Who Teaches the City's Children? A Study of New York City First Year Teachers.

In 1983, 602 first year New York City teachers participated in a questionnaire study of their backgrounds, motivations, personal attitudes and experiences, and the support structures they felt they needed to survive in their profession. Results indicate that regardless of gender, race, or religion, participants were proud to teach, well educated, concerned about children, fully engaged in their new profession, and relatively unstressed (although teachers of kindergarten through Grade 3, women, and Caucasians were slightly more stressed than other groups). Overall, first year teachers appear to be hard-working individuals who are motivated more by idealistic than pragmatic reasons for entering teaching. They also seem to be more concerned with their students' experiences than with their own experiences as new teachers, and this is an indication of the transition from self-preoccupation to pupil-centeredness that is necessary for effective teaching. However, the fact that there were so few differences among the 602 teachers of diverse backgrounds and experiences, from every grade level and city borough, suggests that the first teaching year may have a normalizing effect. The new teachers gave strong support for retired teachers to serve as mentors for first-year teachers in 1984, and a study of this intervention is underway. (KH)