the development of novice teachers. Each section gives excerpts from interviews and the central themes that emerge from their analyses. Additional excerpts are presented mainly to reinforce the ideas discussed, and on occasion to provide a

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contrast. At the end of each section, there is an echo from an interview with an immigrant. 4.1. Lily and Rachel I met Lily at the novice teachers’ preparatory meeting at school about a month before the beginning of the school year. A university graduate, Lily had almost completed all her requirements for her teaching license. She was collecting materials in literature that she thought might interest her future students in a large junior high school, with great enthusiasm. Several weeks after school began, I ran into Lily in the hall in school. She looked different: the smiles were gone and so was the enthusiasm. Instead, I could see the tension in her face. When I asked her how she felt, she said, in an noncommittal way, ‘‘Well, I think that I am OK I don’t know how I feel. Every day you learn something new.’’ She looked gloomy. She was abrupt and mentioned that she had to catch a specific teacher to report to her. Three months after the beginning of the school year, when I met her again, she said: My biggest difficulty is entering such a huge and frightening system. In a small school, I might have found it easier to approach people and felt less threatened. It’s difficult to know who to approach for what. There are so many people here, so many rolesy. There are days that I just don’t want to get up in the morning. I have changed. I am not the happy person I used to be. After a great many days when I feel frustrated and helpless and I don’t know what to do about some of the students and they sense it, I may have a good day with real satisfaction. These are the few bright moments which tell me that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. Emotionally I am moving between extremes. There are times that I do things which call for courage and think that if the principal came in, he might put me down. Like this week, I sent five students to the library because they didn’t bring their books. I don’t even know if such a thing is allowed in this school. I had the feeling all the time that they would come back to class with the pedagogical

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coordinator and I would be embarrassed. I don’t know how it will end. All I know is that teaching calls for other abilities than what I thought one needed and if I didn’t have the support of my tutor and the group at the university, I don’t know how I would survive. Rachel, a history teacher in a large urban high school, reflected on her 2 years of teaching. Following are some excerpts from the interview: The weeks before school started, I was excited and tense at the same time. Every one around me was infected by my excitement. I love history and I thought that I could awaken this love in others. However, I had never taught before and I didn’t know how I would like ity. I kept thinking, ‘‘Will the students like me?’’ ‘‘Will they listen to me?’’ ‘‘Will I be interesting enough for them?’’ ‘‘Will the other teachers accept me into their established groups?’’ I was anxious to start, I just couldn’t wait for the 1st of September. It didn’t take long before the big let-down came. The students were unruly and wouldn’t listen to me. I was talking to myself. They walked around the classroom freely and simply ignored mey. I remember one day driving past the bus stop where my students were waiting and I felt that I just hated all of them. It was then that I decided that this was my first and last year of teaching. I was ashamed to ask for help; only when I asked for something did my head teacher show any interest in how I coped with my class. All the advice from her and other staff members I approached dealt with classroom management: ‘‘Be tougher; be stricter with them. If you want to get them to behave, you should degrade and even insult them’’. I am glad that I didn’t listen to this counsel. Their recommendations didn’t suit my personality. I tried harder to fulfill the expectations of the students, the parents, my colleagues and the administration. I made a special attempt to enrich my teaching methods. This had some effect. It took frustrating and agonizing months before I realized that I was in a no-win situation. I had been given a non-academic class with known behavioral problems. The

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students weren’t interested in history and made no effort to learn. But much of it was not of their fault. The school disregarded their special needs. Towards the end of this very long year, one good thing happened—five of my 35 students managed to pass the matriculation exam in history. The principle commended me on this achievement, and asked me to stay. It was my university coordinator who made it clear that this time the school was being tested and not me. I agreed to give teaching a second chancey. The next year Rachel was given a ‘good’ class: It was a much better year, though it still had its tough spotsy. When I think about it, I can say that though the first year was the worst year of my life as far as frustrations and traumatic experiences are concerned, I learned a great deal about real school life. I know that I still have a long way to go. I hope though, that after I get more experience, I will go back and teach a class similar to my first one. That is where the real challenge lies, and there I can make a difference. Lily and Rachel (like Elana, whose words are quoted in the preface) are novice teachers who went through what so many beginners do when they are faced with reality in their new schools. The interviews clearly disclosed several major stages in the transition from being a student teacher to becoming a teacher: The fantasy stage, before entering the profession; facing reality; and the stage of adjustment. 4.2. Fantasy Elana expressed her enthusiasm that she would become what she was convinced she wanted to be: A TEACHER. She was anxiously waiting for this to happen and was concerned that a teacher strike might postpone this hope. (For veteran teachers, a strike is often a break from school fatigue and is almost always quietly welcomed. NS.) As part of her preparations for the first day, that she so looked forward to, Elana even rehearsed what she would say to the children. Many other interviewees said that they put much thought into what they would wear on that festive day. Rachel’s

excitement was touched with concerns about her chances of success. ‘‘Will the students like me?’’ ‘‘Will they listen to me?’’ ‘‘Will I be interesting enough for them?’’ ‘‘Will the other teachers accept me into their established groups?’’ Excitement as well as fear. Rina expressed her concern in another way: ‘‘When people are asked to mention the two people who were most influential on their lives, they often refer to a certain teacher. My dream is to be one of those teachers, but I’m not sure I am made of the stuff that they are made of.’’ Debby represents one of the few novices who had no idea what to expect at the beginning of the year and expressed only anxiety about the unknown, without any enthusiasm at all: ‘‘I just don’t know what to expect. I am going into Junior High School where the kids have so many problems with themselves, and here I come, a new teacher—how will I be able to handle their personal problems as well as the didactic ones?’’ The fantasy stage begins when the individual starts to think seriously about a career in teaching (Bullough, 1989). During this stage the imagination works overtime. Most future teachers imagine young people who are eagerly waiting to hear them; they view themselves as the good teacher they once had. This whole stage is about them. The preteaching entry stage, though a period of fantasy, is not without its doubts and reservations, in which many novices sound excited like Elana and Lily, yet concerned like Rachel and Rina on the days before school started (Ezer & Sabar, 1992). Many of the novices remembered their first day as if it was yesterday. They remembered what they were wearing and their first words to the new class on which they had spent much thought. During the first few weeks, days or hours, they were immersed in the euphoria of being the ‘good teacher’ that they believed they would be. This fantasy or honeymoon (Oberg, 1961) stage, with its uncertainties, is also experienced by immigrants planning for their trip, and immediately upon arrival in a new country. Echo Before our departure, we were tense and excited. The whole family gave us a warm

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send-off. They all hoped that if we made it in the new country, perhaps they would follow. I remember one cousin saying, ‘‘I wish we had your courage. Your success might be ours, too.’’ At the same time, we had great doubts. We were going into the unknown. However, from all I had read and seen on TV, there was a good chance that my dreams of fame would come true. For our departure, we bought nice presents for our family in Detroit and put on our best clothes. We all looked like a million dollars. From the minute we landed, everything looked like a movie. The lights, the wide streets, the big cars and especially the shops, full of all the goodies in the world, so tempting.1 Divakaruni (1995), in her fictional work based on real-life experiences, describes her heroine’s euphoria when she finally reaches the hoped-for day of boarding the plane for her new country. She describes the airhostess pointing to her seat and ‘‘welcoming me with this glamorous pink smile, telling me you are heading in the right directiony’’. 4.3. Reality (culture) shock and crisis When fantasy crumbles, the fight for one’s professional life begins. The despair and frustration that Lily, Elana and Rachel expressed soon after they confronted real school life was striking. Very soon after the first stage of high hopes and fantasies, the difficulties that the novices encountered in almost every aspect of their school life colored their outlook. The many tasks and the need to cope with so many new things at the same time was overwhelming. ‘‘It calls for special mental abilities,’’ said Orna, three months after school started, and added, ‘‘I am in shock, I feel like I am on the Via Delarosa. I feel a lack of basic knowledge of reality. It’s madness. I don’t know what is allowed here and what is not. I am frustrated. The daily challenge is so difficult.’’ Lily described a confusing environment: ‘‘It’s difficult to know who to approach for what’’ or ‘‘I don’t know even if such a thing is allowed in this school’’. And Noa said: So many of the rules in school are absurd to me. They lock the door to the classroom during recess because of theft. This means that a child

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who doesn’t feel like it has to leave the class. School is like a prison. When I commented on it, I got looks from the other teachers that sent me the message that I am either naive or stupid. I was talking about the children’s feelings, but actually I was also trying to voice my own stress which I didn’t dare to express. I so often wish I could go to bed and sleep forever. The feeling that there was no one who could help at the stage when it was most needed, was expressed by several novices. Rachel said, ‘‘I was ashamed to ask for help; only when I asked for something did my head teacher show any interest in how I coped with my class’’. Many referred to the gap between the training institution and the school as a major source of these difficulties. Elana: ‘‘It is different from being a student teacher.’’ As student teachers, they enjoyed the support and attention of cooperating teachers. Most of the first-year teachers were not assigned a mentor teacher in their schools and even those who participated in the support program met only twice a month and rarely used the ‘‘hot line’’ that their coordinators had provided for them. Tirza attributes her stress to another aspect: I feel that I am a victim of school policy and the poor relationships among the staff. Originally they told me that they will arrange a reduced load for me but now, because of the shortage of teachers, they had to increase my load. I also got some difficult pupils that were rejected by other teachers and in addition there is no support in the school either by the management or by the teachers. I am all alone in the classroom, in the teachers’ room, and in the corridors. This perception of unfairness toward novices was also raised earlier by Rachel when she said that she ‘‘was in a no-win situation’’. Heavy loads, difficult students, unwanted classes are assigned to the silent members of the school, the novices. During their field training, student-teachers begin to see that the school reality is different from what they learned about in theoretical courses in psychology, sociology and educational

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theories. But it is only when they have the sole responsibility for a class that they realize how much more complicated the reality is. Teaching is embedded with contextual knowledge. The novices asked, ‘‘What tool should I use now?’’ ‘‘How do I handle these mountains of problems?’’ but no one answered. As a result, Ayala tried to solve the problem in a way which she herself criticized: I feel great frustration because I think that my being a new teacher harms the students, they come to school to learn and develop and hope to do it with my guidance, but I can barely survive in the class. Often when I see that I can’t handle the class with the regular material, I change the lesson into a fun lesson with games and other activities which are fun but should be the exception. I feel I do it too often and this is really misleading and unfair to the students and to the profession. Already a quarter of a century ago, Lortie (1975) pointed to the culture and knowledge that novices brought with them from the teacher education institute as being unsuitable to the daily life in school, thus often clashing with reality rather than coinciding with it. This gap between teacher training and the school reality causes novices to lose confidence. Many attempts have been and still are being made to overcome this gap. Among these is the increase in the number of school mentors in Israel has increased, and the institution of programs aimed at training mentors (Orland, 2001). This significant change has taken place in the years since this study was conducted; only three of the novices in this group had school mentors who provided support in school and all three experienced successful adjustment. Nitza explained her very positive experience: The school received me warmly. The principal explained how the school functions and after two days I felt welcome. She assigned two teachers—in math and science—to help me. This showed the good intentions of the school but actually it took up too much of my time and sometimes bothered me. But my school mentor was a constant help. She was always ready to give me a hand in preparing tests, to explain

technical things like where to get supplies, how to decorate the classroom, how to keep attendance. Many of the novices felt that their teacher training had not prepared them sufficiently for dealing with several aspects of teaching, especially classroom management and discipline problems, relations with parents, and handling special-needs children ‘‘The school disregarded their special needs’’, said Noa who showed above her sensitivity to the children’s feelings. The teachers lack of professional confidence was intensified by their loneliness and social isolation. Many of them also felt that both veteran teachers and the administration deliberately alienated them and did not grant them the place they expected and deserved. Rachel said: ‘‘[Only then did] the principal commend me on this achievement.’’ In this battle for survival, the novices concentrated on themselves; their feelings fluctuated: ‘‘There are days that I just don’t want to get up in the morning’’ says Lily, or ‘‘I was also trying to voice my own stress which I didn’t dare to express,’’ said Noa. Rachel described how she hated everyone, but after experiencing some success in class, things looked better and even Lily expressed some hope: ‘‘I may have a good day with real satisfaction.’’ Frustration, despair and failure are the dominant feelings. The terms that best describe the feelings of novice teachers are shock, accompanied by a substantial amount of unpredictability and anxiety which lead to emotional stress. This is referred to as reality shock (Veenman, 1984) or transition shock (Corcoran, 1981) and is very similar to the ‘culture shock’ that immigrants experience (Oberg, 1972). All of them have been uprooted from their previous culture. The following quote is not from a novice teacher, but from a new immigrant. Echo I often ask myself why we came here. I don’t like it here, no one told me the truthy. They are really hostile towards strangers but they cover it with an artificial sweetenery. I would come home from work tired, frustrated and sad.

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I often felt like collapsing—there was so much to do and I didn’t know where to start. Jack felt the same; we didn’t support each other; we blamed each other. We were both homesick. I was not appreciated at all. The staff (in the community center) treated me as if I was air, and I got the worst group to work with—those who no one else agreed to take—violent teenagers. Except for hello and goodnight no one talked to me unless I asked a question. At staff meetings, the team members treated me with suspicion, fearing that my ideas for change and my readiness to do things might rock their quiet boat.1 4.4. Adjustment through mastery, leading to influence Once novices begin to understand their complex reality, and are able to read the ‘map’, they stop being strangers and marginal. Toward the second half of the year, after the semester break, the novices had time to reflect on their failures and successes in school, they began to feel better and gain some confidence. They were able to make changes in their actions and establish channels of communication with other colleagues in school. This is how Dina relates to her transition: I have begun to learn from my mistakes. Some good ideas emerged from the problems on how to handle the class and how to proceed with the materials. At the beginning, I gave the children reinforcement but that led to dependency, so, together with them, I created a behavioral contract through which I hope that they will function with internal motivation. By now I am even ready to share it with other teachers. I have also learned to use my control and to determine working rules for group work while cooperating toward tasksy. When control has been achieved, attention can be directed toward learning tasks. At this point, toward the end of her first year, Dina felt that she was capable of devising new teaching plans and adapting materials; she was more flexible. Selfconfidence was apparent both in thought and in action, and her voice began to be heard:

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I have also learned to communicate with the children in writingy. I feel there is a tremendous improvement in class aesthetics, in the fact that social subjects make up a substantial part of the curriculum and [she continues to note the areas of improvement]y. Now I am thinking about how to improve the issue of checking homework and I think I’ve come up with a bright ideay. At the end of her second year, Zippi reflected on her personal and professional growth, saying that she felt good in her position as a teacher and commenting on how much she was gaining from her relations with her students. In the past she had described herself as being on the verge of collapse, but now she spoke about positive feelings and was even able to look critically at what needed improvement: I have grown in several domains: I have learned to give clear instructions, thus there is no need to tell each child individually what to do once they finish an assignment. At the beginning I didn’t knowy. the learning and I was ready to collapse. Now (that I have managed to introduce some changes in the classroom management) I feel ‘‘big’’. I trust myself. I’ve succeeded in becoming a teachery I still need to improve many areas, like individual follow-ups on each student. I have a great feeling especially about my personal relations with my students and this is my main gain. Novices are like immigrants trying to understand a strange culture whose rules are unclear. Through trial and error, novices unravel the social puzzle within which they need to function. Learning the logic of other players helps the novices to control their situation. Novices at this stage are learning the craft of teaching step-bystep. After having achieved control and management skills, they can focus on pupils’ learning and planning activities. When both teachers and pupils establish trust in each other, and gain a sense of achievement and of knowing where they are going, the teacher gains the self-perception of a teacher. Only then can a teacher think about having an impact: ‘‘and there I can make a difference,’’

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Rachel said with confidence. This came with experience, and was not part of the beginning stages. At the end of the first year, Yehudit said: Reflecting on the situation, I can see that my relations with the students are fine and that I have succeeded in creating a change in our relationship. We now have established codes of behavior and rules; the students understand what is permitted and what is not. As Schutz (1944) puts it, ‘‘if this processy succeeds, then this pattern and its elements will become to the newcomer a matter of course, an unquestionable way of life, a shelter, and a protection. But then the stranger is no stranger any more, and his specific problems have been solved’’ (p. 507). The immigrant passes through the same stage. Echo I realize that I am here to stay. I would have to give up my own acting dreams and excel as a drama director in this place. With time I managed to introduce experiences that proved my abilities, gained more confidence and started to have some voice. I can see some advantages in not being an actress as this gives me more time to be with Shirley [her 7 year-old daughter] and enjoy her growing up. She is our big hopey.1 Dalia, one of the program coordinators, summarized the novices’ feelings according to stages during the first year, based on what the novices expressed at sessions. This was well supported by our analysis of observations of the meetings: During July, August and September [schools start on September 1st], the main feelings were great excitement, anxiety, frustration and great emotional pressure. Their main concerns were how they would be viewed by parents, pupils, the staff and the principal. Therefore the novices asked for information about decisionmaking, and support and reinforcement so that they could do the job. Between September and December comes the stage of panic: The general feeling is of great

fatigue. The speed of events is dizzying. Everything in school is an emergency and calls for an immediate solution. The main concerns are ‘‘How will I overcome discipline problems and control the class?’’ ‘‘How will I know what’s coming at me, when the next catastrophe will occur?’’ ‘‘What should I do then and how will I handle it?’’ The help they want, therefore, is an infusion of practical advice, recipes and remedies for the problems that crop up daily, and lots of encouragement and support. From January on, sanity slowly creeps in. The feelings are of less pressure. It is possible to deliberate, to plan for a period somewhat longer than the next minute. The main concern at this stage is how to concentrate more on the children’s learning and less on themselves. The help they ask for is to discuss, as a group, issues they face and to hear how others deal with their common problems. She added that this refers to the majority of novices, but ‘‘of course there are some that never pass the panic stage and remain misfits.’’ Indeed, Millet (1998), who observed these novices, noted that there were some exceptions. She found that novice cases fluctuated much more than the picture above shows, and there was a series of ups and downs within a short period of time. Similar findings have been reported by Conway (2001) in the US. Many of the novices who are unable to cope will leave the profession. But even the most successful beginning teachers experience these stages and the passage toward adjustment and adaptation. Kerrie, the successful beginning teacher who Bullough (1989) described in his case study, also experienced a form of culture shock, frustration, loneliness and loss of the security during her beginning passage to teaching. She, too, was offered almost no help because, as she discovered, at that time teachers did not ‘‘get any compensation for helping beginning teachers at school.’’ It was only after she got feedback from the children and their parents that the principal’s attitude towards her improved, and her self-image, along with her status in school, began to change. But do the principals realize how

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many potentially successful teachers they lose at the early stages of their path to adjustment? Our interviews confirm what Ryan (1986, in Bullough, 1987) described as four loose but identifiable stages that beginning teachers go through on the way to professional competence: fantasy, survival, mastery, and impact. There are some variations of the stages in the literature on beginning teachers, but all share the path ‘‘from heaven to reality via hell’’, which I view as a Ushaped process. The parallel in immigrant literature are the four stages of adjustment which define the conflicts between sojourners’ expectations and their experiences in the host country: fascination; crisis and hostility towards the host culture; adjustment; and genuine biculturalism (Anderson, 1994; Fried, 1977; Sabar, 2000). Both the immigrants and the novice teachers go through the U-shaped process: they begin high, then crash, and finally, gradually, climb up again. Since human development defies easy categorization, dividing the passage into

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stages does not mean that there are discernable boundaries. This is not a linear progression as Conway (2001) shows in his six cases of teacher interns, but a struggle characterized by backsliding. There are similarities in the experiences that both novices and immigrants go through. Based on the analysis of the data in this study and my previous study of immigrants (Sabar, 2000), Table 1 summarizes the experiences of both populations while adapting to a new school culture, or to a new country. Both groups begin as strangers, marginal people who experience a cultural shock and need to make a journey of cultural transition. Despite the similarities presented above, there are a number of basic differences between the two groups, as discussed below. 4.4.1. Anticipation and preparation The immigrants expect to face difficulties because of the language, the culture, the customs and the finances, and consider these (theoretically)

Table 1 Similarities between immigrants and novice teachers

Expectations Disappointments Difficult and unwanted tasks Impermanence

Low pay Threat to veterans

Strangeness and marginality

Cultural norms

Immigrants

Novice teachers

Fantasies about the host country and financial success Reality is different and difficult Are forced to do difficult, undesirable, lowstatus jobs Because of their temporary status, they are taken advantage of, are the first to be fired, and do not have the confidence to refuse or to react Lack of seniority results in low pay, and inexperience brings them to accept any task Their willingness to perform tasks and invest effort without compensation, are dangerous precedents to the veterans. Sometimes the innovations they bring are threatening to veterans At work they are marginal; they stay apart from the veterans and stick together both because of language difficulties and similar problems; communication is mainly on technical matters. They often live together in run-down neighborhoods. They look and behave differently

Fantasies about the class and about themselves as teachers Reality is different and difficult Are assigned difficult classes and tasks that others don’t want to take Before getting tenure, they are vulnerable, lacking in self-confidence and others take advantage of them Lack of seniority results in low pay, and inexperience brings them to accept any task Their willingness to perform tasks and invest effort without compensation, are dangerous precedents to the veterans. Sometimes the innovations they bring are threatening to veterans In the staff room and the school as a whole, they stick together, apart from the veterans, sit apart at the edge of the room, do not integrate with the veterans; communication is mainly on technical matters They don’t know what is worthwhile, what is permitted, what is forbidden

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when making their plans to immigrate. Even if they immigrate to a country with a language that is familiar to them, they soon discover that it is a ‘‘different language’’—its usage and meanings are different in the new country, and that often they cannot even express simple thoughts (Llanes, 1997). Novice teachers view their entrance into a new school differently. They expect the language to be the same, and since they went to school themselves as learners, they expect to be familiar with the school culture. In addition, they were educated in the role of a teacher just a few months before entering the new school. There is no ‘pre service’ for immigrants toward migration; they receive no training. Nevertheless, both groups experience surprise that leads to shock, though its duration differs for the two groups. 4.4.2. The time factor Immigrants may experience the crisis over a very long period; it often leads to a state of depression which many barely come out of. The immigrants’ major comfort is the better future that is promised to their children who initially also greatly miss home (Louie, 2001; Valdez, 1998). Regardless of the circumstances that preceded their departure from their homeland, whether by force or by choice, and regardless of their current economic status, feelings about the loss of homeland are hidden pains which an immigrant may live and die with (Arrendondo-Dowd, 1981). Novices, on the other hand, do not have the luxury of remaining in a state of crisis for long. Their period of grace is short. If they do not ‘make it’ by the end of the first or the middle of the second year, they are fired or may decide to quit. If they remain in teaching, they are expected to become expert teachers after about 5 years. 4.4.3. Freedom of choice Because teachers are not forced into the teaching profession and most choose it among other options, novices have a sense that the crisis is temporary, knowing that if worst comes to worst, they can always leave, without necessarily experiencing a sense of failure. They can always fall back on the survival motto: ‘‘This is my first and my last year of teaching.’’ Immigrants, on the other hand,

very often don’t have a choice. They may have fled from political chaos, famine, persecution, perennial unemployment, a declining national economy or a personal financial crisis (Llanes, 1997). Often it’s now or never, because an opportunity arises. Even immigrants who have the option to return, almost always experience financial or professional loss, and a sense of failure (Sabar, 2000). The prospect of going back to the country of origin may involve many more internal conflicts than backing out of teaching. 4.4.4. Status and supportive environment Novice teachers, even when given difficult classes, are still within their professional field. Immigrants, more often than not, have to work in areas other than their profession that might afford lower status. Immigrants’ support systems center around their co-nationals and their families, who may themselves not be completely adjusted to the new culture. For novice teachers, though they may get moral support from family and friends, real help can come from the ‘‘professional family’’: the school mentor and the school administration. 4.4.5. Cultural differences and strategies The immigrant has to face a double cultural conflict: between the home and the work place, or, for immigrant children, the school; and between the new country and the old country. Teachers most often need to face the incompatibility between the teacher training environment and the new school they enter. Immigrants often adjust by maintaining their cultural traditions and not becoming assimilated into the host society. Cochrane and Stopes-Roe (1970) view this as a sensible coping strategy that helps immigrants deal with problems of uprooting by keeping both cultures. Transnationalism is the perspective on immigration that enables migrants to establish dual national identities (Guarnizo, 1998) and thus to reduce the tension between the two cultures. Novice teachers, on the other hand, are expected to ‘go native’, to adopt the customs and traditions of the school soon after they arrive, and at the same time, to make an impact within the school after having mastered teaching.

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4.5. Some thoughts about implications The striking similarities between novices and immigrants provide a frame that enables us to better understand the process that novices experience. Both groups go through cultural shock that results in experiencing a sense of failure that may later even lead to a sense of despair. In too many cases in teaching, this despair causes good novices to leave the profession (Armstrong, 1984; Van Mannen, 1991). However, the differences between the groups suggest a source for hope. Unlike immigrants whose hopes lie with the second generation, novice teachers can become successful within a short time, provided the environment is instrumental and supportive. While there are no real means available to prepare immigrants for the culture of the new country, teachers can be prepared for a school culture and, thus, perhaps avoid the culture shock of entering into real teaching. One of the main ideas underlying the Professional Development Schools (PDS) (Robinson & Darling Hammond, 1994; Levine, 1998; Ezer & Sabar, 1992) as well as Mentoring Support Programs in the US (Feiman-Nemser et al., 1999) is overcoming much of the cultural shock between the school and the teacher preparation program and decreasing the gap between the cultures of these two institutions. The success of these programs is gradually making an impact (Levine, 1998). The novices in this study experienced traditional preparation (Millet, 1998), together with the kind of inadequate mentoring that is still dominant in several countries (Wang, 2001), among them Israel. There is justification for looking at the Israeli immigration absorption experience and trying to adapt ideas relevant to novice teachers, since Israel is a country where immigration and the support of immigrants are part of its raison d’etre. Israel’s immigration policy has gone through various stages, from a firm belief in the importance of the ‘‘melting pot’’ (during the early years after the establishment of the State in 1948) molding all newcomers into the same mode, to the ‘‘direct absorption’’ policy of the 1990s aimed at the one million immigrants who arrived from the former Soviet Union (who today comprise 20 percent of

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Israel’s population). This direct absorption policy equips new immigrants with tools, mainly budget and information, and lets them find work and housing on their own. It views immigrants as strong ‘human capital’, and enables them to use their resourcefulness, creativity and entrepreneurship. This new approach indeed solved many, though not all, of the earlier problems.2 In comparison to immigrant absorption policy, teacher induction programs, which according to this paper present an analogue, have, in many cases, significantly constrained mentoring practice. These programs often focus on learning to adhere to the local norms, as dictated by conservative schooling contexts (Athanases & Aachinstein, in press; Millet, 1998). They do not make use of the novices’ great potential in creativity, resourcefulness and the ability to initiate change. If during the pre-service, teacher training institutions together with the training schools acquainted studentteachers with the school culture and thus decreased ‘culture shock’, mentors could spend less time on the ‘melting pot’ adherence to the norms and use the time more fruitfully. In such a case, mentors would have more time to encourage the novices to use their wealth of ideas and originality in focusing on teaching and learning, and the schools could benefit from their potential. Such an approach should be emphasized with administrators as well for creating a new school atmosphere—considerate of novices’ insecurities and at the same time receptive to and supportive of what they have to contribute to the school. With their new ways of looking at the school life, novices, as Schutz (1944) noted above, can be revitalizers of school conventions, fertilizers of the school ground, courageous experimenters, and change agents. As Richert (1997) notes, ‘‘The challenge we face is two-fold: we must prepare teachers for excellent practices as they are and, at the same time, we must also prepare them to engage in conversations 2

Policy makers could not anticipate the influx of immigrants in some professions like musicians, medical doctors, engineers (in some irrelevant areas to Israel like coal, oil, etc.) which led people to stay out of their profession and gradually leave it forever (Hacohen, 1994).

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and school practices as they believe they ought to be. This is today’s challenge. It is for today’s teacher and teacher educators, and for tomorrow’s children’’ (p. 93). And I would add to the above that it is for the sake of the children that we need to make better use of what the novices bring with them into the school: their resourcefulness and their fresh ways of looking at the school world.

Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Steve Athanases, the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their illuminating comments.

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