This is the question that so many teachers face across the country. At some schools the answer is forced upon the teacher, at others it is a strong suggestion and at still others it is a good idea that may or may not come to anything significant or helpful. Team teaching offers many great opportunities but it can also act as a straightjacket around the creativity and responsiveness of a teacher’s instincts.
At my first internship, my Mentor teacher was forced to participate in a team teaching arrangement that involved her entire department. She had been asked to lead the group of not-so-willing teachers. I sat in on their weekly planning sessions. Three of the stronger personalities in the room made most of the decisions and the other teachers were expected to simply “fall in line” with the collective thought of how lessons would be planned and executed. There was very little room for creativity or individual tailoring to actual student need. Each teacher was expected to “keep pace” with the curriculum standards of the school and the lesson planning of the “team.”
I observed several very unhappy teachers shuffle back to their classrooms mumbling their grievances under their breath. These same teachers always had an excuse for why their students were not engaged in the lessons and why those lessons were not working for their students but they did not feel as if they had any authority to challenge the system and change their lesson planning.
I had to receive special permission from the head of the department in order to modify the lesson plans and teach an alternative story during one lesson planning sequence. Although I did not achieve stellar results with my reading selection, I was also a very new teacher, and I was trying new reading and comprehension methods with students who have been taught to obey, instead of think creatively and independently.
Patrick Finn speaks of this phenomenon in Literacy With An Attitude: Educating Working Class Children In Their Own Self-Interest. Finn cites research that exposed just how class and income levels effect the way students are taught and what content they are exposed to and why. Most “teaching” that is done in low-income schools is for the purpose of domestication, not liberation or empowerment. And most of the intellectual engagement facilitated in upper class schools is for the sole purpose of creating able-bodied, creative thinkers and future leaders of our country.
I was trying to change the teaching paradigm in a low-income school and the domesticated students were fighting the amount of individual and creative work I was demanding from them. I am confident that with more time, confidence and experience I would have made more successful headway with my students, and the Socio-cultural Learning Theory techniques I was implementing would have been met with more success over the long term.
At my second placement I saw the positive side of team teaching. The teachers at this placement were given scheduled weekly time to talk over their personal challenges and successes and to share lesson plans, games and techniques that were working in their classrooms. For a new and inexperienced teacher this was a gold mine opportunity. I was able to engage in challenging and productive conversations about teaching with more experienced teachers from all departments, not just mine. Several great ideas came from teachers who teach subjects other than my own.
The only down side to the formal meeting time was that administration sometimes monopolized the meeting time to go over state testing requirements and team teaching goals. This placed a pressure on the team that the teachers resented but worked with as a challenge rather than an obstacle.
One teacher reported that during her first few years as a new teacher her “team” consisted of her and one other teacher from her department doing lesson planning together and bouncing ideas off of one another. She said she never would have made it through those first challenging years without that kind of friendship and support.
Overall, team-teaching can work the way the MAT@USC envisions it to be, with teachers working together to share challenges, triumphs and ideas. Teachers need other teachers for support, cheerleading and healthy constructive feedback during reflective practice. Keeping team-teaching in perspective and allowing it to create a space for constructive conversations about how to improve student-lead curriculum choices can lead to energized teachers and stimulated students. As Shakespeare said in As You Like It, “All the worlds a stage, and men and women merely players.” The choice to be a team player on the educational stage is a personal one, but rewarding when it’s the right fit.
If you’d like to know about how to become a teacher and make a difference in your local community, contact our Admissions office at 888.MAT.1USC or email us at matadmit@usc.edu.
