Entry #40: How do we build
a community of learners?

In preparation for my new position next fall, I am reading Roland Barth's book, Improving Schools from Within. Mr. Barth asserts the need for community early in the introduction. Specifically he yearns for a community of learners and one of leaders too.

I've heard lots of folks talk about the need to form a community of learners and lots of the same folks call for shared decision making, but I don't think I've heard it described as a community of leaders before now. I like the sound and feel of the phrase and it has set me thinking about the steps or foundation needed to support its realization.

Just using the label won't make it so. It's like calling a building a "middle school" and expecting it to automatically become a place of learning which is suited to the special needs, talents and dreams of adolescents. Been there, done that and know that it just doesn't work.

So how does one go beyond making decrees to really building community? In Barth's book he makes a distinction between collegiality and congeniality. I think we've been confusing the two. While it's true that you can't really have collegiality without congeniality, the latter does not automatically lead to the former.

Ice breakers and rearranging seats at meetings without a plan for systemmatic, joint, meaningful work, will fall flat. AS soon as the particular meeting or activity is over, everyone will return to their own "corner of the sandbox" to borrow Barth's metaphor.

We need the ice breakers, we need the social committees and the informal and easy access to each other, but we also need the structured, purposeful work.

In other words we need the collegiality which Judith Warren Little defined in School Success and Staff Development in Urban Schools in 1981. She cited four key behaviors: "Adults in schools talk about practice. Adults in schools observe each other's practice. Adults work on curriculum design, research, development and evaluation together. And finally, adults in schools teach each other what they know about teaching, learning and leading."

Sounds like a Critical Friends Group to me! So how do we create the context for schoolwide buy-in? How do we promote the habits of mind which support our work as collegial, reflective practitioners?

Breaking with the culture of complaint

We need trust in ourselves and each other to move forward. Breaking with the culture of complaint which is so strong in our schools will be tough. It's frustrating, but safe, to sit back and bemoan our lack of power in the bureaucracy we call schools.

How can we begin? Barth focuses a lot of energy on the role of the principal. He speaks of the need to break down the us / them dynamic between administration and staff members. He refers to our current isolation as comparable to the parallel play of the very young.

Moving from the parallel stage to the cooperative stage, which we should have learned in kindergarten, won't be easy. Acknowledging it as a desired outcome will be a start.

Following Barth's line of reasoning, if the principal continually voices and demonstrates support for collegial work, it will spread. If teachers are encouraged to team by being provided with resources -- like time -- to do so, it can happen. If risktaking is promoted and mistakes are seen as opportunities to learn as opposed to opportunities to assign blame, we can move forward.

If teachers begin to respect themselves as co-leaders, it stands to reason that they will then be capable of sharing decision making and ownership with parents and students. If teachers continue to feel powerless and frustrated, they will necessarily share those feelings too, either directly or indirectly.

TAPS is all about teamwork

This past week the TAPS program began. TAPS is like a summer camp for teachers and kids. In many ways it is the model of what I've been desciribing in this entry. TAPS is all about team work.

We talk about building community from day one. We mix and remix the students as we engage in team building activities and classroom instruction. The teachers involved meet before and after each session to plan, review and refine the program. It's an exciting way to teach and learn.

After a regular school day I sometimes come home drained and feeling kind of down. At the end of a TAPS session, I unpack the things that worked and those that need improvement with my colleagues and I go home feeling noticeably lighter.

The visiting teachers who come to observe and participate seem energized too. The smaller class size is definitely a factor, as is the shorter schedule, but I'm convinced it's the adult teaming which is critical in this mix.

On Thursday, our first day, I learned from a colleague's example, when she described the way her students helped each other complete an activity sheet we had distributed. She had encouraged the kids to transfer the cooperative habits they'd been using in the ice breaker during our community meeting, back into the classroom. A simple step, but one I had missed. Having had the opportunity to listen to her and learn will make a difference in my group when we meet again.

The lessons we can share, both big and small, the sense of support we can all draw from, are the key elements that are missing throughout our regular school year. Collegiality cannot be seen as a luxury that we can sample in the summer, but only dream of the rest of the year.

When we return to our larger classes and our longer days, a collegial culture of support and inquiry can turn the tide in the face of a bureaucracy that so often feels nameless, faceless and omnipotent. Learning ways to translate the practices of TAPS into our regular term is going to be first on my list in this next period.


Editor's Note: Deb Bambino will continue her diary over the summer and through the next school year. Watch for her entries at MiddleWeb's Latest Updates page.


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