I began researching team teaching during my first year in the classroom. I realized immediately that with the uber-high expectations of the standards movement on teachers, it really isn’t efficient or effective for one person to teach small, active humans to the required depth in five content areas. To be sure, it can be done and there are plenty of teachers who make it appear effortless in how they integrate content authentically. Many of my own generation have come up through this format, so anything different is considered foreign.
If we really want our children to learn to depth, and the standards though they become more “Common” are not really getting fewer, it would seem we should support teachers in focusing their efforts on improving both pedagogical and content knowledge in specific disciplines. Team teaching is but one way to provide schools such support where teachers can either focus on fewer content areas to depth or share the learning of the multiple content areas to deepen their own understanding of content and instruction. Isolation breeds the now-cliched “working harder, not smarter” that Stephen Covey has longed warned us of. Some of the benefits of teaming, even with young children, are highlighted in this article from the Baltimore Sun.
There are so many things that puzzle me about educating children. What’s puzzling me now is how we educators can improve the success rates of our learners. This year, as an RtI coach, I have become more convinced than ever that it is nearly impossible to provide the individualized, highly-differentiated instruction that our students need and our superiors demand, within the context we now operate. In response to that belief, I have coined the term, “borderless classrooms.” I am wondering about the concept of assigning a group of students to a team of teachers. Perhaps in that group there would be representation by children who are 7, 8 and 9 years old. Perhaps there would be all 9 year olds. Perhaps there would be 2 groups of 8 year olds and one group of 9 year olds. No matter what the configuration, these 75 children would be served by 3 teachers. Children could be grouped in developmental levels for math, for reading, for word work, etc. Those that need extra time on task could be afforded that opportunity with uber-flexible grouping. Perhaps those struggling readers could receive literacy instruction in three different classrooms on a given day. Unless we really start to think “outside the box,” unless we start to rethink how we deliver instruction, unless we really open our minds to new ways of organizing our students and their time, we teachers will continue to struggle to “fit everything in”. We will become increasingly more exhausted and more frustrated. What I do know for certain is that when we all put our heads together, we can harness incredible dedication and passion for educating our next generation and come up with some innovative and creative solutions. I truly see this as an exciting time in education.
Right on, Denise! You are one of the ones who will be leading the rethinking charge and I’ll be glad to be with you on that. I love the idea of borderless classrooms.