Seven billion dollars a year hit the academic Dumpster due to new teachers dropping out. By their third year, nearly fifty percent have permanently heeded the dismissal bell of their profession. They leave, voluntarily or otherwise, because they are overwhelmed and confused, and don't know how to help themselves. Well-intentioned administrators provide unhelpful inservices, poorly organized mentoring programs and schmaltzy gimmicks (think cheese-stalking, bucket-filling, fish-flinging) all to no avail. Trickle Down Teaching demystifies the main problem for beginning teachers; that is, their primary goal must be to quickly and methodically establish solid support for themselves by recognizing, understanding and harnessing the power of forces beyond their classrooms, but within the school. Once the new teacher is solidly supported, benefits trickle down naturally to students-the ultimate goal of every teacher. A native of Detroit, Kelley Callahan Chikos has hopped around to three states, discovering different ways of life in each. From post-war Detroit, with its booming auto industry, to rural Amish-influenced Hartville Ohio, to suburban, fast-paced Chicago, Chikos has painstakingly learned the fine art of adapting to new situations. During this time, she pursued her undergrad and graduate degrees, attending eight different colleges and universities. Oh, and raised two kids. So it came as a shock when, at age 40, she entered the teaching profession and found herself caught unaware. Her tried-and-true adaptation skills didn't work for her new profession. The unexpected, unrelenting demands of the job were coming at her too rapidly and from too many directions. She couldn't keep up or even make sense of how it all worked together. Despite all 'satisfactory' evaluations, at the end of her first year the principal recommended she be let go. Why? That question is answered in this book. Determined that no new teacher should have to founder and consume the quantities of Maalox she did, Chikos offers this book of explanation and encouragement, laced with the essential quality no new teacher can succeed without-a rock-solid sense of humor!
About the Author: A native of Detroit, Kelley Callahan Chikos has hopped around to three Midwestern states, discovering different ways of life in each. From post-war Detroit, with its booming auto industry, to rural Amish-influenced Hartville Ohio, to suburban, fast-paced Chicago, Chikos has painstakingly learned the fine art of adapting to new situations. While doing all that hopping and pursuing, Chikos has been employed in myriad ways: secretary, telephone operator, customer services rep for an auto manufacturer as well as a cheese manufacturer, where she learned more about pasteurized processed cheese food product than she ever wanted to. Between those ventures, she took jobs via temp agencies in the nuclear welding industry and ordering chickens for KFC. During the welding and chicken stints, she eventually earned teaching certificates in elementary and secondary education. She taught English for 22 years in middle school and high school classrooms, as well as ESL for grades K-12, and as a tutor for homebound students. She has mentored several first-year teachers and supervised student teachers. She has worked with five principals, six superintendents, dozens of colleagues and thousands of students and their parents, and school boards with rotating members and allegiances. She gets tired just thinking about it. Chikos has been professionally published in the National Council of Teachers of English journal Voices from the Middle (it's old but it's good-see Hangin' with Pie Face, November 1997). Now retired, she spends her days writing and taking as much time as she wants to eat lunch.