As a former martial arts instructor, Chris Manning believes in
control. The Ensign Intermediate School history teacher describes
himself as a free spirit much of the time, but in the early weeks of
a new school year, he'll keep smiling and joking to a minimum.
"When kids come in, if you present an attitude that's calm and
businesslike, they'll learn to respect you," Manning told a classroom
full of new secondary school teachers during the Newport-Mesa Unified
School District's orientation week. "If they see the teacher laughing
and giggling and telling jokes, they think, 'Well, I can turn to my
friends and laugh and giggle and tell jokes.'"
A few blocks away at Newport Harbor High School, Karin
Nieto-Chaney had her room decked out as if she were preparing for a
child's birthday party. The walls of her ninth-grade science
classroom were lined with construction paper and anything else
colorful; each desk had a chocolate wrapped in foil. Scattered around
the room were helium balloons containing classroom rules written on
slips of paper. This was the standard back-to-school setup for
Nieto-Chaney, who believes in teaching with a little panache.
"As infantile as some of these procedures may sound, o7usef7
them," she told the incoming teachers shortly after they had left
Manning's room.
Establish your authority. Act like your students' friend. Be
stern, and don't smile. Laugh, and pass out candy. All the lessons in
Newport-Mesa's teacher orientation week added up to one overriding
rule: When it comes to leading a classroom, there is no one right
method.
"That's where personality comes into play," Manning admitted.
This fall, Newport-Mesa will have nearly 200 new teachers joining
the district -- some moving in from elsewhere in the state, some
never having taught a class before. To ease the transitions all
around, Newport-Mesa held its annual orientation this week for new
employees, leading them in workshops and busing them to schools
around the district.
Apart from serving as an introduction, the orientation week also
aimed to provide enough resources to make teachers feel secure in
their jobs. Friday, the new secondary instructors visited Ensign and
Newport Harbor and met with two teachers at each site; the elementary
group visited College Park Elementary and Davis Elementary.
Throughout the year, experienced teachers will continue to serve as
mentors to their younger colleagues.
"It's a profession that has a high attrition rate, and the reason
