Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 52, No. 5, November/December 2001 Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 52, No. 5, November/December 2001 PLAYING IT SAFE AS A NOVICE TEACHER IMPLICATIONS FOR PROGRAMS FOR NEW TEACHERS Sharon M. Chubbuck Marquette University Renee T. Clift University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Joanne Allard Principal, Delphi Community Middle School Jane Quinlan ROE SchoolWorks, Champaign/Ford/Vermilion Counties, Illinois Prompted by the continuing attrition rate of novice teachers, this study examines 1st-year teachers’ needs in the context of a university-regional partnership sponsored support program for novice teachers, the Novice Teacher Support Project (NTSP). Using the concept of reality shock as occur- ring in the interaction of person and environment, the authors examined novice teachers’ expressed needs and how those needs are met. Throughout all the findings, the novice teachers expressed a need for safety, a mix of support and challenge that was best provided by a combination of both inter- nal resources from the district and external resources such as the NTSP. The authors suggest con- ceptualizing support as an interactive process that includes person, school context, support context, and personal relationships. This can help support the creation of the type of emotionally and professionally safe environments new teachers need to develop their professional lives. Many published calls for reforming schools and teaching end with a challenge to preservice preparation programs that goes something like this, “Teacher preparation programs should re- quire that their students be able to _____.” The blank is then filled with a knowledge, skill, or af- fective component that summarizes the focus of the article or the research. For example, the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) (1995) called for preservice programs to do more with computer technology. Cummins (1989), Nieto (1996), and Sleeter and Grant (1988) called for preservice programs to prepare students to teach in ways that accommodate cultural and linguistic diversity. Content orga- nizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) (2000) pro- vide standards and examples that encourage new ways of teaching mathematics. A recent is- sue of the Journal of Teacher Education (Vol. 52, No. 3) was devoted to the connections between reform in teacher education and school im- provement. Indeed, preservice teacher educa- tion is viewed by many as a hopeful force for changing teaching practice in America’s schools and improving teaching and learning for all stu- dents. Many educators recognize, however, that one cannot make a simplistic assumption that efforts at the preservice level automatically result in the opportunity for, or the encourage- ment of, newly graduated teachers to put their 365 Journal of Teacher Education, Vol. 52, No. 5, November/December 2001 365-376 © 2001 by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education