Teaching has always been challenging, but recent years have made it even more difficult. According to a Wall Street Journal article, teachers are “already demoralized and exhausted” in the first days of school, with fewer than 50% saying the benefits outweigh the stress. This stress stems from multiple sources: staff shortages, student behavior management, and broader questions about staying in the profession.

The education field has recognized this crisis. Gone are the days when new teachers were simply thrown into classrooms to “sink or swim” without support. Today, numerous programs, mentorships, induction supports, and fellowships exist specifically to help early-career teachers succeed.

The Paradox of Support

But this well-intentioned support brings its own challenges. My (Jodie) dissertation study of beginning science teachers in a large urban district found that some teachers were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of assistance available. I noted: “There is a potential irony here – new teachers no longer have to ‘sink or swim’; yet, there is more than one way to drown – under one’s own weight or weighted down by an overwhelming amount of well-intended assistance.” I compared this situation for new teachers to what software designers call “useless help” – when assistance becomes so overwhelming that it creates more confusion than clarity.

What the Data Shows

Data collected from Knowles Fellows about the Fellowship program reveals informative insights into how early career teachers experience support programs:
When Support Works Well

Many fellows express deep gratitude for targeted, thoughtful support:

• • “I am certain that I am still in the classroom because of Knowles. I most needed community and support in my first three years in the classroom, and Knowles was that for me. Without it, I don’t think I would have been able to continue teaching.”
  • “Knowles treats us as working professionals, like how I used to be treated when I worked in the private sector. My school won’t even trust me with a district credit card to buy spinach for a bio lab.“
  • “I am so grateful for this space to reflect on my practices and identities as a teacher. I know, without doubt, this Fellowship allowed me to have a much more effective and less stressful first year of teaching.”

These quotes highlight the importance of being supported during the hardest years, being seen as a professional, and having space to develop, in community, the practices needed to develop into effective teachers.

When Support Becomes Overwhelming

Several fellows expressed feeling burdened or unable to fully use available support:

• • “I would be so excited to recommend my fellow new teachers to this program. However, I might caution them from applying during Year 1. Even though we only meet a few times a year (in person or online), I think [first year] teachers are just too exhausted and overwhelmed, so the mental strain of simply anticipating, traveling, making time (losing prep time over the weekend as a consequence) etc. is a lot to bear.”
  • “It is difficult to balance everything. … It can just be overwhelming with all the resources out there, and how to actually leverage them to improve my teaching.
  • “It was really hard to adapt some of Knowles’ practices to my own context. I wish there would have been more leadership in facilitating working with urban communities.”

These quotes illustrate the challenges of managing the stress of teaching with the additional expectations of the Fellowship and raise an important question of how what the early-career teachers are learning fit into their interpretation of the work of teaching in their context.

The Support Networks Landscape

Looking at the 2023 cohort data on Fellow support networks, it’s clear that most new teachers in our community navigate a complex web of support systems. Fellows mentioned being part of multiple networks: Knowles, university alumni networks, district induction programs, professional learning communities (PLCs), local teacher unions, and subject-specific organizations (like AAPT for physics teachers).

This diversity of support creates both opportunities and challenges. While multiple networks provide specialized resources and communities, they also require teachers to navigate different expectations, approaches, and demands on their limited time.

Principles for Better Beginning Teacher Support

Based on our research and experience, here are some ideas and challenges we grapple with and some principles that are emerging from our work for how to deliver more effective support:

1. Support Should Be Personalized

We want to support you in the ways you want. We want you to be supported in the ways you want. We want you to share your capacity for the support you are getting.

One-size-fits-all approaches often miss the mark. Support programs need flexibility to meet individual teacher needs and contexts.

2. Balance Deposit and Withdrawal

Supporting new teachers is both about deposit and withdrawal. Sometimes it’s enough to break even because you have reserves and other times you need deposits.

Effective support recognizes that teachers have limited capacity. Sometimes they need substantial input; other times they just need maintenance support.

3. Coordination Among Support Provider

What do we know about all of the support? What do we know about Fellows and the support they are getting? Is there some way of understanding the landscape, what they access and what they don’t. Could we get smarter about new teachers’ support networks and how we fit in?

Better coordination between programs could prevent overwhelming teachers while ensuring critical needs don’t fall through the cracks.

4. Honor Teacher Agency and Expertise

[T]eachers are fully capable and, in many ways, uniquely situated to achieve these new understandings and invent more effective teaching practices. They need all the help they can get, of course. But they don’t need someone else to do all that work for them (Weinbaum et. al, 2004, p. 155).

The best support empowers teachers rather than prescribing solutions, recognizing their capacity for innovation and problem-solving.

5. Focus on Rejuvenation, Not Just Survival

Multiple fellows mentioned how support programs provide “rejuvenation” and “motivation to keep going.” “It has been a great experience to always come to conferences and leave feeling rejuvenated with some new ideas to try out in my classroom. These conferences always seem to be at just the right time when I need them. They give me the strength to keep showing up for my kids every day.”

Effective support should energize teachers, not just help them survive.

Moving Forward

As we continue to explore effective ways to provide teacher support, we have to keep this fundamental tension in mind: providing robust assistance without overwhelming already stressed educators. Programs like the Knowles Teacher Initiative Teaching Fellowship offer valuable models that, when working well, provide community, professional respect, and rejuvenation.

The key appears to be thoughtful curation and coordination of support, matched to individual teacher needs and contexts. Rather than simply adding more programs, the field needs to develop better systems for understanding what each teacher needs at different points in their career journey.

By addressing these challenges, we can help ensure that new teachers get what they truly need—not just to avoid sinking, but to flourish and thrive in this vital profession.