I love how my research has actually led to many distractions and new directions. I knew the heart of what I wanted to research: how to effectively co-teach. The question has been a big part of my last year teaching. There has been a significant vagueness to what co-teaching was and what expectations go with this mandate.
Co-teaching is a relatively new initiative that has been thrown around the district I work in these past few years. And unfortunately, like most initiatives, it isn't universally understood, valued, and or supported with adequate and meaningful professional development. I have had an awesome opportunity to take my own time to reflect and dig deep into this question. I have had most of the tools for my kit all along, with the one exception. Time. I had downloaded or copied articles to read, looked at teacher blogs, read books, and experienced various models of co-teaching in my own practice, yet I knew I needed to learn more and take some serious time to reflect and take action. This is what I am now getting a chance to begin and I couldn't be more excited.
I was reminded about a book that I had read this past year called "The Four Agreements." I remembered that there were some agreements to live by that would make your life run more smoothly and give you more strength. The 4 agreements are: Be impeccable with your word, Don't take things personally, Don't make assumptions, and Always do your best. I feel that they can be the foundations of an ideal co-teaching relationship.
There are 2 concepts around co-teaching that much of my attention is being paid to. Power and Communication. I am taking time to reflect on my views on both and the experiences I've had teaching thus far in my career. I realized that one or both of these elements were the source of the conflicts that arose. One of my colleagues has the best analogy of what a specialists role is in co-teaching and collaboration. We must be chameleons and change with the style of the teacher we are working with. Using this analogy I have had a better understanding of why at the end of a day or week I feel very drained.
I have been working each day a little bit at formalizing my question since I want to be clear on what I'm really searching to know more on. When my mentor, Amy came to help she was able to listen to what I was thinking about and she was able to reflect back at me what the question was. "What best practices are out there about how to work with classroom teachers?" I needed that cleaned up for me and through this process I was able to move forward.
I had been feeling very scattered in my thinking and I couldn't get to a place that resonated with me. This entire process of researching is great though, because when in my busy life do I get the opportunity to spend as much time as I can focusing on one research question? I have decided to start a document that has some of my "burning questions" on it so I can have them there to go back to when I have time to reflect.
Another important realization that I made was the ability to focus on desirable qualities rather than focusing on the parts of co-teaching that cause frustration or worry. It is amazing too how I am really a person that has so many questions that I want to answer and how hard it is for me to narrow it down to one at a time. This is true to me in many aspects of my life. I have so many thoughts brewing that I don't end up "finishing" any of my thoughts. Putting the ideas down on paper (or google docs) have helped me have a sense of direction and at the same time the other ideas still have a place of value and I can come back to them at another time.
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