As a part of voluntarily participating in a cancelling project initiated by the Norwegian Directory of Education, the newly qualified teachers were requested to write texts about their experiences in the first year of their work. My paper is based on 22 texts written by these teachers over a period of three years, from September 2004 to June 2007. Reading these texts was not a dive into happy stories. Even if most of them managed and had decided to continue in their new occupation, their feelings of mastering the job and of life quality were seriously challenged. In many cases their courage and positive expectations seemed to decrease much during the first year in work. Many of them felt insecure were stressed and dissatisfied. I have been wondering why their start as new teachers seems to be so tough for those newly qualified teachers in our region. The reasons are not easy to grasp because they presumably consist of a many factors and are shaped by complex patterns. One of these patterns has become of special interest to me, because many of the problems and episodes they describe seem related to it. This factor is “the school culture”. Andy Hargreaves (1996) says this culture is a result of how history has generated certain solutions and ways of doing things. The experienced teachers have collectively accepted this traditional understanding and passed it on to new and inexperienced members of the staff. In my research I have asked: What do the newly educated teachers stories and reflections tell us about the connection between their sense of mastering and development, and the culture of their schools? In the texts mentioned above, the newly educated teachers emphasize factors as how and if the schools have constructed an information system about central points to ease the first period. Some of the important points were: Were certain persons in the college appointed to aid the new teacher with practical and other matters the first period? Had the schools gathered a collection of teaching material which the new teacher could make use of? Did the written and the unwritten rules of the school’s correspond? Did the teacher really teach in accordance with the school’s written curriculum? Did the teacher co-operate planning the teaching? Did they reflect on how they performed the teaching and how it turned out? Did the new teachers feel they were met with an accommodating attitude when they needed to ask for information? And – had the management appointed a mentor or a supervisor to guide and support the new teachers? As to my last question, no schools had appointed a mentor or a supporting structure before the school entered the counselling project. In addition to the important factors which influenced the feeling of mastering for the new teacher, some of them had been employed according to an agreement of teaching certain subjects and classes, but when the school year started, the job had been altered to include different classes and subjects. Based on the questions above I have discussed how different school cultures contribute positively or negatively to developing prosperity and professionality among the newly educated teachers. PS. Within the limit of this abstract I have not found room for presenting my references (with exception of Hargreaves), but I will of course bring them to the conference.

text analysis

Schools belonging to the councelling project do not have cultures which facilitate the prosperity and professional development among the newly qualified teachers.