Reflecting on my current practice, I would like to get to a place where colleagues can come to me for support, advice, and frustration in addition to collaboration. Knowing that being open and sharing with a colleague requires a deeper level of trust than surface-level partnerships. To get to this level, relationships must be formed with mutual respect and understanding. By knowing each other’s story, we are less likely to have bias and more likely to assume positive intentions. This plays a critical role when working with others to plan instruction or activities. If there is something that you don’t agree with, it makes it easier to understand how to relate to their perspective. Additionally, engaging in school-hosted activities also helps me be more open to attending non-school-hosted activities with faculty and students. While connecting with faculty is important, I find that I can make similar connections with students. Going with other faculty to student events, such as sports games, recitals, and competitions, can further strengthen that collegial bond.
Collegial Dynamics
(1) Develops mutually respectful and productive relationships with colleagues
Developing relationships with colleagues can be a challenge when you are new or don’t work with someone often. Typically, teachers interact with each other when there is an issue. However, I strive to be more than just a problem solver. I want to create a positive and welcoming environment for my officemates and those that I share a classroom with. I contribute to discipline meetings and listen when others are sharing their ideas. Moving beyond my regular duties, I facilitated summer reading, Limitless Mind by Jo Boaler. This PD brought people together with a common goal, to understand and apply a book to our lives or classrooms.
Developing these relationships with colleagues also supports students. Students see and hear teachers connecting with each other, they understand that the school operates as a unified entity, rather than silos of learning. In one instance, Cowdrey emailed me to share that students were positively sharing why their math teacher was the best. This demonstrates that not only are the students happy and comfortable in their math classes, but they are also building community by sharing the special connections they have experienced in another class with another teacher.
(2) Partners consistently with colleagues on projects
Partnering with colleagues is an essential part of developing a holistic program. I am privileged to work with a variety of people from different areas. In my regular teaching assignments, I get to partner with Randy in developing coursework for students in MF5 and Pre-Algebra. Surrounding my additional duties as a robotics coach for the middle school team, I work closely with Hollingshead and Lewellen. Hollingshead offers her space to work and expertise as a former robotics teacher. Lewellen and I collaborate on combining our robotics teams in events and practices. We also discuss planning strategies for the robotics community and addressing unique challenges our students are facing. Additional partnerships include EBC partner teachers. Last year I partnered with Bart and Alek for planning and preparing the Farm to Fork Chicago trip. This year I will be working with Anne, who had previous experience in Puerto Rico, and Allison and Alex to prepare for the Puerto Rico trip. These partnerships help create safe and fun events for students while away from home on their trip. Admissions Events and fall orientation are important community events that we work on in teams to better serve the needs of the students we are working with.
Some areas that I would like to improve on are grade-level field trip planning – developing partnerships with teachers and the community to link content to service learning in the field. This includes moving my Mathematical Foundations 6 community garden project to include all of the 6th grade as a service-learning opportunity. I would like to develop more content-specific partnerships in cross-curricular learning and vertical articulation. For example, students had to write a story in math that surrounded the topic of operations with integers and algebraic expressions. Students were required to include story elements that they are discussing in their Lit class. To extend this, students could write and edit their stories and submit them as part of the assignment in their Literature class. I would also like to see a peer mentor program started in the math discipline where students are partnered with an older student (MS to US). The students can then do a low-floor, high-ceiling task together. Not only would this help partner middle school and upper school, but it would also create a joyful moment in math that supports all students.
(3) Engages in collegial activities hosted by the school
Engaging in collegial activities allows me to know my colleagues better. This gives me a better perspective on who they are and how that applies to our interactions as teachers during school. Knowing and being known is the theme for the year, and this domain and specific indicator directly connect to that. I attend end-of-year celebrations, Start of year events, happy hours, and holiday parties. Most recently, I had an outstanding evening attending a Bill Nye event and having dinner before with my colleagues. Over time, our relationships have strengthened, and we are better able to work together and meet the needs of our students.
