Conversations

=8.3 Teacher Conversation=


 * How does your school/district currently support and or encourage collaboration between teachers?
 * How much do you seek to collaborate with teachers and how do you accomplish this?
 * To what extent do you think collaboration is of growing importance for teachers seeking to implement a 21st century classroom?

Malden is relatively supportive of teachers collaborating. We have school wide meetings once a month as well as professional development days and department meetings. I also have time to meet with my team members for 45 minutes a day. I have as much time to collaborate with teachers as I need. If I really wanted to reach out to someone I would simply send an email or call them. I think collaboration is just as important now as it was 15 years ago. However, I rarely met with any dept. members when I first started and now it seems to happen a lot more often.

I was struck after watching the video by the fact that it is a bit ironic. I agree that all kids have different talents and it is our job to foster them. I think in a perfect world that is what school is all about. Unfortunately I see a world where education is always attacked. As Judi mentions in a reply to my post, there will be at least a dozen charter schools in Mass. in the coming years. What is going on in Wisconsin is a precursor to what will be happening in Idaho, Ohio, and many other states. It seems as though here in Malden we are going to have our Math and English teachers teach their subjects all day and maybe mention Social Studies, Science, Art and Music. So does each kid deserve their own curriculum? Sure. As long as they are proficient in Math and ELA first.