Anne Jolly's Diary

Entry 56: After 35 years, I still can't decide if I like Mardi Gras or not. Mardi Gras catapults the whole city of Mobile into an atmosphere of fun and frolic. The carnival season starts a month before Fat Tuesday, with parades, balls, and other celebrations. During the week before Mardi Gras, parades weave merrily through the city streets every single night, and revelry reigns supreme. As Fat Tuesday approaches, the city practically grinds to a halt and the schools close down for a full three days.

For teachers, the prolonged festivity generated by the carnival season has a down side. Some parade-going students can't stay awake, and others are so "hyper" from a diet of carnival candies and moon pies that their desks need to be outfitted with seat belts. Combine this difficult teaching season with new state mandates requiring additional teacher time to be spent in documentation, impending school cutbacks because of the ten million dollar shortfalls, and the simple fact that it's report card time again. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that teachers aren't jumping up and down and shouting gleefully, "Hallelujah! It's time for an Impact Team meeting!"

Mardi Gras and other excuses aside, the plain fact is that some Impact Teams are starting to lose momentum. I'm having flashbacks to my "worst case scenario" at the beginning of this project. What if teachers don't buy in to this teamwork process? Are Impact Teams becoming just another teacher burden? Definitely reason to reflect with teachers on the whole process of teacher collaboration.

Entry 57: One thing about working in your own faculty "family" - the teachers don't pull any punches with you! Today I met briefly with two Impact Teams. I asked teams to think about three questions: (1) If you could start this process over, knowing what you know now, what sort of focus would be the most beneficial for you as professionals? (2) Where do you want to go with this process? (3) What would be the best use of your time on March 27, when we have an all-day professional development day?

Normally, the members of Team #3 exhibit little cohesiveness. However, in response to the first question, the entire team brightened. This team recently changed its focus from reading and writing to a focus on student motivation as one way of increasing student achievement in those areas. The idea of a different schoolwide direction - one not oriented around a specific subject - appeals to them. As far as March 27, this team wants to spend the day in collaborative activities with other teachers. Encouraging! They also suggested that teachers meet as departments for part of the day to discuss teaching strategies within disciplines. Working together as an interdisciplinary team is still more of a problem for these teachers than working within departments to to address student needs and improve teaching practices. That may be something to consider next year. Do teams need to decide on their own groupings?

Team #9 - What a great group! They like the current focus on reading and writing. In fact, they brought samples student writing to the table to examine and discuss during today's Impact Team meeting. Their ideas? Let the faculty meet in different kinds of groups (whole-faculty, Impact, cross-grade level, and departmental) during the professional development day. And stick with teacher collaboration - no workshop presentations. With renewed optimism I sailed out and they began working together to examine their students' writing progress.

Entry 58: Another boost for optimism- Today as I burst into Team #1's meeting and posed the standard three questions. They unanimously proposed team meetings in preference to workshop presentations as a means of accomplishing something productive on the March 27 professional development day. Apparently the teachers do see some value in team collaboration! In fact this team readily voiced agreement that collaborative teamwork is the best way to for them to really accomplish something for students. Their major concern? "We don't have enough time to work together!"

Team #4 played a "burst the optimism bubble" role. One teacher stated flatly that he could be in his room grading papers, catching up on homeroom work, writing lesson plans, and doing other things that his job demanded rather than doing "nice cutsey stuff" like Impact Teams. Oof! In reality, this teacher performs a valuable function for me. I always depend on him to give me a direct answer rather than taking a "Gee, she's a nice person and I don't want to hurt her feelings" approach. His viewpoints keep me humble and give me well-rounded perspective. The only problem is that, through his strong personality, his sentiments can affect the whole group at times. They certainly didn't impact the special education teacher, however! In her quiet but firm way, she stated that she found Impact Team meetings to be invaluable. They gave her an overall look at her students' total curriculum and enabled her to adjust her teaching to provide maximum help for them. I heaved a silent sigh of relief. However, I can't turn a deaf ear to the teacher - and maybe others less vocal - who don't regard this process as helpful or valuable. I have to address that concern.

Interesting observation. Most of the teachers here with elementary backgrounds seem comfortable and successful with Impact Teams. Most secondary teachers are skeptical about the need for collaboration and the potential effectiveness of the process. Does that mean that secondary teachers need some "pre-teaming" experiences? Exposure to research on the subject? What will it take to get buy-in from this group. (And don't think it can't be done. I'm AM a secondary teacher!)

Entry 59: My latest enigma: How do you sustain a process that is designed to build in sustainability? For a while everything moved along smoothly and in the right direction. I dared to radiate relief occasionally and to think about declaring the project a tentative success so far. Obviously, those premature feelings signaled things to start sliding the other way. My no-brainer of a conclusion? The right approach can't be pinned down on paper. Every group of teachers is a distinct group with their own culture and set of norms. We'll have to adapt parts of what we're doing. Adaptability is going to play as big a role in the success of this teacher collaboration process as sustainability.

The real question, then, is not how can I make this process work, but how teachers can work together to develop this process. Yawn. This project doesn't lack for invigorating things to consider at 3:00 a.m.

Entry 60: Talked with my principal this afternoon - a good pep rally experience for me. I shared my concerns about the teams. He pointed out a number of additional reasons why the Impact Team process is occupying less of teachers efforts at this time of year, and chalked it up as totally normal. He reminded me that as we continue this process from year to year, will become a normal part of the school culture. I like his advice: "Teachers have to learn better ways to teach. Persevere! We're taking the long view, and we're sticking with it!"