Three new teachers prepare for their first day in front of a class

By: Laurent Bonczijk
The Newberg Graphhic

(Editor’s note: The Newberg Graphic will be following three new teachers as they learn the ropes of their new jobs this year).

In the midst of the doom and gloom affecting education, three teachers who were handed their diplomas as recently as June landed jobs as first-year teachers in Newberg. On Tuesday, the two women and one man would have a chance to find out just how well their educations have prepared them to face classrooms with sometimes more than 30 students.

The district as a whole hired 31 teachers this year, a majority of which replaced retiring teachers.

Monica Barry, 25, will teach second-grade at Edwards Elementary School. If the class goes haywire she knows that not only can she count on the other two second-grade teachers to help her, but also that she can knock on the door next to hers and a friendly face will appear: her mother Margaret Barry is the school’s Title I teacher.

While Tuesday was the younger Barry’s first day teaching elementary students, she does have a bit more experience than her fellow first-year teachers. After graduating with a master’s degree in teaching from Lewis and Clark College in 2009, she taught in a private preschool in North Portland.

Dave Masenhimer, 24, and Alison Hudson, 25, both graduated in June from George Fox University’s 10-month degree program. Hudson knew in mid-May that she would teach sixth-grade math and seventh-grade science at Chehalem Valley Middle School and ninth-grade biology at Newberg High School. Masenhimer was hired Aug. 20 to teach sixth-grade core and eighth-grade reading at Mountain View Middle School.

All three have spent the last week preparing their classroom for the first day of school. Masenhimer, who inherited an art class, said that his first act was to clean up the glitter, feathers and yarn that were left-behind. A self-avowed organized man, he has posters perfectly aligned on the back wall, plays Bach on his iPod and has Mayan art hanging on another wall.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m ready,” he said of the first day of class. The son of a teacher, he quipped that while he intends to keep a tight lid on his class, he might internally be thinking of a “calm blue ocean.” He added he expects that once the kids step in “I’m going to forget about how tired I am. I’m going to forget about how stressed I am.”

While Edwards puts its teachers in professional learning communities to help with their development, both of the middle schools use a mentor system. “I wouldn’t be making it on Tuesday if they didn’t have that mentorship program,” Masenhimer said.
Hudson, who will be teaching on two different campuses, has two formal mentors at the middle school and is also being mentored by two high school teachers with years of experience. They’ve all been able to go through other teachers’ syllabi and teaching plans in order to create their own.

While initially Hudson thought that knowing she had a job would make for a less stressful summer, preparing for her first gig was all she could think of. Everything she did became an opportunity for her to think of how she could include it as a science experiment.

All three have done a lot of thinking on how to handle the students. “I try to anticipate things,” Barry said, and will strive to create a team environment where students feel invested in maintaining a good learning environment. Hudson said she knows she’s too nice and easy going so her plan is to be hard-nosed from the start, but “being strict is going to be kind of hard.” Masenhimer said he plans to be stern as well because more learning takes place in a controlled environment.

Hudson, who also coaches the junior varsity girl soccer team, said she thinks her strength will be in connecting with students. At 5 feet tall she was a kicker on her high school’s football team, with a perfect record on extra point attempts. “They couldn’t make extra points to save their lives,” she said of the boys on the team. “It’s a good lesson for girls,” she said of the photo of her in shoulder pads behind her desk: “Hey, you can do whatever you want.”