Team-Work In Middle Schools

One of the things I love about middle schools is the team concept.

A team of core teachers (for language arts, math, science, and social studies) shares the same group of students.

On two-teacher teams, each teacher teaches two core subjects. Usually, one teacher teaches language arts and social studies, and the other teacher teaches math and science. The combination of subjects usually depends on what each teacher is certified to teach.

On three-teacher teams, it's common for each teacher to teach one of three core subjects and for each of those teachers to have one section of the fourth subject. The two years that I was on a three-teacher team, each of us taught one section of science. At my school, it's been even more common for social studies to be that fourth subject.

On four-teacher teams, each teacher teaches just one core subject.

One year, we even had a five-teacher team at our school.

On my team, I've been very fortunate to have worked with some great teachers who have also been wonderful people.

While the personalities have been different, every teacher I've teamed with has cared about the students and wanted to make a positive difference in their lives.

Different teachers show that love and concern for students in different ways.

By meeting and working together, teachers who share the same students have a greater capacity to meet those students' needs.

Instead of depending on one person's observations and expertise, team teachers have the opportunity to share observations and insights while trying to develop strategies for best meeting students' academic and personal needs.

In addition to providing students a more comprehensive network of support, team teachers also can provide one another support.

Team teachers can (and should) share philosophies, strategies, ideas, opinions, concerns, suggestions, questions, and answers.

Obviously, communication matters.

If team teachers fail to communicate enough with one another--or if their communication with one another is usually negative--the team will probably not function as well, and it's certainly less likely that those teachers will as effectively meet their students' needs.

There also has to be give-and-take among the team teachers.

Each individual teacher brings a different personality to the table, with different strengths and weaknesses.

For a team to succeed, teachers have to appreciate and take advantage of one another's strengths, while figuring out ways to improve upon weaknesses.

In the best case scenerio, a balancing act of personalities helps the team form a collective personality that ideally is stronger and better than the individual personalities would be by themselves.