[Editor's note: Teaching in Brooklyn is a fourth-year teacher at a Brooklyn elementary school.]
After spending my first two years as a first grade teacher working solo in an elementary school classroom of 28 students, I was recently hired at a new school as the general education teacher working with a special ed teacher in a collaborative team teaching classroom of 27 1st graders, nine of whom have IEPs. Coming into the new assignment, I was nervous about working with a partner. Suddenly I was presented with the reality of working with another teacher in the classroom, and I wondered what the day to day of it would be like. Would we have the same philosophy of education? How would we share the workload and paperwork? Would we be able to better reach our students by working collaboratively? And, not least, would we get along personally?
The first few weeks of planning and teaching were an adjustment period for both of us. It’s sort of like having an assigned roommate freshman year of college – you’re supposedly matched as perfect roommates, but every now and then one of the roommates ends up complaining to the resident advisor about the other. Our school matched us because it thought that we would be good partners, and, thankfully, the school was right.
At first, we were both slightly unsure of the power balance in the classroom. I think that teachers like to be the captain of their own ship. Now it was no longer “my” class, but “our” class.
My co-teacher and I use the “one teach, one assist” model in our classroom: one of us will be teaching the mini-lesson at the meeting area, while the other supports. This model allows for better behavior management, which in the workshop model is critical to the students’ learning and retention of the material. We have a few students in particular who are able to focus much better when an adult is sitting next to them and helping them pay attention to the lesson.
One particular lesson in Reader’s Workshop teaches the students how to read independently and with a partner. My co-teacher and I demonstrate independent reading time to the students and then model how reading partners share with one another. We model fair play for our students and deciding who goes first with sharing their stories. We are very friendly and easy-going with one another, and the students get a kick out of us pretending to be 1st-graders in their shoes.
When teaching by myself, I found conferencing during Writer’s and Reader’s workshops a challenge. I wasn’t able to see as many students as I wanted to during each independent work period. Working in a CTT classroom allows both teachers to meet with students during the independent work time. Currently in our classroom, we also have two paraprofessionals and a student teacher. Each of us is able to meet with two to three students during reading time, which means that the majority of students get one-on-one attention from an adult in each independent work period. We rotate which students we work with, so each student gets the opportunity to work together with every adult.
Teaching in a CTT classroom does require a lot of open communication, organization and planning. I feared planning together would be difficult, since I was so used to planning by myself at home or at the Laundromat on weekends. Now I really enjoy bouncing ideas off my partner to create lessons that reflect our two distinct teaching methods.
All in all, I’m happy to be teaching in a CTT class. It’s helpful for students to experience the personalities of two different teachers. I also feel that our students benefit from the individualized attention that more than one teacher in the classroom provides.
I’m thankful to have experienced working solo and with a partner in my career. I feel that both of these experiences have helped me learn and grow as a professional.
