About the Game
History
The attrition rate for new teachers in the United States is much too high. We are losing our best and brightest to other professions that support and retain educators much more successfully. Nationally, the cost of replacing teachers who leave the classroom during their first years in the teaching field is in the billions of dollars.
One of the ways we can help reduce these alarming numbers is to give teachers in the early stages of their career honest, valuable information regarding what they will face and should expect in their first classroom and teaching experiences. This helps them prepare for the emotional and professional challenges and successes they will face, thus creating an environment where the teacher understands that the moments of stress and negative feelings will go away, they will end, and that success and change is not far out of reach.
Introduction
This game, when played as part of a risk-free workshop environement, is an entertaining, yet realistic way to prepare teachers for the emotional phases they will go through during their early years. It affords them opportunities to understand and react to realistic scenarios outside of the demand of the classroom. By putting participants in a non-threatening game situation the difficulties of those early years can be shared productively with colleagues and/or mentors. This can dimish the negative effects of the emotional phases when they enter or return to the classroom.
Audience
The audience for this game is first, second and third year teachers and those professionals with a desire to learn about the phases teachers face during the early portion of their career. Facilitators should be a mentor, a teacher support person, an administrator, or anyone else who works with the professional development of teachers during their induction years.
Premise of the Game
Since 1988 the Santa Cruz New Teacher Project has been working to support the efforts of new teachers. After supporting nearly 1,500 new teachers, a number of developmental phases have been noted and are now widely accepted. Those stages are anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation, reflection, and anticipation. These phases occur chronologically and for predictable amounts of time during the school year. The game takes teachers through the ups and downs of these phases with realistic scenarios.
The scoring method is based on the real game of golf. In this game, the player’s score changes based on the cards they draw (the events that happen to them) and how those cards change their current teaching situation. The most important aspect of the game is the trip to The Clubhouse. Here teachers will learn from their game experience and apply it to their own classroom work and expectations.