One of these people is a relatively young principal in a school of unusual size for someone of his experience. He has excellent administrative skills and his school runs like clockwork and is very well structured in terms of budgets and programs. He has a little bit of a problem with morale though and he's struggling to come to grips with how to improve this for his staff. He knows that improving collegiality is the key and he knows about collegiality in a textbook sense very well.
I have the weird feeling that I was set up. The principal wasn't in the conversation, he was brought in by someone else and told "Talk to Mel, she knows her stuff".
He has done a lot of reading and knows about all of the technical factors of high quality collegial practice such as equity, reliability, inclusion, accountability and so on but he's struggling to understand exactly what all of that is supposed to be doing and how it's supposed to be assembled to help with the particular issues he's having. He's come to the understanding that he has the knowledge of what to apply but lacks the wisdom of how to apply it.
He asked me point blank "What is it that a high quality collegial group actually does?" It stumped me for two days and it was awesome! I know precisely what they do from the inside of course and I can build new or improve existing collegial groups by looking at them and implementing what needs to be implemented. But.... I was the teacher of teachers now and that's not what I'm used to. When my husband and I created the Wodonga Network it was about creating a self sustaining collegial environment. We set the framework up front with a relatively small group and as new members enter they now learn about high quality collegial practice simply by being put into a group already practicing it. We use high quality collegial practice to teach about high quality collegial practice and I don't really have to teach it anymore, it just sort of happens all by itself.
Teaching someone else how to understand it from outside of that framework? That's really really different.... How do I help someone else understand how to do it? Usually I use the concept of community and it's generally enough to get small points across but when you're in a top down position of delivering complete understanding you sort of end up needing to explain community too. Of course that's anthropologist territory and what I have is a Bachelor of Education - Early Childhood so no help there...
Oddly enough, the answer came from science.
Of course this video drew my attention because looking at punishment Vs reward is a "teachery thing". The video has a specific message to deliver about understanding the feedback we give and how sometimes our observations on the effectiveness of the feedback we give can be incorrect simply because we live in a random world. It's the random world part right at the end that sort of brought me to a lightbulb moment.
What successful collegial groups do is eliminate luck from our professional universe. Can you imagine having a math problem and asking random strangers on the street for advice? How many would you have to ask at random until you got lucky and found one who both had the answer you were looking for and willing to spend the time to explain it to you?
Collegial groups create an ordered world for us that gives us a security blanket against the unknown. Our collegial group gives us a framework where we can go and seek answers because we interact we also learn who is able to give us the advice we need and will be aligned with who we want to be as teachers. We can target our search and save ourselves a whole lot of time and effort.
Do we need advice on how to structure our lessons? Do we need advice on how to deliver those lessons more effectively in the classroom? Do we need advice on how to best support a particular student with particular issues? Do we need professional advice on the rules and regulations of teaching? Are we simply getting a little snowed under and need a bit of moral support?
A collegial group gives a reliable way to get each and every one of these things with luck playing as small of a part in the process as possible.
How we differ as CRTs is that Collegiality is far less common for us than other teachers. The way we work often creates a diverse professional network, rather than a collegial group, where it can be a matter of luck on which school we are working in today is the same school where who we want to ask also works in. Collegial CRT groups are certainly out there though and joining or starting one is a really good idea.
What many tend to rely on however is online groups such as those created on Facebook. These don't immerse us in collegiality in the same way as in-person groups do but they still offer a place where we can go to ask questions and get answers.
This still leaves us with a little bit of a hole in that it doesn't really provide an immersive experience to learn high quality collegial practice from in it's deeper implications with Teaching. So, for those without in-person collegial networks we are about to add to our CRT booklet with the basics of how high quality collegial practice works.
Some recent conversations with educationalists and some feedback from CRTs on our "Desirable CRT" booklet have shown us that perhaps adding to the booklet is a good idea. As before we try not to concentrate too much on "common knowledge" types of things but touch on both creating a Network and how to participate in them to a high standard of practice. Also just as last time we are seeking some feedback about how we have approached it and are looking for input from CRTs at various career stages as to how useful it is to you at that stage.
Obviously as a draft there's missing bits and there's some holes in the information that need plugging by adding a page or two and we'd like your input on what other topics we should include as much as anything else!
Feedback and further input can be emailed to wodongacrt@vit.vic.edu.au and your support is greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Mel.
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