When I Teach Alone, I Prefer to Teach by Myself.

This post was written in isolation.  So if it is a little scattered, you can blame my peer editors.

In the spring of 2013, my district proposed the following questions to a cohort of educators:

• Describe your preferred future environment?
• What formative (short-term, less than 6 months) and summative (long-term, year-end, 2 years out) data can be used to demonstrate the impact of your preferred future?
• How can you leverage initiatives currently underway (e.g. literacy, Art & Science of Teaching, etc) to better align your preferred future with the work of the district?

Individuals were asked to use these questions to guide the process of writing a proposal to change learning in their classrooms.

That first question is quite personal.  It is not one that I think can start with a team of educators.  That first question requires ownership of an idea. It ties back to the idea of empowerment. Educational teams are essential, and each member can be engaged in the work of the team without owning it. But every individual needs space and time to define his or her own purpose on that team to feel empowered.

This is where I was 4 years ago, trying to answer this question by myself and for myself. Over the past 4 years, I’ve been working on my physics classroom in a silo. As a connected educator, it’s impossible for me to say I truly work in isolation. But right now, I don’t have a common course with any other teacher in my building. My current PLC consists of teachers who don’t currently teach the same course as me.

There are some benefits to working alone.  In many ways, I think it is essential to have this alone time before any scaling of a practice can be done. When crafting my classroom practice, it was essential that I understood what my vision was before I even thought about implementation.  It is my why. I needed to be able to communicate it to myself and own it before I could design around it.

There are so many great ideas and models in educational practice.  But, they are not plug and play. I need to find a way to own that practice. I need to see it through my classroom lens with my specific purpose and remix it for and with my learners. Making something scalable doesn’t mean making it universal.  Scalable practice in my experience means adaptable.

Another area in which isolation helps me excel is responsiveness. The larger the team the less responsive it is.  It’s one thing to have rapid cycles of feedback.  But if that feedback doesn’t result in rapid cycles of response, what’s the point. As a team of one, I am able to look at data and adjust my practice and plans on the fly.  I don’t have to wait for a weekly PLC meeting to look at the data and adjust. What I see in block 1 today will affect instructional design in my classroom that day. There is no ripple effect for my changes that will throw teams of educators and our classrooms out of sync.  

But, I ask you is this really isolation? Are these ideas all my own?

No! Not exactly, I’ve been co-teaching a section of physics for the past 2.5 years. My fantastic co-teacher Andelee Espinosa has brought many great ideas to help us meet the needs of all learners. I have taken ideas I have seen from other classrooms in my district, from elementary to high school, and brought them to mine. I’ve problem solved with my PLN. Most importantly, I’ve listen to suggestions from my students. So, am I really teaching in isolation?

When I honestly look at myself, I realize I am not a great collaborator. Anytime I am on a team of educators I play one of two roles:

1. If there is a strong authoritative voice, I become a nodding head.
2. If there is no strong authoritative voice, I become the task master and take on the majority work.

Neither of these illustrate collaboration or leadership in any true sense. So like many students in our classrooms, I choose to work alone when I can. I like to think it’s because collaboration is not a skill I have properly honed.

That leads me to think, is my isolation a matter of circumstance and scheduling or is it a choice that I make because of my poor habits of mind when it comes to collaborating with peers.

Ultimately, I feel that there is time for isolation and and time for collaboration.  I hope that I can push myself to find ways to step out of my isolation and find reasons and ways to truly collaborate with my peers.