Tuesday's Teacher

As a school owner, one of the things that has baffled me over the years has been the "classroom" question. Somehow, ownership of classrooms has nearly always been one of the separators that brings disharmony rather than harmony to the school. As a non classroom teacher, I've never understood having my own space - one more in my life - to keep clean and orderly. If having one's own space allows someone to view their teaching position as some kind of golden girl top-dog gig, that's not going to work in a group activity place where the team is where the focus should be.

Public school teachers who have worked for me have often brought some failing concepts with them that revolve around the "my space" concept. That concept begins with "my class is the only thing that really matters, all the rest is babysitting and housework, and I really don't want or think I should have to do it."

One of the great tragedies and failures of the public school system is a lack of teamwork and effort that isolates teachers and learning. When classes are finite entities, the learning stops at the door.

More than anything else, I believe that for children ages 3-6, teachers need to be united and work in every capacity as a team. No one teacher has all the artistic or intellectual parts for every job. Some teachers are organizational masters while others are detailers, and still others are better with art while others are better with concepts and for young children, the sharing of talents really works. Not every teacher is a literary whiz or can explain to children why the Norman Conquest worked!

Getting back to the individual classroom...over the years I have seen classrooms go from picked clean to a disgrace that needed three women to spend 25 hours cleaning just to turn it over to another teacher who does no better keeping it clean and orderly than the slob with the dead plants and the six month old mouse carcass. Can't tell you how often, daily, I travel into classrooms and see a mess that is so big and so tall, there is no way at all.... dust, un-watered plants, stacks of fire hazard paper, left overs, art projects from children who were graduated three years before and the proverbial coffee cup that was growing something but quit...

And if that is not bad enough, the very idea that one would covet that kind of mess only complicates the chaos, and top that with the fact that this sacrosanct space is "off limits" when teachers are gone for the day... I think I've lost a thousand square feet of usable space by 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon.

What to do...what to do...

This week we will be discussing making ALL our space multiple use and taking the ownership out of the classrooms. Every teacher will be expected to use the space most usable to the particular subject being taught as they are taught for the betterment of teaching and for the delight of the children. We will have a handwriting, music, video room. We will have a reading, geography, fine arts room. The main room will continue to be used for math, general play, science, and arts and crafts. Each room will be set up to use in the best capacity possible.

Teachers will use the classroom that is best for the children's needs. There will no longer be a reason for personal effects in any classroom, and every classroom will be kept neat and clean by the teacher who uses it last.

As a school whose basic tenet is "group participation and team effort" the whole idea of working for the sake of the children we teach is tantamount to what is important first. Every teacher will be able to go behind quietly closed doors and teach without worrying that they are trespassing into someone's sacred ground. What a splendid development!

I love this new group, team positive effort. Can't wait to get started.