Mentoring: Helping New Teachers Begin Their Climb to the Summit

Abstract

With 46 years of service as a music educator, I have spent last 13 years with young, inexperienced junior high and high school instrumental music teachers as a mentor/teacher.  My charge has been to help them become stronger teachers and to assist them in building a band curriculum vertically aligned from grades six through twelve.  Mentoring most of these teachers from their very first year has given me the opportunity to learn several memorable lessons.