Looking beneath the surface:
Teacher collaboration through the lens of grading practices
Daniel L. Kain, Northern Arizona University
Teachers College Record
Summer 1996
Vol. 97 No. 4; p. 569
Teacher teams at a new school were observed during their first year working
together. Based on these observations plus interviews and document analysis,
this article describes a "crisis" in teacher relations (a controversy
about grading) and the practice of collaboration as it is revealed in this
crisis. The discussion highlights the importance of teacher teams' maintaining
their planned focus despite impinging school crises, informing newcomers
of the history of decisions and norms, articulating clear purposes for their
work together, and addressing the power of traditions in attempts to innovate.
The article concludes that this collaboration is an effective means for
teachers to reexamine educational practices.
Teacher collaboration has been generally applauded for its potential in
improving the working lives of teachers. Collaboration can reduce teacher
uncertainty. Teacher teaming can reduce isolation and enhance teachers'
professional self-image; collaboration promotes collegiality and school
learning. It contributes to risk-taking and diminishes the fragmentation
of teachers' experience.1 At the same time, serious questions have been
raised about the authenticity of the decisions teachers make and the abuses
of such decision making for political purposes, the constraints placed on
teacher decision making, the conflicting role demands such decision making
requires, and the potential drawbacks for the schoolwide professional community.2
One area generally presumed to be within the purview of autonomous teachers
is the practice of grading. Although there is evidence of some district-
and building-level grading policies, which are sometimes constructed by
groups of teachers, teachers appear to maintain a sense of privacy about
their own grading practices, guarding these practices with the same passion
with which one might guard an unedited diary or what Thomas calls "sacred
ground."3 Teachers make assumptions and conform to implicit rules and
standards, but tend not to discuss grading, even though it is a source of
dissatisfaction with their work. Teachers frequently find grading a source
of uncertainty, frustration, and ambiguity.4 Given this attitude about grading,
this practice becomes an especially insightful vehicle for examining the
collaborative relations in a school.
This article pursues the question of how teachers build collaborative relations
and norms. The vehicle for this is an examination of how teachers in a school
committed to collaboration from its inception established commonality in
grading. If, as evidence in the literature indicates, a teacher's grading
practices constitute a private and autonomous domain, to what extent does
the overt commitment to collaboration reduce this "persistence of privacy"?5
BACKGROUND
THE SCHOOL
Cactus High School (like all names reported here, a pseudonym) opened its
doors in September 1994 after a weekend flurry of teachers', administrators',
and community members' moving furniture and equipment into the first phase
of a new campus. Staff members had been provided with opportunities to collaborate
through several gatherings over the previous five months. In addition, because
the school board had endorsed the nine principles of the Coalition of Essential
Schools, Cactus High staff members had communicated through e-mail via CESOL
(Coalition of Essential Schools On Line). The principal, Gordon, had worked
the entire previous school year (in cooperation with the community) to hire
the staff, finalize the details of building and organizing the school, and
begin community liaison.
When the school opened, it housed approximately 220 ninth- and tenthgrade
students, with the expectation that another class of about 100 students
would enter each of the next two years. The eight full-time teachers were
organized into two teams, called "Saguaro" and "Cholla."
In addition, three part-time professionals--a counselor, a librarian, and
a special educator--served the school. Later in the year, a number of other
professionals (two aides, one administrator, and an alternative education
teacher) were added.
THE STUDY
Data for this study were collected using fieldwork methods over a period
of about one year.6 Data collection consisted of participant observation,
interviewing, and document analysis. The researcher began by observing and
participating in summer staff meetings, and research activity continued
throughout the school year. The researcher participated in staff meetings
and weekly team meetings, observed classes and other school activities,
interviewed staff members and administrators, and analyzed school, team,
and classroom documents.
Data analysis occurred throughout the study. Field notes from the researcher's
visits to the site were typed by a research assistant. The typed notes were
then entered into a HyperQual (computer software) stack and coded according
to predetermined and emerging categories. The analysis was presented to
the school staff in draft form, and their comments and suggestions were
incorporated into the final version, with contradictions or alterations
supplied in the notes to this article.
Prior to the 1995-1996 school year, the staff of Cactus High engaged in
a Socratic seminar focused on the present article. The Appendix features
the discussion questions used or suggested by the staff in this seminar.
THE QUESTION OF GRADING PRACTICES
Clearly, in a new school any number of problem-solving situations arise,
ranging from student discipline and dress codes to class schedules to parent
relations to undelivered materials. The question of grading practices, then,
serves as one lens through which to view the development of collaborative
relations and norms in an emerging school culture. Grading practices, because
they are typically considered a part of the teacher's private professional
judgment and under an individual's control, provide an especially insightful
glimpse into the attempt at Cactus High--and schools like it--to build a
culture of teacher collaboration.7
The study reported here is a case study that proceeds with both description
and analysis.8 Beginning with a description of a crisis point faced by the
teachers, the description provides a chronological summary of the development
of collaboration around this issue. Following this, a brief analysis of
the collaborative practices related to grading at Cactus High highlights
principles that may assist other schools attempting to develop collaborative
cultures.
CRISIS POINT: "AM I THE BAD GUY?"
The Cholla team is about to begin its weekly meeting at 7:30 A.M. on a warm
spring morning. Gordon, the school principal, asks where everyone is on
this slow-starting day. The four teamed teachers gather in a library conference
room, a glassed-in observation deck perched over the greening desert. Julia,
the last to arrive, enters the room asking what should be on the day's agenda.
Even before she has sat down at the table, Julia suggests they might discuss
the new alternative program at the school, and Gordon and Jon launch into
a discussion of this issue.
Renee interrupts her colleagues, reminding them that they have not yet agreed
on the agenda. Items offered for discussion seem fairly typical for a secondary
school team: a couple of students who are having some trouble, the forms
used to guide students into the school's alternative program, a scheduling
issue, and then the unusual one. Jon, the science teacher, adds his item:
"We need a round table discussion on my grades."
Jon's tone is matter of fact as he offers his agenda item, though when the
discussion later returns to this issue there is more emotion in his voice:
"OK, let's move on. Grade policy. I feel there's some tension about
my policy." He turns to Kirk, his teammate in Literature and the Arts,
and says, "You brought up something that made me feel like the bad
guy in the team's eyes and the students' eyes. I want to get it on the table."
The discussion that follows includes frank input and questioning from various
team members. Some of their comments are listed below:
KIRK: I don't think you're the bad guy, I just think as a team we can do
something to improve motivation.
JULIA: But part of me still wonders why after a trimester are there so many
kids that say they'll forget about science. I think this is maybe where
we can do some team problem solving. I also feel--and this is going out
on a limb--I feel like we've got to go back and change some things. What
I hear from you and from the students is inconsistent. But the bottom line
is I hear over and over, "I don't understand." Kids say they don't
know how to get an A. What's the criteria?
GORDON: The extremes were on this team: 10 percent to 50 percent failures
[he gestures at Kirk and then Jon]. Half our grades are based on performance,
so it undermines this if we pass them [the students] for other reasons.
Our job is to coach kids to meet the standards. We have to show lots of
examples.
RENEE: One thing that bothers me is that there seems to be a lot of anger.
These sample comments, of course, cannot adequately portray the developing
dialogue on grades. But what becomes apparent quite quickly through this
snapshot of a team meeting is profound. First, Jon opens himself and his
grading practices up for examination. Indeed, he invites it. Unlike what
we might expect, he does not head off criticism of his work with a defense
of his practices, though he does offer justifications as the discussion
proceeds. He simply asks that the team discuss his grading. Second, we see
a group of colleagues (teachers and a principal) honestly appraising teaching
practices in their school. For example, Renee asks Jon if he guides his
students in a questioning process rather than simply telling them to seek
answers on their own; Julia shares how she makes criteria explicit in her
projects. And Jon honestly responds in frustration when he feels that his
practices conform to their suggestions. Third, the team frames the issue
as a problem-solving opportunity for the entire team, perhaps the school,
rather than a criticism of one colleague. Finally, though Coalition schools
tend to focus less on grading and more on diagnosing student problems and
helping them become self-assessors,9 it is apparent from this example that
grading is a very real concern.
A week later, the Saguaro team holds its weekly meeting, and the issue of
grades creeps onto their agenda as well. Edie, a Literature and the Arts
teacher who, like Jon, joined the staff mid-year, asks that they "do
grades" on their agenda. When they reach that agenda item, her teammate,
Marie, asks Edie what she wanted to say about grades.
EDIE: I went home [after the staff meeting the previous day] to think about
it. I had a pretty high percentage of Fs after Jon.10 All the kids I gave
Fs to didn't do anything.
ELIZABETH: How did you feel about it? . . .
EDIE: I felt bad. Kirk had thirty-five percent As and I had thirtythree
percent Fs. Standards and consistency--where are we? Am I requiring too
much? One Cholla kid told me that he had read all the books and done no
writing. He said he's getting an A. Ahh! Kids say they want Cholla for English.
I still feel really stung. I feel I failed.
The discussion on this team took a distinctly different direction from the
Cholla team's discussion the previous week. Instead of focusing on Edie's
practices, the team focused on how grading was done at the school. Elizabeth,
the Spanish teacher who regularly meets with the Saguaro team though her
work is across teams, argued that the school did not have a clear understanding
of standards: "We've got to be consistent about what an A means and
what an F means." Other Saguaro members raised similar points. But
Edie remained puzzled about the problem at the end of the discussion, when
Marie suggested this should be a whole-school rather than a team issue.
Another Saguaro member, Rob, the math teacher who was also a midyear replacement,
expressed a different kind of confusion. The team members were comparing
how they derived grades, noting the student confusion when 50 percent in
English meant an F, while an apparent 50 percent in math (i.e., two on a
four-point rubric) meant a C. Elizabeth asked Rob if he explained the criteria
and how rubrics work to his students. Rob replied that when he tried, the
students groaned and told him to get on with math. Elizabeth persisted:
"I think it would be good to go over it with them." Rob's response
raises some interesting questions about ownership. He said, "Well,
I came in late. It was in place when I got here."
It is more than coincidental that the three teachers primarily involved
in questions about the school's grading practices were hired well after
the school year began. Jon replaced a science teacher (who had been followed
by a string of substitutes) in January. Edie joined the staff as an English
teacher when Mr. S. left the Cholla team to take on administrative duties
in January. And Rob, like Jon, followed a string of substitutes, joining
the staff as a math teacher in February. A question arises, then, about
the grading practices at this school. What did the late-arriving teachers
miss out on in the development of school norms? And what does this tell
us about the benefits or drawbacks of teacher collaboration?
BEFORE THE CRISIS: EARLY SPECULATIONS
The overt beginnings of a grading "policy" for Cactus High can
be traced to staff planning meetings in July before the school opened. The
staff was given two weeks' planning time, during which they wrestled with
such diverse issues as planning the school organization and schedule, ordering
materials, defining a curriculum, and deciding about practical matters such
as how grades would be determined and reported.
Gordon led the staff in a discussion of an article about assessment practices
during one of their summer planning days. The unpublished paper described
an assessment program observed in a sixth-grade classroom. Though the article
did not directly address practices in a school like Cactus High, Gordon
explained to the teachers that "its purpose is to help us focus our
thinking on the issue." Teachers broke into two smaller groups, read
the article, and generally agreed that the principles in the article were
positive models. Gordon indicated they would "unpack" the reading
the next day.
The reading did not come up directly during the conversation of assessment
the subsequent day. Gordon asked the teachers what issue they wanted to
deal with first, and Teri, a math teacher, suggested they take on the biggest
issue first. Discussion focused primarily on the issue of standards and
grades, though this was interwoven with discussion of a "senior institute"
(an unnamed program for students who were ready to do final exhibition work,
having completed the three-year cycle for the school) and an honors program.
The chief issues the teachers were attempting to resolve centered on their
emerging understanding of the importance of process and product in grading,
especially as this relates to the "exhibitions" used as evaluative
tools in Coalition schools.11
Some parameters were established early in this discussion. First, Gordon
emphasized that standards had to be clear for staff, students, and parents.
He indicated that the teachers needed to establish some "general understanding"
now, though "real standards come when we have real work to look at."
Standards, he said, must be clearly tied to grades. Second, he pointed out
that they had to make a distinction between excellent exhibition work and
"work on the way to get there." Finally, he reiterated that there
was no choice about whether to grade students, only about how: "To
grade or not to grade is not open for discussion."
Teachers expressed some confusion after his remarks regarding the relationship
between judging exhibitions and grading. For example, Beth, a science teacher,
said she was confused about the connection between grades and credits. She
had understood that exhibitions would be evaluated differently from the
work students did leading up to exhibitions, but the need to give letter
grades muddled this. Gordon suggested that using a rubric might alleviate
this concern. Renee suggested that students could receive grades for the
work leading up to exhibitions, but receive credit only when they had passed
the actual exhibition. This, however, meant that grades might represent
process rather than product. As Teri put it, "I understand. That still
says that most of what I get as a grade depends on the process."
In the subsequent discussion, the teachers and Gordon began to develop consensus
on the relationship between process and product in grading.12 Gordon said
he "had in mind" that performance should count for half a student's
grade and process "up to 50 percent."13 While some teachers rapidly
agreed with this (Kirk said those two ought to be "separate but equal"),
others wanted a graduated system: At the beginning of the year, process
and product would count equally in determining grades, but as the year progressed,
the emphasis would shift to product (20 percent process, 80 percent product).
Later, a subcommittee recommended that the school move from 50-50 at the
start of the year to 20-80 by the end.
While no final policy was articulated on this issue, the discussion in July
was a reference point for teachers throughout the year. However, some confusion,
even for the teachers involved in the discussion, persisted. For example,
the notion of a gradually shifting emphasis on process and product appears
to have been forgotten. Also, various people interpreted the 50-50 relationship
between process and product differently. In a discussion of grading in October,
Julia (social studies) explained that she counted the "lead-in"
work for a project (i.e., process issues) as 30 percent of a student's grade.
In April, Marie informed Edie that they had decided the previous summer
that grades should be "no more than 50 percent process." Also
in April, Jon learned for the first time about this formula:
JON: I made an analogy this morning that I felt like Richard the Third in
Shakespeare when he is saying "My horse, my horse, a kingdom for my
horse." . . . I felt that isolated at the time. Last night in the faculty
meeting Gordon actually had prepared a graphical analysis of all of our
grades and presented to everybody and I again felt alone. And I felt that
I was not in the same framework as far as my grading policies and what I'm
looking at and my expectations as the rest of the faculty. So this morning
I again brought it up with the team saying that if 50 percent of the students'
grade is a process grade I need to know that because that was not my understanding.
That was not communicated to me; the first time I heard that was last week
from Gordon after I had already posted my grades. My process grade was about
10 percent.
INTERVIEWER: Now did he say it should be 50 percent or up to 50 percent?
JON: He said this was our agreement. And that was an agreement prior to
my being hired here. So it's 50 percent is process and 50 percent is product.14
And I based 90 percent of my grade on product.
What is interesting in Jon's comments is that the suggestion made in the
July meeting of a target percentage for process considerations ("I
had in mind . . .") has hardened into policy by April. The notion of
gradually diminishing the emphasis on process has been lost over time; the
magical 50 percent has become a reference point.
Because Jon, Edie, and Rob were not present during the initial formulation
of this "policy," they were denied access to the arguments, reservations,
and questions raised by teachers and the principal. They experienced only
the consequences of the interpretation of this discussion. So, for example,
they missed Julia's defense of the student who might score low on process
issues:
One thing is that this school is making everything count toward an end.
Doing the things we like (like being on time, being considerate, getting
work turned in), if they don't do homework but get the project done, big
deal! I'm thinking of exceptional kids who didn't show up, but got the work
done. It really has to do with what we like, what we are like. Such comments
challenge the emphasis on process grades as a means of enforcing cultural
values rather than a focus on achievement or learning. Though the staff
appeared to accept process grading (no formal decision was made), each staff
member participated in debate and questioning of this. The new teachers,
however, missed this valuable context, experiencing only second-hand the
interpretations of that day's work.15
They also missed the key phrase of the day in the discussion of grades:
"unstintingly honest." It was this, more than any other phrase,
that characterized the discussion in July. Teachers were to be unstintingly
honest with students and parents about the progress of the students toward
meeting standards (though the standards were not defined). They were to
be unstintingly honest with each other, a trait valued in Coalition schools.16
REAL WORK, REAL STANDARDS
As the year progressed, teachers found they had to move from the hypothetical
discussion of grades and standards to the practical reality of grading and
establishing standards. At times, this work, too, was collaborative. For
example, Beth and Sharon created a joint syllabus for their science courses.
On this, they indicated that evaluation for the first trimester would be
based on the following breakdown: 20 percent attendance and class participation,
40 percent "mini-assessments" ("quizzes, field journals,
class notebooks, and three magazine or newspaper article summaries"),
and 40 percent for the first major assessment ("a traveling flip down
chart or a written report").17 Their grade distributions for the first
trimester were similar, with both teachers reporting 31 percent Ds and Fs,
though Beth gave 58 percent As and Bs as opposed to Sharon's 48 percent.
Other teachers apparently collaborated less in establishing common grade
systems. Some discussion of grading practices emerged at various times.
For example, during a break at a staff meeting in October, the researcher
initiated a discussion with teachers about how the use of exhibitions impacted
grading systems. Each teacher involved in this conversation had a slightly
different perspective on the question. Marie said she used a four-point
rubric to rate student work, but Kirk, the other Literature and the Arts
teacher, indicated he had not yet developed such a tool--he said all student
work was currently either A or B. Teri, a math teacher, also used a rubric
and had devised a way to translate the four-point scale into letter grades.
Julia, the teacher most experienced in Coalition issues, articulated features
of an exhibition, including public performance, that she considered most
important. She produced a sample assignment she was using with her students
that broke down the requirements for the project and the procedures, though
it did not specifically address how grades would be assigned.
What is interesting in this is that the teachers appeared to be operating
quite independently in determining grading practices and standards. The
question of grading was raised by the researcher, not the teachers, despite
their apparent interest in the issue. It is possible that individual teachers
were discussing grading practices on their own, but it was not an issue
arising in staff meetings, team meetings, or documents connected with either
forum. At the end of the school year, Beth said, "We were pretty much
left on our own to determine our grading system."
Other concerns of the staff may have superseded discussions of grading.
Cactus High not only opened a new facility in September, but for many community
members it opened a new conception of schooling. Many of the "changes"
the school instituted proved to be unpalatable to portions of the community.
Practices such as students' calling their teachers by first names, wearing
walkman stereos in class, and facing virtually no formal discipline policy,
or teachers' apparently ignoring textbooks and implementing new teaching
techniques (as one teacher put it, "in math, everything is done with
beans or rice") caused students and parents alike to challenge the
school. Marie reported one student's comment: "Why'd you have to make
it so hard? Why couldn't it be like a real high school?" In fact, some
teachers found comfort in holding to traditional grading practices simply
to stem the relentless criticism of the school. Mr. S., a social studies
teacher (and one of two teachers who retained the use of surnames), put
it this way when asked about how exhibitions might have altered his grading
system: "That [grading] hasn't changed. And part of that is there's
the big rumor around town that there won't be grades. I let them [community
members] see it's the same old thing."
COLLABORATION?
In this "real work," as Gordon had called it during the summer
meeting,18 did the teachers collaborate to create a common system or understanding
of what grades mean? Apparently not. Although they certainly communicated
about students' performance (a frequent question in team meetings was "how
is X doing in your class?") and they did work together in communicating
at midterm marking periods, that communication was a kind of reporting rather
than exploring the system itself. It seems there are several factors to
consider in understanding this phenomenon.
First, the contrast between real work and speculative planning may provide
some insight. During the summer meetings, the teachers were invited to dream
about creating a school. Despite Gordon's frequent admonitions to think
about the impact of their decisions, teachers remained, as the librarian
said, "idealistic." They were taken by surprise when the students
arrived and did not conform to their expectations. As a result, the focus
of teacher collaboration shifted from issues that could be handled individually
(e.g., grading) to issues on which a common front was critical (e.g., the
climate of the school).
Beyond the urgency of dealing with community reactions to the school, the
staff faced a host of problems that had to be solved in the early development
of the school. For example, the physical plant was not completed when the
school opened, and as various phases of the campus opened, new difficulties
in communication and supervision arose. In their adjusting to the student
population (in terms of both behavior and numbers: expecting 180 students,
the school initially enrolled over 220 students), the staff had to decide
how best to utilize resources. Would it be better to hire one physical education
instructor (all teachers were conducting "physical activities"
for the students) or two teacher aides? Committed to the notion of site-based
management and democratic decision making, the school would not let such
an important decision fall to the principal alone. Indeed, decisions of
staffing, budgeting, attending conferences, policy, and so on were regularly
made by consensus of the whole staff (secretaries and aides often participated
as well as the principal and teachers). This process, as several teachers
commented, was unwieldy. Kirk had expressed the frustration of such decision
making at the end of a taxing day during the previous summer: "Sometimes
I wish things could just be handed down from on high so that I could piss
and moan about it later and say I didn't have anything to do with it."
Although he said this partially in jest, his sentiment was echoed by numerous
teachers throughout the year. Mrs. T, for example, complained that reaching
consensus was sometimes slow and painful. She said she wished Gordon would
just decide some things. "We trust him," she said.
In terms of time, a crucial factor in successful collaboration,19 such problem
solving on the part of the staff effectively consumed what time was available.
A consistent pattern at staff meetings emerged: The full agenda (generally
of pressing issues) could never be addressed, and items were often moved
to later meetings.20 Given this time limitation, it is not surprising that
a "noncrisis" issue like developing a grading system could not
find its way into the collaborative deliberations of the staff.
A third consideration in understanding the apparent lack of collaboration
in creating standards and consistent grading systems relates to the focus
of the team meetings. Typical team meetings, for both the Cholla and Saguaro
teams, focused primarily on students. Clearly there were benefits to such
a focus: Teachers knew students better, they could share concerns and successful
ways of dealing with them, they juggled class lists to the benefit of their
students, they streamlined the communication with parents, and so on. However,
the opportunity cost of such a focus meant that there were relatively few
discussions of curriculum or pedagogical issues like grading.
In the larger picture of teacher teaming, this comes as no surprise. Middle-school
interdisciplinary teams, for example, have a well-documented record of focusing
team meetings on students and student concerns.21 Moreover, Cactus High
teachers, for the most part, understood the purpose of teaming to be to
focus on students and improve relations. When asked why teams existed at
Cactus High, typical teacher answers emphasized this point: "I see
them as really helping us work with our students" (Renee); "I
think the most express purpose is so that we know kids better" (Marie);
"to know kids and get them to do more work and better work" (Julia)
.
Jon's answer to the same question is insightful. Recall that he was one
of several teachers to join the staff midyear, without the benefit of the
summer meetings:
I guess in that sense we are trying to unify or trying to have a broader
unified curriculum for the students. Something that is completely integrated.
And at the same time I think that the purpose of teams is to have basically
subcommittees that can make decisions more rapidly and can focus on a group
of students instead of two hundred students that we have in the school.
Break it down into smaller groups so that we can make decisions about them.
And also the third thing I would think is to . . . to become somewhat of
a family for a group of students.
The unity of the original staff members in describing the team purpose suggests
deliberate articulation of a purpose.22 Jon, on the other hand, described
his emerging understanding of the purpose of teaming as something he just
figured out. When asked how he came to understand the purpose of teaming,
Jon replied,
Again, it was never clearly stated or clearly communicated. And I think
that part of the school's expectation of me is that I would do reading--you
know, Sizer's books--and understand, come to that understanding of those
terms on my own and also be aware of what the essential skills were according
to the Coalition of Essential Schools. And so it was mostly independent.
Rob, another late arrival at the school, agreed that he just figured out
the purpose of teaming on his own. He saw teams as a way to reduce the numbers
of students for whom teachers had responsibility.
CRISIS POINT, REVISITED
Recall that it was Jon on the Cholla team and Edie on the Saguaro team,
both latecomers to the school, who initiated the discussions about grading
in team meetings. The issue of grades submerged until a crisis brought it
again to the surface.23
In the end, the grading issue was not resolved at Cactus High, but it disappeared
quietly. The crisis associated with grade distributions at the end of the
second trimester passed;24 the issue of grading faded away as other pressing
problems and concerns took over. Jon and Edie appeared to know more about
the expectations they were to live with as they entered the final trimester
for the school year, and collaboration for developing a grading system ended.
Interestingly, the inconsistencies in grading that sparked the crisis in
April did not appear in the grades for the final trimester.
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A number of lessons can be drawn from the experience of teachers at Cactus
High School, lessons that invite exploration and discussion by other school
staffs involved in building collaborative communities. Because much of the
evidence for these lessons has already been discussed, the lessons will
be presented as summary observations.
SPECULATIONS VERSUS "REAL WORK"
The summer work time the teachers spent in deliberation about their school
was invaluable to them in creating a vision of what the school should be
like. However, it was qualitatively different from deliberations during
the school year itself. The idealism and speculative explorations encouraged
by the summer format were to some extent lost during the school year. Some
might argue that the teachers would have been better off had they been more
grounded in reality for their summer sessions. Another perspective, however,
is that during the school year, the teachers might have profited from more
systematic attention to the reality they wanted to recreate rather than
the realities they faced. The "real work" of teaching involves
an incredible pace of decision making and crisis management, and such a
pace can easily squeeze out time for reflection.25 The result? A tyranny
of the urgent leads to neglect of the important.
It would be wrong to encourage teachers to neglect the urgent matters that
arise. However, for collaboration to work effectively, teachers must do
some tracking of the important. Perhaps one way to accomplish this is for
collaborative groups to keep a running account of their dealings. This involves
reflection beyond the keeping of minutes. In a calm, crisis-free moment,
collaborative groups might list those issues or matters that are important
to their goals and vision. Periodically, then, an inventory can be taken
as a group to see what matters have been pushed aside by the urgency of
the moment. Taking charge in this fashion assures that collaboration is
proactive, rather than merely reacting to others.
NEWCOMERS AND "FIGURING IT OUT"
The teachers who joined the staff after the initial experiences in collaboration
were presented with particular difficulties in entering the collaborative
culture. Many of the implicit norms and values of collaboration were not
communicated to these teachers, who were left to "figure it out"
on their own, a common practice that drains energy from organizations.26
Both Jon and Rob, for example, described their understanding of the purpose
of teaming as something they had to infer from the behavior of the group.
Edie made similar complaints about the grading system of the school.
While the uncertainty of someone entering an occupational community is nothing
new, this takes on special significance in a collaborative culture. New
teachers face not only the typical uncertainties of joining a new school
(how business is done here, whom one sees for materials, etc.), but the
added uncertainties of complex group dynamics and a certain ahistoricism
regarding practice in the school. On the surface it would seem that the
collaborative culture would be more welcoming of individuals, more "user
friendly" for the newcomer. Looking beneath the surface, one can see
that the newcomer must break into established groups that have had time
and a shared context in which to develop. The newcomer's experience is ahistorical
in that policies and practices are communicated to the newcomer (directly
or indirectly) as faits accompli, and the deliberative processes that shaped
such decisions and relationships are hidden. Thus, the 50 percent weighting
of process in Cactus High grades reached the newcomers as an authoritative
position (which, as Edie said, took something away from the new teachers),
whereas the original staff members discussed and debated this issue, making
reservations clear from the start.
Schools that attempt to build collaborative cultures should take particular
care to draw in newcomers. This involves more than cultural courtesies.
Teams develop over time, and it is unrealistic to expect new team members
to enter groups at the same stage of development as an existing team.27
Newcomers should be informed of the history of the teams they join, and
as much as possible, the conflictual history. That is, new team members
need to hear about the debates and struggles teams have gone through, so
that some sense of the team's development is passed along to them.
New team members can be classified as "immigrants" or "captives."28
The former join a new group voluntarily, while the latter have no real choice
in the matter, a common occurrence when a vacancy occurs on a school team.
In either case, difficulties arise when immigrants and captives are not
fully integrated into the group;29 the potential contributions they might
make are minimized.
POWER IN PRIORITIES
A third lesson from the Cactus High grading experience is that there is
power in priorities. The collaborative relations of the teachers focused
on different issues. Sometimes the focus appeared to be under the deliberate
control of the teachers, as when they used their team meeting time to discuss
ways of supporting students. Sometimes the focus was imposed. For example,
the crisis in the school's relationship with the community (discipline problems)
focused staff meetings on ways of addressing these problems. Either way,
an issue like grading, which was important enough to consume a good deal
of summer planning time, readily slips from view when other matters take
priority.
Much of the identity of a team arises from its understanding of its purpose
and priorities.30 Both teams at Cactus High reached consensus on the purpose
of teaming at their schools: to enhance relationships with and achievement
of students. Such an understanding of purpose is both laudable and questionable.
Certainly one could not argue with the intent. Parents, community members,
and professional educators can readily agree that such a purpose is the
essence of schooling. On the other hand, such widespread agreement also
indicates the slogan-like nature of the team's purpose. Who could possibly
be against good relationships and improved achievement? But how does a team
translate such a broad purpose into action? What small victories can a team
achieve to move it toward success?31
In practice, this understanding of team purpose meant that teams spent most
of their meeting time discussing individual students. Here the concept of
"opportunity cost" comes into play. There will always be enough
concerns and anecdotes related to students to fill all of a team's meeting
time. What is left out because of this focus? Discussions of curriculum.
Discussions of pedagogy. Discussions of evaluation and grading. The way
a team defines its purpose is of utmost importance.32 Priorities will assert
their power; the question is whether the priorities established in a team
continue to reflect what the team considers important. Periodic discussion
of grading and evaluation practices in team meetings would also contribute
to better student-teacher relations and higher student achievement, particularly
as students came to see the unified understanding of these issues emerging
among their teachers.
Articulating a purpose, then, is crucial for a team's success. However,
the experience of the Cactus High teams argues that special care be given
to that articulation. The vagueness of a purpose such as "to know kids
better" will provide little direction and lends itself to what typically
dominates teacher team discussions: students. Team purposes can be understood
in ways that promote specific and practical actions to make schooling better.
TRADITION
Though this was a new school, the tradition of grading came along with teachers
as surely as the tradition of students' razzing their peers. Such traditions
are not easily altered. Too many stakeholders care too much about this tradition,
as evidenced by Gordon's comment that "to grade or not to grade is
not open for discussion," Mr. S's concern that the community see no
change in this area, and the community member's request that the school
reveal its grade distributions.
The power of such traditions demands careful, systematic attention to any
changes a school might consider. The issue of grading was something that
came up for discussion in the summer meetings, and teachers explored possibilities
for altering a powerful tradition at deeper levels than mere technique.33
However, in the press of starting and running the school, this exploration
became stymied. The Cactus High experience suggests a slow but consistent
examination of those elements of tradition that teams question: slow, because
the changes will face challenges and resistance; consistent, because the
traditions will assert themselves if teachers do not continue their questioning.
CONCLUSION
The lessons learned from the Cactus High experience would be misrepresented
if they seemed to arise from "mistakes" of the teams. At the most
fundamental level, even the somewhat haphazard development of a grading
"policy" highlights the power of collaboration in a secondary
school. Through their collaboration, the staff members turned what is typically
completely private and mysterious--grading--into a problem-solving opportunity.
Through their collaboration, the staff members opened their own practices
to scrutiny, offering the possibility of growth. Through their collaboration,
the staff members moved toward a willingness to reexamine some of the "givens"
of traditional American education in a spirit that offers the promise of
productive change. The "persistence of privacy" Little speaks
of was challenged in this working together.34 Such collaboration promises
positive change for education.
I would like to thank Rachael Bercey for her assistance in this study. The
research was funded in part by a grant from Northern Arizona University,
Applied Research Program. Questions suggested by the research subjects for
discussing the paper in a Socratic seminar.
GRAPHICS OMITTED
Notes
1 For isolation, see Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, Turning
Points: Preparing American Youth for the 2I st Century, The report of the
task force on education of young adolescents (New York: Carnegie Corporation,
1989); for professional self-image, see Thomas E. Gatewood et al., "Middle
School Interdisciplinary Team Organization and Its Relationship to Teacher
Stress," Research in Middle Level Education 15 (1992): 27-40; for collegiality
and school learning, see Susan J. Rosenholtz, Teachers' Workplace: The Social
Organization of Schools, Research in Teaching monograph series (White Plains,
N.Y.: Longman, 1989); and Morton Inger, "Teacher Collaboration in Secondary
Schools: Centerfocus Number 2" (Berkeley: National Center for Research
in Vocational Education, 1993); for risk-taking, see Andy Hargreaves, "Renewal
in the Age of Paradox," Educational Leadership 52 (1995): 14-19.
2 Carol H. Weiss, "Shared Decision Making about What? A Comparison
of Schools with and without Teacher Participation," Teachers College
Record 95 (1993): 69-92; Sue Johnston, "Curriculum Decision Making
at the School Level: Is it Just a Case of Teachers Learning to Act Like
Administrators?" Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 10 (1995): 136-54;
Sharon Kruse and Karen Seashore Louis, "Teacher Teaming-Opportunities
and Dilemmas," Brief to Principals (from the Center on Organization
and Restructuring of Schools), no. 11
(1995): entire issue; and Gene I. Maeroff, "Building Teams to Rebuild
Schools," Phi Delta Kappan 74 (1993): 519.
3 Susan Austin and Richard McCann, " `Here's Another Arbitrary Grade
for Your Collection': A Statewide Study of Grading Policies" (Paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,
San Francisco, April, 1992); Richard J. Stiggins, David A. Frisbie, and
Phillip A. Grisworld, "Inside High School Grading Practices: Building
a Research Agenda," Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 8
(1989): 5-14; and William C. Thomas, "Grading-Why Are School Policies
Necessary? What Are the Issues?" NASSP Bulletin 70 (1986): 23-26.
4 E. John Agnew, "The Grading Policies and Practices of High School
Teachers" (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational
Research Association, Chicago, March 31-April 4, 1985); Marcia M. Seeley,
"The Mismatch between Assessment and Grading," Educational Leadership
52 (1994): 4-6; and Stiggins et al., "Inside High School Grading Practices."
5 Judith Warren Little, "The Persistence of Privacy: Autonomy and Initiative
in Teachers' Professional Relations," Teachers College Record 91 (1990):
509-36.
6 Robert G. Burgess, In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research, Contemporary
Social Research Series 8 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1984).
7 Agnew, "Grading Policies and Practices."
8 Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods, rev. ed. (Newbury
Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989).
9 Patricia A. Wasley, "Stirring the Chalkdust: Changing Practices in
Essential Schools," Teachers College Record 93 ( 1991 ): 29-58.
10 The teachers' grade distributions had been shared by Gordon at a staff
meeting. Gordon and Beth later attributed the focus on grades to a question
about the school's grade distribution raised at a governing board meeting
by a community member.
11 Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992).
12 In their discussion of this article, the teachers agreed that they never
developed any common understanding of what "process" means in
this context.
13 Gordon, on reading the manuscript, maintained that he "pretty consistently
referred to performance as counting at least 50 percent." Also, he
recalls the emphasis in this discussion to be on the "primacy"
of performance in grading.
14 Again, Gordon reports that he remembers saying "at least 50 percent"
in the conversation Jon describes.
15 Edie, reflecting on this article, commented that grading was presented
to her as "this is what you do" not something "we're struggling
with." She added that since the new teachers were not part of the dialogue,
the decision seemed "like something taken away from them."
16 Patricia A. Wasley, "Straight Shooting," Educational Leadership
52 (1995): 56-58.
17 As Julia commented, there is no way to determine the role of process
and product from this description.
18 Gordon recalls the phrase "real work" as applying to student
products around which the staff could develop evaluation rubrics.
19 Wasley, "Straight Shooting"; and John T. Lange, "Site-based,
Shared Decision Making: A Resource for Restructuring," NASSP Bulletin
76 (1993): 98-107.
20 Edie highlighted this point in the Socratic seminar. She pointed out
that though the staff would agree a matter needed later attention, they
often acted as though a final decision had been made.
21 James A. Beane, A Middle School Curriculum: From Rhetoric to Reality
(Columbus: National Middle School Association, 1990).
22 Gordon, in response to reading Jon's comments, wrote that he "always
talked about two purposes with parents and community folks." In addition
to focusing on students, teams were to "make it more possible to build
an integrated curriculum."
23 The term "crisis" was seen as appropriate by a number of teachers.
Gordon had not thought of this as a crisis until he read the analysis.
24 Julia speculated that the crisis passed because Jon developed positive
relationships with his students, not because of any change in grading.
25 Philip W. Jackson, Life in Classrooms (New York: Teachers College Press,
1968/1990).
26 Thomas R. Harvey and Bonita Drolet, Building Teams, Building People:
Expanding the Fifth Resource, ed. Lillian B. Wehmeyer (Lancaster, Pa.: Technomic,
1994).
27 See Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, The Wisdom of Teams: Creating
the Highperformance Organization (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1993);
and Bruce W. Tuckman, "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups,"
Psychological Bulletin 63 (1965): 384-99.
28 Deborah G. Ancona and David F. Caldwell, "Beyond Task and Maintenance:
Defining External Functions in Groups," Group & Organizational
Studies 13 (1988): 468-94.
29 Ibid., p. 480.
30 Harvey and Drolet, Building Teams.
31 Katzenbach and Smith, Wisdom of Teams.
32 Daniel L. Kain, "Teaming with a Purpose: Getting to the Point of
Middle Level Teaming," Schools in the Middle 4 (1995): 6-9.
33 Alfie Kohn, "Grading: The Issue Is Not How But Why," Educational
Leadership 52 (1994): 38-41.
34 Little, "Persistency of Privacy."