Over the last two weeks, I’ve presented in five different schools on just what the core work of collaborative teams is supposed to look like in action. In each building, I’ve spent a portion of the day helping teachers to understand WHY collaboration matters so darn much.
For me, the moral imperative for collaborating with my peers is an easy one: I KNOW that I don’t have the knowledge and the skills to meet the unique needs of every student in my classroom. That means if I’m not willing to study my practice with my peers, some of my students are going to struggle to succeed — and that breaks my heart. .
To help teachers understand that moral imperative, I always ask them to create a “These Are Our Kids” slide with images of students that THEY struggle to serve.
Here’s an example:
The way I see it, a “These Are Our Kids” slide becomes a visual reminder of the reasons why we should lean into our collaborative time together. It’s easy to skip a meeting when the purpose of the meeting is to “collaborate around practice.”
It’s much harder to skip a meeting when the purpose is to “get better at serving the individual students that I struggle to reach.”
Interested in having your teachers build a “These Are Our Kids” slide?
Here are the directions that I use with my audiences.
Hope that helps!
