Isolation vs. Community

Do you remember not seeing your teaching colleagues until after 3:15 on a Friday afternoon? Or one meeting a month as a faculty? How about not knowing the upper elementary teachers' names? I do and no one ever had second thoughts about those characteristics of teaching.
   

Fast forward 15 years into my career as an elementary teacher and those practices are considered ancient history. Relationships in isolation between, kids, teachers, and administration has been replaced by a strong sense of community.
 
 In a positive way, our educational culture has changed to benefit all of those involved in the educational setting. Communication and collaboration at Jones Elementary are two of the positive ways that community has impacted students and teachers. As teachers, we communicate daily with each other. The goal, of course, of this communication is to be strategic, share, and create the best practices to help our students succeed in our classrooms. I stop and pause to think about how isolated I felt 10-15 years ago and what a disservice was given to my students. Struggling to help my students reach their goals was almost impossible in that isolated setting. Having several months to accomplish their goals become a time study in hopelessness because collaboration was non-existent. It's a wonder I didn't leave the profession! When you have a strong sense of community like we have here at Jones, teachers feel more confident in their abilities to deliver the standards in the different content areas with a laser like focus. Why? It's because of meaningful collaboration that results from putting 4-5 professional teachers in a classroom with time to analyze data, discuss ways to improve, putting a plan into action, and then working for the benefit of all of those under our guidance.
   The benefits of having community over isolation are having a great effect on our students. They feel successful because ALL of the teachers have a stake in their success. We succeed when they succeed. It had to be a lonely feeling for my students when I was the only one there to celebrate their accomplishments many moons ago.

Thankfully, education has turned away from isolation and toward community. It really wasn't that long ago when examples I listed were the norm. We have come a long way in 10 years. I like the current path we are on with community being such a positive effect on our kids at Jones. Imagine what the next 10-15 years will bring.