How to Enhance a School's Internal Strength

Author: Bart
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: Parallel Play
In the language of preschool, there's a clever term: parallel play. Two four-year-olds are sitting diagonally across from each other in a sandbox. Jimmy has a shovel and a bucket, while Susan has a rake and a hoe. They can't borrow tools from each other, let alone build a sandcastle together. They can occasionally throw sand at each other, but they can't touch. Despite being close for a long time, each person is doing their own thing. Parallel play, considered a developmental stage for children aged 3–4, perfectly illustrates the relationship between adults in middle school, high school, and university. Teachers rarely have substantive connections. There's an unspoken taboo against observing each other's teaching. Openness to one another isn't a characteristic of the teaching profession. Instead, in the same office, a third-grade teacher will carefully avoid another third-grade teacher's teaching space. In many schools, this taboo extends beyond the classroom. As a graduate described it, "The teacher's cafeteria has 16 large dining tables. During lunchtime, I went to the cafeteria, and each table was occupied by a silent teacher sitting alone." Principals rarely visit each other's schools. Principals who have visited schools in the UK are more common than those who have visited schools in their own country. University professors have been described as "a group of isolated individuals connected only by heating systems and parking lots." It seems we all have an unspoken agreement: I'll do my own thing, and you won't bother me; you'll do yours, and I won't bother you. The benefit of parallel play is that it keeps those who might waste our time, challenge our methods, steal our ideas, or force us to change how we do things at arm's length. Of course, parallel play also keeps those who could help us do things better. Together, we could achieve far more than working alone. This is the cost of isolating ourselves from others.
At a conference, a principal said, "You know, we educators have pulled the cart into a circle and are now aiming our guns at each other." When we abandon parallel play and interact with each other, we often fall into mutual attacks. For me, to win, someone else must lose. To gain the support of parents, some teachers say bad things about their colleagues. Parents of poor children receive special services, but to provide these services, teachers must reduce the attention they give to other parents and their children. That's how it is. Perhaps eliminating the hostile relationship between adults in schools could make parallel play a popular shared choice.
The third form of competition between adults within a school is competition. Everyone working in a school has a desire for success. For the school as a whole, success means being better than all other schools; but for me personally, success first means being excellent. I've found that many school staff have remarkable insights into discipline, parental involvement, budgets, child development, leadership, and curriculum, because they have years of rich experience.