Collaboration

By Mark

This video was emailed to me by a colleague…if you have a few minutes and are willing to maintain a sense of humor, it's worth a look:


 

Now, I wouldn't post this if I was just trying to be subversive or funny. In any satire or parody, there is always a kernel of truth (heck, sometimes a whole cob of truth). 

I truly enjoy authentic collaboration. In fact, I believe that my freedom to collaborate is actually what has kept me in education this long–if I were isolated in my own classroom all day with my only human contact being with 14-year-olds (who some contend are not quite yet human beings) I don't think I'd have lasted.

Because I get to collaborate and actually team-teach in my current assignment, I have grown as an educator and my satisfaction in my job has grown as well. There is something powerful about working closely with a like-minded educator or team of educators who share common philosophies, attitudes and dedication to increasing student learning. We challenge each other, support each other, and learn from each other. I am a better teacher because I have collaborated. My students perform better because I have collaborated.

Alas, like so many fads in education, Collaboration has become a four-letter-word to some, and I think it is in no small way due to the kinds of situations parodied in that YouTube video above.

If there is one thing I've learned from being a parent and teaching teenagers, rarely will authoritarian and directive mandates elicit cooperation from those who most need the cooperation. To me, a mandate is too often parallel with using fear and threats to compel cooperation–whereas fostering understanding is likely to bring more success.

Unfortunately, what I think happens in some buildings is that "teacher collaboration" hits the radar as the new great thing producing tremendous results. It hits the radar because it's true: effective collaboration works and absolutely can produce tremendous results. So, being the industry we are, well-meaning educational leaders look at the nuts, bolts, and structure of those successful programs and then transplant them in toto into their building under the assumption that if it worked elsewhere, it will work here. They had common assignments, we have to have that too. They had a pacing calendar, we have to have that too. They had "everything" bagels and did a team-building cheer at each Tuesday meeting, we have to have that too. 

This suspension of logical thinking is what causes so many teachers to dig in when such a mandate is dictated. I do believe that collaboration is a necessary key for the reform and rehabilitation of the American public school system. However, Brand X of collaboration will not work everywhere. Like too many things in our system, though, it is much easier to administer a pre-packaged philosophy and structure than to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, though, the only way to get the wheel rolling is to reinvent it.

Collaboration when used for professional development and analysis of student development is tremendously powerful. I learn so much by hearing how my colleagues teach and seeing the materials they use and the student work that those materials produce. I have taken strategies and activities straight from those meetings into my classroom the next day and seen a transformation in my students' performance. I also get to collaborate with a team of teachers in my intervention program in order to design curriculum, but as importantly, to discuss how to best support the kids we share. None of this collaboration is based on an outline that we adopted from some other successful system. We built it ourselves, based on our students' needs. And it works. It works well. I am a better teacher as a result and my students learn more than they used to.

Even though we observe the improvement in our students' performance and we see the grades increasing, we worry that we are going to be told to conform to the "next new thing." Even though we're witnessing results, we worry that we're going to be mandated to eat "everything" bagels and do a team cheer before every meeting just because some team a half a country away did that and they happened to see great results.

A good friend of mine summed it up this way: "Collaboration should not require conformity." Ultimately, our job is to increase the capacity of our students. Sometimes that means paying more attention to our students than to the pacing calendar or the common assessment. No student will look back at their time in our classroom and say "Man, Mr. Q sure did a great job staying on schedule! Too bad I bombed all the tests." Rather, they'll certainly say "I'm so glad we took that extra two days to review verse structure… I totally get it now!"

8 thoughts on “Collaboration

  1. Pamela Clark

    Collaboration is essential to becoming an effective teacher. When teacher’s work together to share ideas and practices, supportive relationships are formed. Education is not about what I can do as a solo teacher. It is about using many available resources at my disposal such as continuing my owm education,becoming an active member of a Professional Learning Community, joining a teacher organization,and sharing ideas with my colleagues to enhance the quality of education that I can provide my students. It is through collaboration that we learn from each other, keep abreast of new ideas, and continue our own professional growth as educator’s. I truly believe that educator’s need to go into the classroom and see our colleagues in action. Think of all that we can learn from one another while providing positive feedback to help other’s improve their own teaching style. Professional Learning Communities, workshops, blogs and team meetings encourage teachers to keep the lines of communication open with their peers and administrators. If we all work together, we can successfully revamp this country’s educational system to ensure that ALL learners are receiving a quality education. After all, our children deserve it.

  2. Mark

    You’re absolutely right, Kristin, that it shouldn’t require a grant for peer observation. Unfortunately, with the current trend of “data-driven everything” observing to make yourself a better teacher doesn’t fit. I tried that angle, saying that collaboration that makes me a better teacher is good for my students…but the response was “how do you know?” ARGH!! I know because I see that my students are learning faster than they used to and mastering concepts to a greater depth than they used to. I say then, then I get asked “where’s the data to show that?” Isn’t observation a form of data? Why must everything be quantified? Because it is easier to sell? Because it is easier to judge? Because is it easier to administer? Yes to all three. It is much harder to look at a set of learners as a diverse set of learners, impossible to be reduced to a series of numbers. But, this apparently is a mindset divergent from the current pop trend in education.

  3. Kristin

    I don’t think anything is more powerful than having others watch me teach or watching others teach. When observers are in the room, I work even harder. I’m more explicit with things because I want the observers, who don’t know me and my ways as well as the kids do, to understand what we’re doing. I find that when I do that, the kids learn more too.
    As well, when I watch my colleagues teach, I get so inspired. They’re MUCH better in the classroom than they are complaining in the lunchroom or resisting everything in staff meetings. I learn a lot, I’m humbled, and I get excited to go back to my room to try new things.
    Why does something this important require a grant? Why isn’t it built into the day? Why are so many collaborative opportunities so structured? CFGs, PLCs, whatever, they all seem to have strict requirements and strict protocols.
    Sometimes, just witnessing and debriefing is the best thing.

  4. Tracey

    The “everything” bagel analogy is unfortunately so true. I see this frustrating phenomenon daily. Something gets lost in the translation – like the game “telephone”- and “good teaching” turns into a checklist. Thanks, you’ve given me an idea for my next post.

  5. Mark

    I have tried asking “why,” too. The answer I get: “Because it is what is best for kids. You want what is best for kids, don’t you?” And then I teach a little lesson about false questions and rhetorical double binds as tools for manipulation.

  6. Tom

    We started a new math curriculum three years ago. We were told to teach one lesson after another, regardless of student learning.
    Then we were told how to give and score the formative tests.
    At which point I asked, “Why?”

  7. Mark

    I agree about the last part of your comment, Brian, but I’m going to go against the pacing calendar and comment now 🙂 …I was lucky enough to get a CSTP Leadership Grant a few years ago which provided teachers in my building funding for release time to observe one another in practice–either to learn about a strategy or lesson being modeled or to have a peer observe as a coach or adviser. It was great… about a third of the staff voluntarily participated and in total we logged over 120 hours of peer observation and coaching. The feedback was very positive!
    Collaboration, like any other valid practice which gets reduced to an edubuzzword, can be implemented improperly though, and I think collaboration is getting a bad name in some places because it is being treated like the latest fad in education.

  8. Brian

    This is December 1, so I know I can make the first comment. If you want to comment, your comment will be second, so wait until December 2.
    Seriously, I think that “collaboration” means we must watch each other teach.
    Talk is talk; action is action.

Comments are closed.