The secret of good teaching? Teamwork

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Twelve years ago, when I left my law career to become a history teacher, my view of what a “good teacher” looked like was shaped in part by movies like “Stand and deliver” and “To the Lord, with love,” representing teachers overcoming institutional dysfunction to connect with students and inspire them to reach their potential.

Watching “To Sir, With Love” was even a course requirement in my teaching residency program. It was with great trepidation (knowing I couldn't live up to this model but wanting to do the best I could) that I accepted my job as a social studies teacher at a small public high school in the Bronx.

I spent the next decade at that same small school, and my time there changed my view of what makes a good teacher. I learned that the film model minimizes the extent to which a school's success depends on collaboration and an interconnected web of complementary skills of teachers and school staff.

No one can be all things to all students, however all students need love and a reason to show up. This requires a team capable of providing academic skills and content, as well as consistency, emotional support, extracurricular activities and much more.

Who is needed on this team? I expected the obvious: general content teachers, teachers who work with English learners and students with disabilities, counselors, social workers, paraprofessionals, and other support staff. In practice, I found that what is really needed is staff who can learn from each other and how to support each other.

Last year, as I watched my teaching partner quickly calm a cranky student with humorous banter (a skill I never acquired), I appreciated again how much a school needs these different strengths. His action allowed me to calmly guide all the students back to the history lesson at hand. While I benefited from her deep connection with our students, other teachers learned from my organizational skills, which I used to map out curriculum, break down standards, and track student progress.

I have learned that schools need teachers who are experts at differentiating instruction for individual learning needs, tutoring small groups, and instructing dozens of students for multiple periods in a single day with no breaks between classes. They need teachers who know the latest scholarship and the latest social media platforms. They need teachers with physical and mental resilience, but they also need teachers who struggle physically or emotionally. There are lessons that cannot be taught explicitly.

They need teachers and staff who can anticipate and prevent conflict, those who intervene to contain a fight, those who can calm a classroom after a conflict raises adrenaline and brings everyone closer to an emotional edge, and those who can mediate conflicts. . then, bringing healing to the entire community.

Schools need teachers with high expectations and teachers with a deep, personal understanding of the stresses and life experiences that can make it difficult for children to get to school in the morning and reach their potential.

They need school staff who speak students' native languages ​​and teachers who reflect students' ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds. They need educators who are willing to reflect on their own assumptions, privileges, and biases, and those who are adept at guiding others in that process. They need teachers who are not afraid to have difficult conversations with students about class, race, gender, and other challenging topics, and who know how to create productive spaces for them to happen.

Schools need staff members with connections to other professionals, the community, and those in the trades. They need people willing to organize school-wide events that create a sense of belonging, and people who will organize field trips even when funding or transportation poses challenges.

They need teachers with naturally loud voices that can carry across a classroom or outdoor space, and they need those who speak softly and force students to learn to listen more carefully. They need introverts and extroverts.

They need teachers and staff members who recognize neglect, hunger, and abuse, and who recognize the hidden genius of a student as a writer, philosopher, artist, poet, or engineer. They need teachers who know when to calmly bring a box of tissues, when to text a counselor or consult a social worker, and how to build trust with a student.

They need teachers who laugh and make students laugh. They need teachers who know how to laugh at themselves.

It took me a while to fit into the network at my small school. What ultimately made me a good teacher was recognizing and leveraging my own strengths and those of my colleagues. Supplementing individual performance reviews with celebrations of teamwork among school staff could lead to happier, healthier workplaces and reduce teacher rotation.

I never replicated the movie model, but I found in my colleagues the strength and skills to give my best to my students. Although I reluctantly left teaching in June due to the pent-up stress of work, which increased astronomically post-COVID, and the daily commute, it was especially difficult to leave my fellow educators.

This is my love letter and thank you note to my former colleagues. It is also a request that we give more recognition to all the wonderful people who, working together, make a school a good place to learn and grow.

chalk beat is a nonprofit news organization that covers public education.

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