I Know What To Do with the Kids, But What About the Grown-ups?

Originally posted Jan. 9, 2008

By Marilyn Friend, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

I would like to focus on collaboration, that is, the rather complex responsibilities that all special educators have for effectively working with other teachers and other professionals, paraprofessionals, administrators, and parents in the school and the community.  I’m wondering whether you’re finding that you are well-prepared to work with students; understand clearly your responsibilities related to writing, implementing, and monitoring IEPs; and realize the importance of current efforts to raise academic expectations for students with disabilities . . . but that the most challenging part of your job, in many ways, is the part that involves working with adults!

Originally posted Jan. 9, 2008

By Marilyn Friend, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro

I would like to focus on collaboration, that is, the rather complex responsibilities that all special educators have for effectively working with other teachers and other professionals, paraprofessionals, administrators, and parents in the school and the community.  I’m wondering whether you’re finding that you are well-prepared to work with students; understand clearly your responsibilities related to writing, implementing, and monitoring IEPs; and realize the importance of current efforts to raise academic expectations for students with disabilities . . . but that the most challenging part of your job, in many ways, is the part that involves working with adults!

If you think about it, in education we spend a lot of time talking about collaboration, but not a whole lot of time teaching the skills related to it.  Perhaps you had a course that focused on working with colleagues and parents, but did your general education co-workers take such a course?  Your principal?  Are working relationships addressed at staff meetings?  How are parents prepared for collaboration? 

Even student teaching (if you completed a traditional program) often works against collaboration:  Whether you student teach in an elementary, middle, or high school, usually you start by observing your cooperating teacher, then gradually assume teaching responsibilities until you are teaching for the entire day.  Then a critical step takes place:  Your cooperating teacher leaves and you manage teaching responsibility by yourself for several weeks.  This type of experience sends a message that effective teachers can do their jobs by themselves, and it partly explains why most early-career special educators find developing collaborative relationships one of the most important and sometimes most difficult part of the first few years of their careers.

Here’s another thought.  It’s almost un-American to say anything other than that you fully support collaboration, but many teachers really want to collaborate only with the professionals with whom they are friends or with whom they largely agree on important instructional and behavior matters.  Perhaps you’ve heard teachers mention, for example, that they want to assign students with disabilities only to the classrooms of certain teachers because those teachers are easy to work with. 

However, collaboration skills really aren’t that necessary among friends—friends know what you meant even when you misspeak, they readily overlook the things you do that they do not necessarily agree with, and they gently let you know if they think you made an error.  Collaboration is most important when you partner with someone with whom you do not “click.”  It is when you have a disagreement, encounter resistance, or experience difficulty in communicating that collaboration is essential.

And so what does this mean for you?  My goal is just to get you to think about the collaborative experiences you’ve had, to analyze what makes some interactions effective and some ineffective, and to think about how to improve those that are challenging.  I hope you’ll share your successes and challenges related to collaboration and ask questions you may have about working with others. 

If you think about it, in education we spend a lot of time talking about collaboration, but not a whole lot of time teaching the skills related to it.  Perhaps you had a course that focused on working with colleagues and parents, but did your general education co-workers take such a course?  Your principal?  Are working relationships addressed at staff meetings?  How are parents prepared for collaboration? 

Even student teaching (if you completed a traditional program) often works against collaboration:  Whether you student teach in an elementary, middle, or high school, usually you start by observing your cooperating teacher, then gradually assume teaching responsibilities until you are teaching for the entire day.  Then a critical step takes place:  Your cooperating teacher leaves and you manage teaching responsibility by yourself for several weeks.  This type of experience sends a message that effective teachers can do their jobs by themselves, and it partly explains why most early-career special educators find developing collaborative relationships one of the most important and sometimes most difficult part of the first few years of their careers.

Here’s another thought.  It’s almost un-American to say anything other than that you fully support collaboration, but many teachers really want to collaborate only with the professionals with whom they are friends or with whom they largely agree on important instructional and behavior matters.  Perhaps you’ve heard teachers mention, for example, that they want to assign students with disabilities only to the classrooms of certain teachers because those teachers are easy to work with. 

However, collaboration skills really aren’t that necessary among friends—friends know what you meant even when you misspeak, they readily overlook the things you do that they do not necessarily agree with, and they gently let you know if they think you made an error.  Collaboration is most important when you partner with someone with whom you do not “click.”  It is when you have a disagreement, encounter resistance, or experience difficulty in communicating that collaboration is essential.

And so what does this mean for you?  My goal is just to get you to think about the collaborative experiences you’ve had, to analyze what makes some interactions effective and some ineffective, and to think about how to improve those that are challenging.  I hope you’ll share your successes and challenges related to collaboration and ask questions you may have about working with others. 

Comments

[Lisa Tuttle]

Hello Marilyn. My name is Lisa and I am currently an Itinerant Deaf Educator within the State of Texas; serving Deaf or Hard of Hearing students that range in functional levels and grade levels (Pre-K – 12th). After reading your blog post, I found many similarities in our educational philosophies and ideas on how to effectively implement collaboration. For instance, I am currently in the midst of achieving a Master’s in Special Education from Walden University. My current course, EDUC 6720, The Special Educator as Instructional Leader integrates a Course Project that asks each professional to choose one critical problem within their current teaching situation and to formulate a plan on how to mend or fix the current problems; making the academic environment that much more beneficial for our students, parents and families. My core problems focus upon collaboration between the varying campuses that I currently serve.

In response to your previously prompted questions, I feel that I am well-prepared to work with students, that I clearly understand my educational responsibilities related to “writing, implementing, and monitoring IEPs” and thoroughly recognize the importance of “current efforts to raise academic expectations for students with disabilities;” however, as my Course Project discusses, the other professionals that influence my Deaf or Hard of Hearing student’s educational processes do not necessarily understand their roles or responsibilities in ensuring that these students continually receive educational opportunities just as mainstream students do. Collaboration is an essential key to maintaining student successes in and outside of the academic environment.

Just as you previously stated, yes, during my Undergraduate Program, I had to take a course or two that focused upon collaboration. Also, being an Itinerant Deaf Educator, collaboration is a key to maintaining our student’s successes; therefore, we focus upon strategies and techniques that can and will enhance parent, student, teachers and administrator collaboration within the academic environment. From my own Student Teaching experiences, I co-taught in an Inclusive Deaf Education classroom. Just as you previously stated, I was taught to be independent and to be able to handle the workload. Once my student teaching was complete, I was hired to be the second Deaf Educator within this classroom where I had initially been a Student Teacher. Once the next academic school year began, my co-worker still viewed me as a Student Teacher, rather than a first year teacher and throughout the academic school year, our collaboration was slim to none. I was teaching every class, creating my own educational resources and activities and simply being “the educator” in charge of all responsibilities while my co-worker sat back and felt the need to critique everything. I feel that if collaboration had been established and had been a focus in our classroom that we could have better served each of our individual students. In these kinds of situations, I feel that training on collaboration is essential and should be mandatory (i.e. Staff Development, Departmental Meetings, Workshops, etc.).

I feel that your idea that teachers have to be willing to work with others and to initiate in collaborative practices is very true. Far too many times I have experienced situations where other Special Educators “want to assign students with disabilities only to the classrooms of certain teachers because those teachers are easy to work with;” simply because they do not have the skills to work collaboratively with other educators. I think you “hit the nail on the head” with that statement. Your initial goal of your prior post has been reached; I have thoroughly thought about the collaborative experiences that I’ve had in the past and within my current teaching situation. Thank you for reminding other professionals how essential collaboration is for the true successes of our individual students with special needs.

[Jared]

Even professionals working together in a school building can have problems working together at times. No matter how old we are, one thing remains constant: we want things done our way. It is easier to find fault in others than to find fault in ourselves. Teachers on both sides have to get past their own agendas and look at the bigger picture, which is serving the needs of the students. Besides, how can we expect our students to collaborate with each other in the classroom if we cannot collaborate ourselves?

[Liz Turner]

In my building I teach a self-contained classroom with a paraeducator in my classroom. As a special educator I am required to collaborate with general education teachers, my paraeducator, and the crisis teacher. I find myself struggling to get certain grade levels to collaborate with me for instructional practices, and planning because there is a misconception that I am not really teaching. This is my second year teacher and I have found it easier to collaborate with general education since I am being more assertive. My biggest challenge is working with my paraeducator. She comes in late, does not do the tasks assigned to her, and is a "social butterfly". I have tried numerous strategies talking to her, reminding her, prompting her, and now I have a checklist for her that I go over with her each day and she signs and returns to me each day. Now she checks off that she did everything when she never has completed the task. My big question is how do you collaborate with adults when they are unwilling to work with you?

[Karen Rotolo]

In my situation, I am needing to collaborate with other Special Education teachers in my building. I teach Inclusion Algebra and Geometry, most of the included students are there because they learn differently. Well this year, I have several students who fall in the Emotionally Disturbed category. However, the ED teacher has not made any effort to tell me or my co-teacher what to do when these students become agitated in our setting, not to mention how we should be monitoring their behavior goals. For the most part, I am very comfortable serving all students, but I do feel a need for much better communication among myself and the ED teachers in my building. Any thoughts out there?

[Lisa]

I am a 3 year newbie special needs teacher, with 20 plus years experience in human resources/management. I have to remind myself daily that all teachers are not educated in the same manner. Each person/teacher requires certain needs to be meet in order to be able to collaborate with me. Determining that need does take time.

[Michel]

...and team management!! I teach a behavior class, inherited one para and had a long term sub. I started teaching them our first day about the range possible in an EBD classroom, but now that new kids actually meet what I described, all that they blew me off about is spooking them.

My sub - ok, I knew she didn't fit w/ EBD. My "experienced" employee had only a really soft year of manipulators, I now understand. Never did an escort. Now - our high was 4 in one day. Out of 10 students.

How to reassure them and get them to use the tools they still see as too much work (continual reinforcement, every 5 min) - even when, yesterday, I demonstrated for 2 hours that it just means a smilie on the sheet as you float around.

Resources? I've run out of googles for *staff* management articles...

Thanks!
Michel