Ассоциация духовых инструментов Манитобы запускает программу наставничества для молодых учителей музыки

As music teachers return to school alongside students across the province this week, many will find themselves in situations that they were not trained for with challenges that they could not have foreseen. The Manitoba Band Association is providing a solution to those situations with its mentorship program, which pairs early-career band teachers with more experienced educators who can help guide them through seasons of transitions and learning on the job.  Eric Marshall, a mentor who also supervises student teachers at the University of Manitoba, notes the key distinction that separates the mentorship program from teaching the next generation of teachers. "Instead of in a supervisory position, we're now in a collaborative position where we come in and say, 'How can help? What do you need from me?'" Facing new challenges together  Vanessa Nowotawski, a band teacher at École Regent Park who also serves as a mentor, notes that early-career educators are facing steeper learning curves on the job with challenges that herself and Marshall did not have to face when they were starting out. This includes the advent of new technologies that are used frequently in school settings and working in multi-level classes with kids of different ages and experience levels.  "You might have a class of students that is a grade seven and eight, so you have beginners mixed with first-year players," she explains. "That's something that's on a completely different level of planning and mentoring within the classroom as well."  "You have to appreciate that most band teachers – not all, but most of them – are the only person in their building teaching that subject," adds Marshall. "If they have questions or concerns about how the band works or how do we do this or that, that's where the Manitoba Band Association can step in and the mentors can help a lot." RELATED STORIES  Music teachers prepare for new realities, classrooms Rural music teachers, students share added challenges, unique advantages Music enhances post-secondary experience at University of Winnipeg Learning across generations  As the mentors assist the early-career teachers through the MBA's mentorship program, they themselves learn new skills and tricks that they can apply in their own practices. "I've done this for eighteen years, but... you sometimes just get stuck in your rut of [having] your same tools in your toolbox," says Nowotawski, adding that professional development offered through the MBA also provide a valuable opportunity for continued learning.   As Marshall provides mentorship to newer teachers, he reflects on his own career which started in rural Nova Scotia and what this type of program would have meant to him. "One real advantage for me... was because it was a brand-new program, I was allowed to grow and make mistakes with anybody really knowing," he shares with a chuckle, "and sometimes in our climate here now, that's not as easy for a young, emerging teacher because they're stepping into established programs. This is why what we do can really help."