Teaching teachers - New teachers cope with the unexpected

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. -- For 13 years, Andy Gerb helped keep the Hubble Space Telescope aloft, but he says his new job is much harder: explaining the social and historical significance of computers to a roomful of teen-agers.

"I really feel like I'm out of my league trying to teach that particular class," he said recently, adding that he's giving it his best shot. Forget that he'd rather be teaching health.

Gerb, 40, a longtime computer programmer who once supervised a team of engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, began teaching this fall at Centennial High School, west of the city. He's one of a handful of new teachers at the school -- and one of thousands nationwide -- who are battling paperwork, long hours and high expectations in their first year of teaching.

Enrollment rising

A rising tide of school enrollment in most of the nation is expected to grow over the next four years before leveling off, according to U.S. Census data. By 2009, public schools will need to hire as many as 2.7 million teachers as the bulk of the nation's teaching force nears retirement, the U.S. Education Department estimates.

With surveys showing that about half of teachers quit after five years, newly minted teachers will play a vital role.

In Los Angeles, Alicia Diazgranados began teaching third grade in mid-August. A former Hollywood production auditor, Diazgranados, 29, said she now gets home a bit earlier each day, but thinks about her 20 students every waking hour.

"I don't think I've ever had a job where I'm constantly reflecting on what I did," she said.

New teachers these days arrive with widely different kinds of training. Like Diazgranados, thousands enter the classroom with special emergency credentials, especially in big cities.

Diazgranados had only cursory preparation -- she'll get more training early next year. Gerb, on the other hand, spent three years taking night classes at several local colleges. He cobbled together enough credits and practice-teaching experience, including six weeks in Baltimore last spring, to land a job in Howard County.

Like many school districts, the county pairs new teachers with more experienced mentor teachers and offers regular classes to help them cope with paperwork, classroom discipline and parent conferences.

Ginette Suarez, a mentor teacher in the Washington, D.C., public schools, said one-on-one help is the most effective way to keep turnover low.

Losing fear

After six weeks of teaching in Kirkwood, Mo., first-grade teacher Jessica Neufeld, 22, said her fear of responsibility for a group of 6-year-olds is subsiding.

"I know they're having a good experience in my classroom," she said.

But Neufeld spent her first weeks "putting out little fires everywhere" as she taught them how to line up for recess and find picture books in the school library. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she had to settle an argument over whether Santa Claus was dead.