Someone to Lean On

In her first year as an elementary school teacher many years ago, Martha Zoloth learned most of her lessons the hard way.

There was, for example, the time she read “Charlotte’s Web” aloud to the third-grade class. At the end of the novel, she couldn’t help herself--she began to cry.

“I forgot the spider died!” Zoloth, 63, recalled, now able to laugh at her youthful misadventures.

At the time, she made a mental note. Teaching tip No. 1: Review books before you read them aloud to the class.

Now retired, Zoloth offers such hard-won tips--acquired from 20 years in the classroom--to teachers navigating their first year.

For three years, Zoloth has been a mentor in a partnership program of the UCLA Center on Aging and Teach for America, which pairs new teachers with retired ones who provide support and encouragement in the classroom.

“With any person who is jumping into teaching, for the first year there are many unknowns,” said Emily Liu, education coordinator for the Center on Aging. “It really helps to have a mentor there who has been through it and understands what they are going through.”

It is an 80-mile round trip journey from Zoloth’s Bell Canyon home to Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School in Compton, but she makes the trek each Wednesday. Though she is only asked to mentor three hours per month, Zoloth devotes about 20 hours to the job.

“I just need to feel that I’m doing something for the community-- making the world a better place,” Zoloth said. Zoloth and Brian Jung, 23, a second-grade teacher, talk by phone each Sunday to discuss the plan for the week ahead. Zoloth then researches and pulls materials that may be appropriate for the week’s lessons. Wielding an activities box and a thermos of coffee, Zoloth arrives at school by 7 a.m. to spend an hour talking about any concerns before the students come to class.

On a recent morning the shouts of students entering the room interrupted the strains of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” playing softly in the background.

“Aunt Martha!” they yelled, flinging their arms around Zoloth’s waist.

“Hello love, hello darling,” replied Zoloth, rubbing necks, patting shoulders and caressing the flushed cheeks of students.

“She comes in the classroom, and the kids get energized and I get energized,” Jung said.

As the children copied a poem from the board, Zoloth circled, slowly monitoring their progress. She asked one student to read the poem to her.

“Do you know what fangs are?” Zoloth asked when he stumbled on the word.

“Ummm . . . ,” the student replied.

Zoloth bared her teeth and mimed long, protruding fangs. “Teeth!” said the student, who later confidently recited the poem for the class.

Tip No. 2: Even limited one-on-one interaction may encourage student performance.

Later, Zoloth sparked an impromptu geography lesson when she told students that she would be taking a trip to Uzbekistan. Gathering around a children’s atlas, the students tried to pronounce the cities Zoloth would be visiting as they traced her route on the map.

Tip No. 3: Real life provides teachable moments.

Jung also receives feedback from Zoloth’s observation of him. As Jung instructed, Zoloth sat in the back of the room and jotted notes on a yellow pad. When Jung called only on students with their hands raised, Zoloth wrote Tip No. 4: Call on children who don’t raise their hands.

As Jung filled in the day and date on the calendar in the front of the room, Zoloth noted Tip No. 5: Let the children participate in classroom routines. It helps them feel ownership of the class.

And as students around the room used index fingers to follow along reading word-by-word, Zoloth wrote Tip No. 6: Encourage students to look at groups of words by giving them bookmarks to follow along.

While Jung administered reading assessment tests to two students during free reading time, Zoloth worked separately with a group that needed extra attention.

Juggling tasks to meet the needs of all students is an example of classroom management--one of the greatest challenges for new teachers, particularly in elementary school, Zoloth said. To aid classroom management, Zoloth helped Jung create “centers”--tables where students work independently on activities including language arts, reading and science--in the back of the room. While some students use the centers, Jung is freed to work with others.

Tip No. 7: “You have to be a special person to teach elementary school. You have to be organized in the movement of the children. You can’t have them sitting all day,” Zoloth said. She said centers help create that movement.

Zoloth said a lot has changed since her days in the classroom. “We had more of a curriculum--social studies, science, health--now you only teach reading, language arts and math,” said Zoloth, who said she tries to help Jung build up the other areas.

With a bachelor of arts in history and a minor in elementary education from Hunter College in New York, Zoloth, a Bronx native, has taught elementary grades and English as a second language, and most recently was assistant principal at Budlong Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles.

During the first two years of her retirement, Zoloth developed the academic curriculum for a private Kabbalah school in Los Angeles. She also volunteers for other education-oriented programs. But it is the small things, the little tips she has supplied over the last six months, that seem most appreciated.

Over sips of leftover coffee and bites of apple during a quick lunch break, Zoloth and Jung discussed the day.

“I really think I would be struggling without her,” said Jung, adding that he hopes Zoloth will be available to assist him next year. “She’s my lifeline.”

Tip No. 8: Find a great mentor and keep her.