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Agreeing to Disagree: Two English Teachers Reflect
On A Year of Collaboration

Andrew HaLevi
Jon Blackstock
Burke High School
Charleston, SC

It is unfair, of course, to suggest that teachers do not interact with their peers. Whether one looks at personal friendships or professional obligations, teachers interact with each other in a myriad of ways on a daily basis. Yet in a very real sense, teachers are isolated from their peers, and this alienation often results in ineffective instruction and stunted professional growth (Aston and Webb). This article addresses ways in which collaboration among English teachers can enhance classroom instruction, encourage meaningful professional development, and act as a catalyst for broader school reform. Specifically, we address what it means for teachers to collaborate, what factors influence successful collaborations, and how collaboration should be evaluated.

Teachers have only recently been recognized as active participants in curriculum development. Traditionally, curriculum has been "developed" by textbook manufacturers in response to the needs of large states like California, Texas, and Florida, and altered to meet the needs of smaller states and individual districts. In this approach, curriculum is the instrument of reform, and teachers are the conduits through which reform takes place. We argue, however, that teachers can and should demand more active roles as agents of reform, and the best way to do that is through collaborative efforts like the one we have been engaged in for the past year.

As two teachers newly arrived to Burke High School (BHS) in Charleston, SC, we felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenges facing us: students several grades below the norm, low student motivation, little parental involvement, and numerous classroom interruptions. Compounding these classroom challenges was the fact that BHS was experiencing several difficult transitions in personnel on the administrative and faculty levels. An entirely new administrative team came on board half way through our first year, and we were part of an English Department in which six of the eight teachers had been hired within the last year. We felt isolated, discouraged, and powerless to control the educational outcomes of our students. We were in very real jeopardy of exhibiting the type of "disassociation from the products of work" which Rosenholtz believes leads teachers to avoid new challenges (Rosenholtz).

Although the disassociation to which Rosenholtz refers never fully materialized in our classrooms, we each questioned our own sense of efficacy, and we ultimately concluded that the challenges we faced were best confronted through collaborative curriculum development. While hindsight makes us see this conclusion as self-evident, we each approached collaboration tentatively and with many reservations. Of primary concern was how we would bridge the individual differences in our educational outlooks and teaching styles in order to work together and reach agreement. But there were additional concerns about autonomy, the possibility of conflict, and the speed and direction of change. The tables below highlight our major motivations and dominant concerns.

Table 1: Motivations for Change

Jon	Andrew
Test practice	Implementing vocabulary program
Work with an experienced teacher	Desire to build strong nucleus within English Department
Desire for inspiration and support from a colleague	Desire for a "voice" in the discussion about reform taking place in the school
Reduce workload by sharing	Feeling underutilized

Table 2: Dominant Concerns

Jon	Andrew
Fear of being pushed into a curriculum by Andrew	Interference by administrators
Insecurity about own methods	Difficulty structuring common time to meet and reflect
Process of collaboration with Andrew	"Selling" the idea of collaboration to the department
Fear of offending Andrew's sense of accomplishment	Developing a shared vision

By simply taking the first step in the process of identifying motivations and concerns, we had transformed our roles from that of "curriculum implementers" to that of team members and decision makers. We had become "teachers who attribute instructional outcomes to controllable factors and confront new challenges . . . with greater optimism and promise" (Rosenholtz 143).

Deciding that we wanted to collaborate was liberating, but it didn't make the actual process of collaboration any easier. In fact, creating a framework in which we each felt comfortable enough to speak freely, take chances, and ultimately create a product was the single most difficult aspect (with the possible exception of writing this paper) of our collaboration. As it turned out, the "framework" which we adopted was nothing more than meeting at Andrew's house, sitting in front of his computer, and talking about what we wanted to accomplish while one of us typed out notes. It was in this setting that we created a shared vision for our curriculum, structured it in such a way that allowed for individual difference, and taught each other to be better teachers.

As the tables above suggest, Jon entered into the collaboration with very different motivations and concerns than Andrew. The most striking contrast is that Jon's goals were largely practical (creating a more appropriate and challenging curriculum, finding motivation from a peer, creating lesson plans, etc.), while Andrew's goals focused on systematic changes (increased teacher autonomy, teacher retention, etc.). These different goals made it crucial that we develop a shared conception of the changes needed rather than just having an openness to change in general. We were able to do so by valuing each other's reason for being there. What we discovered is that our differences lay in emphasis and not in nature. Jon's immediate need was to develop more focus in his curriculum in order to eventually discuss larger curricular issues, while Andrew used the broader school-wide issues to motivate curriculum revisions. This common understanding, if not agreement, of the "why" of curriculum allowed us to concentrate on the "how" of curriculum restructuring.

We chose to adopt a project-based curriculum in which students are responsible for large projects at the end of units lasting 4-6 weeks. This approach had the advantage of meeting Jon's desire to use the collaboration to develop extensive lesson plans while giving Andrew the opportunity to create a method of instruction which could impact other English classrooms. A project-based curriculum had the added advantage of allowing our different professional strengths to find expression. Although the choice of projects was the same in each of our classes, student projects are necessarily unique, and thus neither of us felt pressure to conform to each other's expectations. The actual curriculum, therefore, was not a static plan but was developed in each of our classrooms and reflected our individual differences.

The three areas of instruction in our curriculum which culminate in student projects are vocabulary, reading, and writing. Table 3 below highlights the features of each area.

Table 3: Features of the BHS 9th Grade project-based curriculum

Vocabulary	Reading	Writing
Emphasizes concepts	Emphasizes active engagement	Process oriented
Extensive use of graphic organizers	Emphasizes reading and writing connections	Portfolio approach
Utilizes writing	Involves guided and independent activities	Employs assessment rubrics
Involves portfolios	Projects involve making thematic connections to books read in class	Projects involve lengthy explorations of a specific type of discourse
Part of vertically integrated four year program
Projects involve writing and speaking

The breadth and ambition of our curricular revisions speak to the autonomy and motivation we felt as a result of our collaboration. As individuals, neither of us felt comfortable revising more than one area in a school year. But by encouraging each other and risking failure, we chose to revise three major areas of instruction.

Each of us readily admits letting the other take the lead in certain areas. Andrew, who is most comfortable teaching vocabulary and writing, let Jon take the lead designing the reading/literature component. Andrew had previously taught literature by emphasizing class discussion of broad themes. But he learned from Jon to balance this tendency by encouraging closer readings through a variety of writing activities. The result is that now his students are showing a more complete understanding of what they are reading and are writing more detailed papers. Similarly, Jon had previously taught vocabulary as a complement to reading, but he found this method haphazard. He now sees the value of complementing this approach with a more comprehensive program emphasizing the use of semantic mapping. Vocabulary instruction has now become his students' favorite activity, and it has positively impacted his students' reading and writing.

While it is possible to make the argument that collaboration is good in and of itself, we believe that teachers' collaborative efforts function best when they are part of a larger process of reform like curriculum restructuring. In this way, collaborative projects can dramatically increase the rate of reform as changes take place simultaneously in several classrooms throughout a school. Collaborative projects, however, rarely result in dramatic reforms (at least immediately), and this fact led us to think about the various ways to evaluate the success of collaborative projects, including our own.

Perhaps the most obvious way to judge the success or failure of a collaborative effort is by its direct impact on classroom instruction and learning. For Jon, who feels that student performance in the areas of vocabulary and writing have increased substantially, the collaboration has already been a success. His initial goal of better planning has been met, and he looks forward to creating more seamless instruction among vocabulary, reading and writing. Andrew, too, feels that a great deal more instruction takes place in his classroom, and he attributes the change to the focused planning which took place during the initial stages of collaboration.

More difficult to judge is whether our collaboration this year will influence future departmental and administrative decisions, including the reform of the English curriculum at BHS. Such changes do not happen quickly, and while the English Department at BHS will soon discuss adopting a new vocabulary program based on our work this year, additional changes in the department are uncertain. What is clear, however, is that through collaboration, we have positioned ourselves in the eyes of the faculty and administration as risk takers. We are now regularly consulted by administrators about proposed curriculum changes, asked to serve in leadership positions throughout the school, and given public acknowledgment for the projects we have undertaken. Additionally, our relationship this year has encouraged other English teachers to support significant changes within the English Department. It is no longer possible for less active teachers to ignore our initiatives, as we have become forceful advocates for reform.

A final area to assess has less to do with instructional and departmental reform than it does with personal and professional growth. A great deal of research examines positive experiences often reported by teachers involved in collaborations (Maeroff 1993). Our experience echoes these findings, as we have become more reflective and optimistic teachers as a result of our collaboration. Both time for reflection and cause for optimism are scarce commodities at BHS. Yet, they are absolutely necessary to face the challenges in our classrooms. We have learned that problems are not only inevitable, but they are also integral to substantive change efforts (Fullan). By recognizing and valuing these conditions necessary for instructional and curricular advancement, it is possible to value collaborative efforts that fall short of dramatic reform in the classroom.

In recent years, demands for school reform have defined an expanded curriculum responsibility for teachers (Carnegie). As a result, teachers throughout the country have formed collaborative partnerships to meet this challenge. As two new English teachers in a troubled urban high school, we hoped that our collaborative efforts would satisfy our practical needs to plan more effective instruction for our students. After meeting our initial goal, our ambitions grew to include using our collaboration as a means for broader reforms in the English Department, the Staff Development Program, and scheduling procedures. We have come to see collaboration as a powerful tool to promote the culture of reform in a school.

Works Cited

Ashton, P.T., and R.B. Webb. Making a Difference: Teachers' Sense of Efficacy and Student Achievement. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1986.

Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century. New York: Carnegie Corp., 1986.

Fullan, M. "Innovation, Reform, and Restructuring Strategies." Challenges and Achievements of American Education: 1993 Yearbook of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Ed. by G. Cawelti. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 1993.

Maeroff, G.I. Team Building for School Change: Equipping Teachers for New Roles. New York: Teacher's College Press, 1993.

Rosenholtz, S.J. Teachers' Workplace: The Social Organization of Schools. White Plains, NY: Longman, 1989.

Andrew HaLevi is the English Department Chairperson at Burke High School in Charleston, SC. He has done advanced research in literacy at the University of Michigan and is currently working on a book about school choice.

Jon Blackstock is in his third year of teaching English and in his first year at Chester High School. In the last three years, he has directed three high school plays and has a short story published in EWG Presents.