Reflections on a Professional Development School Partnership (or) "How Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks Almost Killed the Dog

Reflections on a Professional Development School Partnership (or)
"How Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks Almost Killed the Dog!"

By Carol Paul

[BACK]

(Prologue)

This chapter examines my personal struggle during the first year of a PDS Partnership between the English Department of a large central Pennsylvania public high school (State College Area School District) and the Curriculum and Instruction/ Language and Literacy Departments of the Pennsylvania State University's main campus at University Park. For me, this experience was a laborious and perilous journey, fraught with pitfalls, roadblocks, and setbacks along the way. At times, it became so painful, in fact, that I have felt the need to carefully reflect on the causes of my own supreme discomfiture and to examine the implications this might have for others as they embark on such a venturel. Although the focus of our collaborative effort was to engage in inquiry, particularly about students in the English classroom, I discovered that the questions I was absorbed in were about what was happening to me. Many of Judith Newman’s (1987) critical incidents, those moments often serendipitous and seemingly insignificant, that cause us to examine ourselves, our teaching, and our beliefs, were occurring not in the context of my classroom with my students, but were happening to me, personally, during partnership meetings and after interactions with our university researcher colleagues. It is these scenarios that usurped much of my year‑long ponderings and so it is about them that I have constructed some of my writing. I urge my own classroom students when they write to "tell the story that is uniquely yours and that only you can tell." In this piece I am following my own dictum.

Let me also add that my year‑long reflections have resulted in a "no‑fault" determination. That is, that the. three distinct groups that comprised the partnership: the studenf interns, the mentor teachers, and the university researchers all share the responsibility for many of the tensions that built during our initiative and that we jointly can relish in our successes and celebrations. I acknowledge, though, that during the course of the academic year, there existed plenty of finger pointing and too much of (if I may borrow a title from the Berenstain Bears) the "blame game" going on. I have concluded since then that we are all "guilty" and indeed "praiseworthy." Particular acknowledgement and gratitude, however, must be extended to the university professor and to the high school English Department coordinator who served as co

facilitators and liaisons with their respective institutions, both of whom labored indefatigably all year long to urge the project forth... often through quite turbulent waters. I am reminded of Machiavelli in The Prince:

"'There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Part I... September/ October "Reality"

Teaching is always demanding. The world of school is beset by many pressures, some of them decidedly unique:

*Social Complexity. Teachers participate in hundreds, even thousands of interactions per day, from the most mundane (greeting students in the corridor) to the most complex (encouraging students to reflect on challenging problems).

*Multiplicity. Teachers are almost always doing more than one thing at a time and must often switch rapidly between roles.

*Personal Involvement. Teachers must connect personally with students to engage them in learning. This is difficult enough when pupil‑teacher ratios are relatively low; it is even more so when, as in many high schools, teachers work with 150 or more students daily.

*Motivational Burden. Teachers must capture and sustain students' interest and attention. In this sense, teaching is closer to acting or sales than to other professions such as medicine or law, where client motivation either doesn’t matter or is easily mobilized.

*Public Nature. Teachers are "on stage" performing in front of an audience for hours each day. Unlike many professionals, they make their mistakes in public and have virtually no private space to retreat to.

*Unpredictability. Teachers can never be sure that the same presentation will generate the same response from class to class or student to student. Though this makes for a certain variety, it also requires teachers to be instantly ready to modify

their goals and methods.

*Professional Isolation. Teachers' work is conducted away from peers. Though many enjoy being alone with their students, this seclusion deprives them of feedback and recognition‑‑ a key source of support, of confirmation and adequacy, and of information that can solve problems and improve performance. (Evans, 1996)

If teaching is always demanding, then teaching in the State College Area School District can be considered extraordinarily so. Nestled in the heart of the Allegheny Mountains (a part of the Appalachian Ridge), the district "serves a diverse community that is united in a common commitment to excellence in education. Expectations for quality schooling are high in this community, and our district has a documented history of (student) accomplishment" in academics, athletics, and the arts. (From the SCASD Administrative Office's "Guide to Educational Programs) Of the 516 total graduates of the class of 1998, 82% indicated that they were continuing their education at four year colleges or universities. A total of seventy‑eight students placed in the National Merit Exam (34/"Commended,"' 23/ "Semi‑Finalist," and 21 /"Finalist.") In addition, also in 1998, the average verbal SAT score was 552; the average math, 569. These figures historically over the last twenty years have run forty points above the US national average (Verbal) and forty to sixty points above the US national average (Math). (Statistics obtained from the Assistant Superintendent's Office.)

The district has received numerous awards, citations, accreditations, and commendations including "Excellence in Education Blue Ribbon Award " from the US Department of Education, the "Outstanding Library/ Media Program Award for Pennsylvania," and special recognition from "Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools" and "Center of Excellence in Language Arts." It is fair to say, then, that the State College Area School District demands much of its students, its teachers, and its administrators. (I digress in..this vein briefly to set the stage, establish a backdrop, and spotlight that the cumulative tensions which I write about in this chapter are all part of a convoluted whole that singularly might be manageable. All‑told, at least for me, they became quite overwhelming.)

When our district entered into a collaborative partnership with the local university, then, to form a joint Professional Development School as part of the district's Strategic Plan, it was yet another important initiative (among many) that was undertaken by the district to be implemented by its classroom teachers. As one of a cadre of five high school English teachers, I embraced this opportunity to both represent and serve my

school community as I had so many times before. It joined my other host of obligations, on‑going projects, and committees.

So when Labor Day, 1998, rolled around, the school year that was to be like no other I had ever experienced in over twenty years, commenced....

The reality of September and October every school year for every teacher is inextricably bound to the concepts of Time and Culture. Let's examine Time first.

We all know the cliches about time: Time waits for no man. A timely idea. Just in time. Time stands still. All in good time. Use your time wisely. No time to waste. And on and on and on. But in the life of a teacher, this most precious commodity is a finite resource and we are consumed with ways of "finding time," "making time," and “cutting time in half."(Adelman and Walking‑Eagle, 1997). The words of an experienced teacher echo this lament, "Identifying and finding time within the contracted school day to talk, to plan, to create, to be a lifelong learner, and to teach gnaws at me constantly. (Ibid.) This same educator has selected as his favorite metaphor, the "teacher ‑as‑juggler." Certainly all the teachers I know fit this image and valiantly try to keep all their plates spinning. Cochran‑Smith and Lytle (1993 p. 90) put it this way, "It is no accident that one of the most common characteristics of fantasy literature for both children and adults is the manipulation of time. In novels, we can wrinkle in and out of time, make time fly, drag, and stand still, shift back and forth between time spheres, and ultimately surpass time's boundaries altogether. Unfortunately, some of the harshest contrasts to literary images of unbounded time are real‑life images of ... the schoolroom. In schools, teachers and students are organized according to whether they are on time, behind time, out of time, killing time, saving time, serving time, watching their time, or moving double time. Teachers are often evaluated according to how they manage transition time, allocated time, academic time, and time on task. Clearly time is a dimension that is central to the work lives of teachers." "'

At no time does this ring truer than the first few weeks of school when, as we all are coming off three months of relatively unstructured hiatus, the onslaught of period bells, due dates, shuffling papers, and the myriad other minutiae of the first marking quarter hit us like a wrecking ball. Although it is not possible to succinctly represent the harried and hurried lives that the hundreds of thousands of public school educators across America lead, the words of this teacher probably provide a composite sketch:

"Teachers routinely have to teach over 140 students daily. On top of that, we have lunch duty, bus duty, hall duty, home room duty.... We go to parents' meetings, teachers' meetings, in‑service meetings, curriculum meetings, department meetings, county‑wide teachers' meetings, school board meetings, and state teachers' conferences. We staff the ticket booths and concession stands at football and basketball games. We supervise the production of school plays, annuals, newspapers, dances, sports events, debates, chess tournaments, and graduation ceremonies... We go on field trips to capital buildings, prisons, nature centers, zoos, and courtroom trials. We choke down macaroni and cheese and USDA peanut butter (and have to pay for it). We search lockers during bomb threats. We supervise fire drills and tornado alerts. We write hall passes, notes to the principal, the assistant principal, parents, and ourselves. We counsel. We wake up every morning to the realization that the majority of our students would far rather be someplace else. On top of that everyone s yelling at us‑state legislatures, parents, and SAT scores... To add insult to injury, colleges and universities are getting all huffed up and grumpy and indignant over the increasingly poor preparation of the students we're sending them. Well, just who do they think taught us how to teach? (Wigginton, 1986, p.191).

Amid this buzzing turmoil of the first few weeks of school came the layer of commitment and obligation called the PDS Partnership. For me, it was a layer that was extremely heavy and burdensome to try to carry. In a journal entry, one of the other mentors also wrote, "I feel like saying (to the university researchers) back off... let us get to know these kids for a bit. Starting school is pretty daunting with the to‑do list that never quits... meeting all these new kids, wondering what they will be like and for me a certain sense of missing my kids (from) last year." Said another way, the NEA (National Educational Association) argues that given the frenetic pace of most educators today, school reform initiatives, rather than ameliorating conditions "is creating one more beh6moth responsibility for teachers to embrace" (1993, p. 6). Certainly, in a sense, the creation of a Professional Development School, in which public schools connect with university teacher education programs to support the learning of novice teachers (much the way teaching hospitals train doctors in the medical community) could be seen as just such a type of educational reform movement.

The other fundamentally pervasive aspect of "school" that hits us as we walk in the front door on that first day of school each September and every day thereafter is its

"Culture." Edgar Schein defines it as "the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously and that define in a basic 'taken for granted" fashion an organization' s view of itself and its environment. These assumptions and beliefs are learned responses to a group's problems of survival in the external environment and its problems of internal integration. They come to be taken for granted because they solve those problems repeatedly and reliably‑" (Schein, 1985)

Evans (1996) adds that "as these assumptions and beliefs permeate an entire organization, they‑ become invisible; they become so accepted, so automatic and ingrained in the organization's routine practices that they are... taught to its new members by both precept and example."' Thus both veterans and novices in a school come to espouse certain ways of thinking and doing as "the correct way to perceive, think, and feel" (Schein, 1992).

Vaille underscores this point by defining culture as "a system of attitudes, actions, and artifacts that endures over time and (produces) among its members a relatively unique common psychology (1989).

It seems to me absolutely imperative that any educational reform initiative or any agent of change understand, appreciate, and value these two critical components of a teacher's existence, Time and Culture. By capitalizing them, I have personified these two elements of school life. This is appropriate because their grip is as seductive and secure on the minds, hearts, and very lives of teachers as a lover's embrace and at the same time as choking and deadly as the executioner's noose.

Part II ... November/ December/ January/ February "'Resistance and Resentment"

As Oct6ber scurried into November and November blurred into December, I found the "balls" I usually kept juggling aloft as a teacher had turned into boulders. The opening remarks of our district's former superintendent on the first day of school several years before began to surface in my memory and took on new meaning. The Chinese character for "change," he explained, involved two different symbols: one representing opportunity, the other fear. Although I had begun the year thinking of my participation in the PDS as an opportunity, the latter emotion of fear totally engulfed me during these tumultuous late fall and winter months. I wrote in my journal, "I feel overwhelmed, threatened, even besieged. Here I am a veteran public school educator with experience teaching every grade K‑12, plus college students and adults and every day my pedagogy and very identity are coming into question. Who do these people think they are, anyway? We invite them into our schools, extend our most gracious hospitality, try to make them feel welcome and during every discussion with them what we teachers do here... who we are ... and what we are about ... become subject to question and even worse, become questionable. I feel as if I've invited a guest into my home and one of the first comments out of his mouth is that my food is somewhat unappealing and that my wallpaper is rather unattractive!" (NOTE: I acknowledge that during these writings I certainly embodied what Maya Angelou has said, "Fear brings out the worst thing in all of us.")

I was not alone, however... Another mentor teacher journaled, "I must tell you that I am feeling backed into a comer... I feel that what I do, how I do it, and what we are about as a school community, as a school, and even my kids have been put under a microscope and found wanting."

I have spent much reflection on why I displayed feelings so negative, defensive, and indignant. If truth be told, they surprised even me, who has been described by others as an "eternal optimist" and even the "quintessential cheerleader." It is probably revealing of my nature that "Pollyanna" was my favorite childhood Disney movie. In college I was elected the "Sweetheart of Theta Chi" and "Homecoming Queen" the same year. Getting along with people was usually my forte. So why, then, was I acting like both a witch and that other rhyming word? I have come to realize that a part of what I was experiencing and feeling was attributable to "the psychology of change."

Evans (1996, p. 21) explains that "there is a fundamental duality to our response to change: w6both embrace and resist it. We acknowledge its inevitability, and yet a profound conservative impulse governs our psychology, making us naturally resistance to change and leaving us chronically ambivalent when confronted with innovation. Furthermore,... its primary meanings encourage resistance: it provokes loss, challenges competence, creates confusion, and causes conflict." Loss, incompetence, confusion, conflict ‑‑‑ these negative by‑products associated with change again imply the duality of innovation. This dual nature "expresses itself first and most obviously as a public gap between what change means to its authors and what it means to its targets. Designers of reform may have some awareness of this disparity‑ they typically offer at least a token acknowledgement that change is difficult‑ but on the whole, they are prone to energetic optimism. Swept up in the urgency of a problem and the promise of a solution, they can overlook and underestimate the effort and agony of the people who must adapt (Evans, p. 38). Kauffman (1971 p. 13) writes poignantly about "the advantages lost and the penalties inflicted by opponents... the humiliation of becoming a raw novice at a new trade after having been a master craftsman at an old one, and... the deep crisis caused by the need to suppress ancient prejudices, to put aside the comfort of the familiar, to relinquish the security of what one knows well...."

Still another thought about change: "We view change as negative when we are unable to foresee it, when we dislike its implications, and feel unprepared for its effects." (D. Conner, 1992, p. 70) 1 must admit that I was experiencing all of the aforementioned qualifiers at once. In addition, "(we partnership) teachers (were) in the rather strange position of being simultaneously both the subject and the agent of change."' (Dale, 1988, p. 44 and Walker and Barton, 1987, p. viii). Then, too, many of us were highly perplexed by this business of "inquiry." (I even recall asking for clarification at an early meeting, "What exactly is inquiry, anyway?") Public school teachers, I think, in general are quite comfortable being "purveyors" of knowledge. In fact, they probably view that as part of their calling. However, I have also come to see that teachers are far less comfortable, experienced, and therefore facile as "'creators of knowledge."

If change is difficult for all of us, change for teachers is even more so. "If anything,... change is even harder in schools (than in corporations) ... since schools are by their very nature less entrepreneurial and more bureaucratic and since most are mature rather than new institutions. The gravitational pull of culture is stronger in them. We should anticipate that the enthusiastic embrace of change and the rapid transformation of norms and values will be rare.... Not only should we see school culture as a force acting against change, we should also remember that this opposition is sensible, even when the necessity for change may seem compelling from an external perspective. No institution can readily abandon the deep structures on which its very coherence and significance depends (Sic.). Thus, we find repeated at the collective level the same conservative impulse (preserving the status quo) as we saw among individuals ‑‑ an impulse as vital as it is profound and which reform, if it is to succeed, must respect"' (Evans, 1996, p. 50).

Thus, as the collaborative partnership unfolded and we were becoming enmeshed in inquiry and examining our practice, as our university colleagues challenged our assumptions and asked probing questions about language, literacy, and how to be an effective English teacher, I found myself becoming more defensive, and at the same time less sure of myself and my teaching strategies. Ironically, I was tenaciously defending what I do and simultaneously becoming less sure it was the thing to be defending! In essence, I felt mandated to change.

Yet as Fullan (1993, p. 23) points out, 'If there is one cardinal rule of change in human condition, it is that you cannot make people change. You cannot force them to think differently or compel them to develop new skills." Fullan in turn cites Marris (1986) who says it this way:

"When those who have the power to manipulate changes act as if they have only to explain, and when their explanations are not at once accepted, shrug off opposition as ignorance or prejudice, they express a profound contempt for the meaning of lives other than their own. For the reformers have already assimilated those changes to their purposes, and worked out a reformulation which makes sense to them, perhaps through months or years of analysis and debate. If they deny others the chance to do the same, they treat them as puppets dangling by the threads of their own conceptions." (Ibid.)

Evans (1996) terms this "an arrogance that invites failure... Innovation is almost certain to encounter problems when its implementation is defined according to only one reality (the creator's) (p. 16). Change agents must not assume a posture they have "the right answer"' and ignore the processes that foster this transformation, or as Fullan (1991, p.36) cautions, they can be "'as authoritarian as the staunchest defenders of the status quo." Said simply, in a group endeavor such as a Professional Development Partnership which encompasses a diverse group membership, some individuals may be light years beyond others in their paradigm shifts. It is they who must be especially sensitive and try to avoid as one mentor teacher journaled, "an imperial attitude." True collegiality and collaboration will allow time for trust to develop among and between all members and will encourage everyone to express their ideas in a safe, risk‑free, no-fault environment. When this occurs, the alienation that is expressed by the same mentor can be minimized, "I feel criticized by people who really don’t care about us or about our students... I feel discouraged because I feel the microscope is aimed at finding the infection not the healthy ......

Schlechty (1992, p. 84) has made an interesting observation on just this issue of helping teachers adjust to change. If teachers are to invest their time, energy, support, creativity, and insight, they must be able to expect something they value in return. Thus, selling change as simply a solution to current problems is likely to cause resistance. After all, "'present problems have their locus in current reality, and we are all part of that reality." People are unlikely to embrace change that forces them "to confess prior sins" or demeans them in some way. Educational leaders, then must consider how these innovations (in this case the creation of a Professional Development School and Collaborative Partnership) will serve or threaten the critical values of teachers. They need to examine how a proposed change, without compromising its integrity, can be implemented in a way that will maximize the values it serves and minimize the values it threatens. Another important consideration is to search for ways that the initiative can "elevate teachers' professional self‑esteem and feelings of worth" (Ibid., p. 89).

Even in a supportive environment, change will not be easy. In 1994 David Wilson studied teachers who had participated in the National Writing Project. He notes that teachers will need time, support, and opportunities to reflect about change and even then "points of dissonance" still often arise vigorously. (Note that the English journal itself acknowledges that "we English teachers are a ferocious lot at times..." Vol. 88, No.1, Sept. 98, p. 47) Wilson continues that even in a supportive and caring environment, change is a personal, arduous, and laborious job. He writes that "teachers are complex human beings, not passive receptors of knowledge. We filter experiences ... through complicated meaning systems of personal constructs based on elements like prior experience, individual identity, and perceived social context. Our development and change, then, is messy and idiosyncratic; it reflects a mix of affect and cognition" (p. 100). For me, there was some significant "lag time" in assimilating much of the "tornado of change" swirling about me. Conner (1992, p. 155) says, "'the capacity that we have to intellectually observe, form an opinion, decide, and act is greater than our capacity to move through the same sequence emotionally." My mind was beginning to get it, but my heart was not.

In a careful examination, now in retrospect, of what I was experiencing during this time in our collaborative partnership, I have attributed Change as a significant factor related to my distress. There is, however. yet another significant contributory element and it has to do with the isolationist culture of schools and the very lifeblood of our partnership: Collaboration.

As an only child I grew up self‑reliant and rather alone. I read alone. I wrote alone. And I accomplished both, in great quantity, from the quiet solace of my bedroom where I relished this solitude and engaged in quiet introspection. My mother even used to tease me about being the next "Greta Garbo," who, Mom would explain, was a type of recluse herself. So when I became a teacher, the aloofness that marks the profession seemed quite natural to me. I was already accustomed to doing it all and doing it by myself. And thus I proceeded in this manner as an educator for many years. My participation in the collaborative partnership of a PDS suddenly changed all that in a dramatic and oppressive way for me. Nearly overnight, it seemed, all privacy at school was compromised. As a mentor teacher I found myself paired with a student intern for what seemed like every minute of every hour of each teaching day. During my preparation period, collaborative small group sessions were held. Lunchtime conversations revolved around partnership topics. After‑school meetings seemed to usurp much of my own discretionary time. I seemed to especially miss opportunities with my students when I had them "all to myself." ("Teachers can be a possessive lot"' Hargreaves, 1993, p. 65). There seemed no moment to escape from the demands of the partnership to be alone with my thoughts. I wrote, "Co‑planning ... co‑teaching ... co-journaling.. co‑reflecting ... I haven’t heard about so much "co"(l)‑laboration since Dean and Liddy were "co"‑conspirators during Watergate! This is driving me nuts!"' And on another occasion I joumaled, "Not since I became a new mother twenty‑four years ago and found myself with a colicky newborn clutching at me, have I felt this same panic...that I have no time to think, to breathe, to catch my breath, to be alone ... that I can hardly escape... even to use the bathroom!"

And then, once again, the issue of Time reared its ugly head...

Evans (1996) shares that " efforts to enhance collaboration and collegialty (in schools) just rarely get very far.... (Teachers). object to plans that would reduce their individual preparati6h periods to permit more collaborative planning time (p. 233). Evans continues to perceptively point out that "this can cause strong opposition if forcibly imposed" (Ibid.). Barth observes that although the benefits of collegiality and serious professional interaction are "obvious, logical, and compelling," it is "the least common form of relationship among adults in schools" (1989, pp. 229‑230). 1 will later point out why this is understandably ( if not desirably) so.

... Then too,... the issue of autonomy...

"The power to make independent judgments and to exercise personal discretion, initiative, and creativity through their work‑‑ what Schon (1983) described as the heart of professional action‑ are extremely important to many teachers . If requirements for teamwork and collaboration seem as if they might be eliminating opportunities for independence and initiative, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction may result"" (Hargreaves, 1993, p.69).

Evans (1996) documents what every teacher already knows about collaboration... that it always means "more work‑‑ and more complex work, and more work with other adults rather than students ... (that) these initiatives almost always come as addons to existing workloads, ... (that) meetings occur in the evenings, or occasionally before or after school,... (that) team teaching requires not just performing together but extensive preplanning and debriefing. (But he has) rarely encountered a school that has significantly reduced teaching loads to compensate for these added demands" (p. 234). Our school, sadly, was also unable (or unwilling) to allow concessions for our efforts.

It is also unfortunate that some of the mentors in the PDS were characterized as "not being team players," in terms of collaborative and collegial endeavors. While the literature is rife with condemnations of the individualism and isolation present in schools, it is unfortunate that these properties of the workplace become psychologically inadequate characteristics of the teachers themselves. "Such translations of meaning in the context of change and improvement can lead to teacher resistance being interpreted as a problem of the teacher, not of the system. The teacher can all too easily become the scapegoat of unfulfilled change" (Hargreaves, 1993, p. 57).

However, "revised interpretations of teacher individualism adopt a different tack. They view teacher individualism less as a personal shortcoming than as a rational economizing of effort and ordering of priorities in a highly pressed and constrained working environment. At the simple and most obvious level, teacher individualism is seen as arising from the physical facts of isolation, embedded in the traditional architecture of schools and their cellular pattern of organization into separate classrooms" (Hargreaves, Ibid.).

Actually, Flinders (1988, p. 25) argues that "isolation is an adaptive strategy because it protects the time and energy required to meet immediate instructional demands." Expressed simply, it takes tremendous time and human resources to talk to, plan with, and co‑teach with others. So often during the course of any high school day there simply is not the time, energy, space, or opportunity to do that. And yet the lessons must be taught, the curriculum covered, the papers graded, and the students engaged each and every period day after day after day. "This need for time to support instruction is felt to be particularly urgent given the open‑ended, endless nature of teaching and the constraints of large classes, assessment demands, and the like. Isolation in this view, then, is a sensible adaptive strategy to the work environment of teaching" (Hargreaves, 1993, p. 59). Flinders goes on to contend that this rooting of isolation within the workplace and culture of schools explains why other attempts to eliminate or diminish such isolation such as the "classrooms without walls" concept of the late sixties and early seventies or initiatives to develop collaborative endeavors usually fail. They are directed at the wrong sources. In other words, because schools are the way that they are: balkanized and departmentalized, because there are not resources of time, space, and money set aside to encourage and even permit collaborative work among teachers, and because teachers are human and not automatons who never run out of physical reserves of energy, it is simply easier and more efficient to plan, organize, and teach alone.

And finally Evans (1996) tells us that "there is a related‑ and largely overlooked‑reason that collective interaction doesn't always fit well for teachers: the career they have chosen is not just student‑centered, it is an idiosyncratic craft. By its very nature‑its immediacy, its unpredictability, its social complexity‑‑ teaching is in many ways an inherently individualistic occupation (p.235). Huberman, (1993, p. 16 ) in fact, goes so far as to call the teacher an "independent artisan," a self‑governing tinkerer, a craftsman who deals primarily with the intellectual and who tries to use whatever he can find in the classroom workshop to answer the questions and solve the problems presented by whatever project he is working on. A teacher, therefore, is not a deliverer of a linear, highly scripted set of instructional sequences. Instead, a teacher is a skillful, adaptive improviser. (Improvisation, indeed, is a highly individualistic art form and as such is difficult to replicate by someone else.) Evans (1996) continues to note, "Much of what any teacher does is highly personal, and over time every teacher develops a unique instructional repertoire.. a set of personal, artful, but often tacit assumptions and responses" (p. 235). He goes so far as to contend that among teachers collaborative communication might be less necessary and in certain ways less appropriate than it might seem, and it is certainly more difficult. "It is more difficult because two people can teach the same curriculum to similar students but operate in vastly different ways on vastly different assumptions that are hard to explain, let alone bridge. It is less necessary because in the most basic practical terms, schools can easily function as a set of independent workshops (quite unlike hospitals, for example, which literally cannot operate without close linkage among staff). And it is less appropriate because the separateness and professional egalitarianism that incline teachers to keep to themselves is routine among artisans (Ibid.) Huberman (1993) supports this notion of the art of teaching and the teacher as craftsman by concluding that "noninterference with the core work of others (in the community of the artiste) constitutes a sign of professional respect" while at the same time asking for assistance can be a sign of weakness. And he even adds that offering unsolicited help is tantamount to no less than arrogance (p.29).

Part III ... March/ April "'Resilience and Renewal"

Since change is indeed a process and not an event, it is difficult to ascertain where or when growth has actually occurred. Just as the worm metamorphasizes into the butterfly, so, too, did I find my cocoon falling away as spring loomed on the horizon of our PDS Year. I felt a distinct difference in the way I was acting and more importantly, re‑acting to our partnership inquiries. Again, it has taken some time and space, some distance and much reflection for me to try to determine how this transpired. One of the factors that I sense was directly attributable to my metamorphosis was a critical incident. For want of a better term I shall call it the "Blow‑up in Boston."

Because our particular Professional Development School was a member of the consortium called the Holmes Group, we decided (albeit amidst much bickering and negotiating about the merits and perils of flying vs. driving in the dead of a northeastern winter) to travel to the annual Holmes Conference held in January of 1999 in Boston. Now to the blow‑up. Here's the scene: Vivaldi is playing in the background as all fourteen of our partnership participants are directed to the second floor of one of Bostoes coziest Italian restaurants and herded to a seating arrangement beside a roaring fire. It's a large table with a view and we peer out over one of the city's lovely narrow side streets. The aroma of garlic permeates the atmosphere and heavies the air like spicy ethnic humidity. Lambent candlelight contributes to the ambience as we laugh and chat over wine. We all peruse the menu and order appetizers. What happened next is hard to clearly remember and even more difficult to reconstruct. Suffice it to say, that before the antipasto even arrived, the tensions that had been smoldering between our two co‑liaisons... one from the school district and one from the university... had flared into a full‑fledged conflagration so great it would have rivaled the great Chicago fire or at least the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. These two kind, sensitive, intelligent, caring professionals who had very divergent leadership styles were finding it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to carry on the work of the partnership together, harmoniously. Perhaps an analogous example from the literature will illustrate (Evans, 1996, p. 186).

Jane Carroll, principal of Worthington High School, is a strong believer in "challenge." A triathlon competitor and ardent chess player, she values self-discipline and perseverance. She is overt about rewarding students and faculty who demonstrate these qualities. "Effort matters far more than talent‑‑ for teachers as well as students. Success comes from striving. As Aristotle said, 'Excellence is not an act, but a habit." Jane leads the school with a firm hand and engages herself in aspects of curriculum, assessment, and staff development ... some faculty find her "cold," others "elitist and controlling," but she enjoys wide support, even among most of these critics because her commitments are so clear, because she holds herself to them as firmly as she holds others to them, and because they have come to embody the school's pursuit of excellence. "She drives everyone hard," says one teacher, "but she sets the example, and we all feel the end result is an exceptional school."

Tom Russell, the principal of Jackson Elementary School, believes in individual development. He reveres Thoreau and sees school as a place where everyone, child and adult, should grow at their (Sic.) own pace through rich opportunities and the freedom to explore, not through pressure to produce. Jackson has comparatively few rules and requirements. Tom rarely issues an order, he tolerates others disagreeing with him, and he gives the faculty wide latitude to decide policy, even if this involves heated arguments. He is unhurried in his style but unwavering in his focus. Each year he meets with each student and each staff member (including custodians and secretaries) to talk about their growth, interests, and ideas for the school. Some teachers have found Jackson too "chaotic" and left; some who have remained find Tom too "unstructured." But most agree with the teacher who says, "This guy lives what he believes: growth, support, respect. Because of him, Jackson really nurtures people."

Certainly our co‑leaders were not Jane and Tom... but they were a kind of Jane and Tom. At opposite ends of the spectrum, they both embody integrity of purpose but strive to achieve it through very different means. I would speculate that if Jane and Tom were in co‑leadership, positions together in a Professional Development Partnership, they, too, would have serious issues to try to reconcile. For me, the Boston Blow‑up was devastating. I later journaled about it... "there I sat choking on my calamari as their voices got louder. I felt like a child overhearing her parents vociferously arguing in the next room... feeling completely powerless to make it better... fiercely loyal to each ... desperately loving both..."

There was a moment sometime into the argument that I had to leave the table as I struggled to control the tears welling up inside. There were then two relatively simple critical incidents that occurred. One of the university doctoral researchers followed me to the ladies' room and gently offered words of comfort and consolation. She wouldn't leave me until she knew I was going to be okay. When I returned to the table, my student intern had placed before me four exquisitely beautiful roses that he had gotten from a street vendor outside the restaurant. Both small acts of kindness were vivid and tangible reminders that all of the partners in this tumultuous initiative were extraordinarily good, decent, caring people who should be able to reach out and connect with each other in many positive and meaningful ways. Yet, we always seemed to be bickering about something, never reaching consensus about anything. As dinner abruptly and prematurely ended that evening (amid anguished cries from our waiter, "What’s the matter?" "Is something wrong?" "Was it the food?), I left a rose at the place setting of each of the two "warring parties," hoping that the flowers might symbolize a peace offering.

The restaurant incident continued to have a profound effect on me, as I replayed it for many months afterward. Perhaps our collaborative partnership problems, I wrote, "had become like festering wounds which had to be painfully lanced to heal." In that regard, the confrontation cleared the air. It also served as a tremendously powerful catalyst for me. After it, I was fiercely determined to make this thing I had gotten myself into work... to "take the high road" and finish what I had made a commitment to do and to try to do it graciously and well, and to stop whining, complaining, and feeling short‑changed... In essence, J promised myself to work hard to become part of the solution instead of contributing to the problem.

As our Professional Development School partnership moves into subsequent years, these two exemplary educators must continue to view its collaborative members as their most challenging "students" and continue to explore and experiment with ways to meld their leadership styles, balance their power, and negotiate our curriculum.

The second phenomenon that occurred during this time that contributed to my own evolution was "The Class."

The local university with whom we were partnering offered a class during the spring semester of our partnership year. It was held "on‑site" at our high school for the convenience of the teachers. It was a pre student ‑teaching course which all of our interns took. In addition there were over twenty other pre‑service students, studying to be teachers and an additional student (or two) who was already a certificated teacher taking the class at the graduate level. As the class unfolded, we began to read, discuss, and debate issues of language and literacy and spent time mulling through conflicting ideas on best practice. We read. We wrote. We reflected. But something gradually and imperceptively was falling into place and having more meaning for me. Although gradually at first, I came to realize that this class provided a context for some of the unsettling inquiries we had been wrestling with earlier in the partnership, discovering that, indeed, these self‑same issues were being hotly debated in educational forums everywhere. Somehow the inquiries we had been struggling with began to be framed. The class placed many subjects within a kind of broader context. Paradoxically, at the same time it de‑contextualized much of the questioning, judging, and evaluating that had previously taken place in mentor teacher classrooms, making all that somehow less personal and hurtful.

And yet the final factor which allowed my mellowing to occur as a result of "the Class" was even more subtle. It took the form once again of a critical incident and was of such minor significance that virtually no one else in the entire class would probably even recollect it. No one that is, except me.... As we were wrapping up a discussion late one afternoon about the demanding nature of teaching, the instructor, who happened to be one of our partnership university researchers, turned to me in an offhand way and said, "I don't know about you, Carol, but every August I start to feel some of that same anxiety growing as the school year approaches." Nearly flabbergasted, I nodded my head and mumbled some kind of agreement. And that was it. There was nothing more. Soon the class dismissed. Why would that simple exchange have had such significance? ... Because, in a very public way, that member of our PDS who had been quite vocal in his disdain for some of our classroom practices had, number one, recognized me as an equal before the watchful eyes of his students and number two, in so doing he had provided a kind of acknowledgement and recognition. This anecdotal snippet clearly underscores how starved most public school educators are for any kind of "stroking." Evans (1996) recognizes this truism when he writes about the myriad of demands placed on teachers... the physical, the mental, the emotional, the psychological... that together "spell starvation, leaving teachers grateful for the tiniest scraps of validation, even inadvertent" (p. 257). His following excerpt does not sound too dissimilar from mine...

When Kathy Constanza became a special education administrator, she was appalled at the practices her predecessor had tolerated. She launched an aggressive set of reforms, terminating three programs, reducing and reassigning staff, and rewriting job descriptions. All of this caused great stress. Eventually she was ready to challenge staff about their poor drafting of students' educational plans. She introduced her new requirements by saying, "I know all this has been hard on you, but I have one more task." The next day, June Wilson, a staff member sought Kathy out to thank her saying, "That was so nice when you said you know it's been hard on us. It felt good to have you acknowledge it." Four others, on their own, followed suit. At a later department meeting I attended, Kathy reported her surprise at these reactions. She hadn't realized how scarce recognition must have been for an offhand comment to draw so much response. June, a big, blunt woman, fixed her with a wry smile. "Look at it this way," she said. "'We're incredibly hard up" (p. 257).

Certainly within our partnership as within the ranks of teachers in general, we felt

unacknowledged and unappreciated much of the year. I guess we were pretty "hard up." I remember a particularly poignant meeting soon after the Italian restaurant confrontation in Boston when one of our mentor teachers spoke eloquently and at length about how undervalued she felt. The silence was palpable as our university liaison quietly replied, "I am very sad, _______ that you don't feel celebrated as a teacher. I don't feel celebrated either."

Evans (1996) contends this problem is so rampant that public schools in America must start "'reversing the golden rule." He contends that most schools live by a "flagrant double standard" in that their preoccupation with self‑esteem extends only to students. "They shower recognition on pupils but deny it to adults." He calls it a "pathetic(ally) ... thin ribbon of recognition that flows‑‑ trickles‑‑ toward and among educators." He goes on to say that "the single best low‑cost, high leverage way to improve performance, morale, and the climate for change is to dramatically increase the levels of meaningful recognition for and among educators," adding that recognition not only "refers to praise or positive feedback, but also to validation, to acknowledge and affirming" (p. 254). Our partnership could benefit greatly from learning to affirm.

Part IV ... May/June "Reflection and Resonance"

At the close of this school year, I wrote a congratulatory note to one of my students for earning the "Principal's Award." It is presented to those students who have earned straight A's, an outstanding achievement in our highly competitive district. In my letter I also extolled the virtues and benefits of reflection. which this student thought encompassed too much of our class time in Advanced English. I wrote, "Remember reflection literally means 'looking at again.' It helps us explore who we are, where we've been, and where we're going. It allows us opportunities to re‑examine and reconsider. It implies careful scrutiny and observation... and 'thinking about thinking! It suggests pondering... weighing.... It can be of great value to us as we review and replay prior events and experiences. Often it allow us to then re‑construct, re‑configure, or re‑frame them in some way, perhaps seeing them with different eyes. Above all, reflection is an intellectual act that exercises and thus strengthens our higher order capabilities: synthesis, analysis, and evaluation. It is calisthetics for the mind." I truly believe that engaging in the Professional Development School Partnership this year, with its emphasis on collaboration and inquiry, has taught me both the beauty and benefit of reflection. After I wrote this paragraph to my student, I was surprised at my own zeal and passion for the reflective process. As the year concluded, I tried to use this powerful and insightful tool once again to comes to terms with all that had transpired during an exhilarating but trying year. Next are some additional thoughts, not previously shared.

It is not coincidental that the three mentor teachers in our PDS who had the most difficulty adapting to its demands were veteran educators. There is much evidence to document that change and innovation, while hard for anyone to embrace, is especially so for teachers in their forties and fifties. As discussed earlier, "too often when educators prove reluctant or unwilling to change, their behavior is interpreted psychologically as a kind of character flaw (She's a resistant person; He's rigid) (Evans, 1996, p. 92). But when such resistance occurs among large numbers of teachers, it is not only misleading to generalize about their personalities but unhelpful to dismiss them as "stubborn" or "resistant" (Sarason, 1990, P. 108). Psychologizing resistance exposes the hubris of the change agent. Clearly we have to abandon such notions that an "innovation is, by definition, rational, right, and healthy and that therefore any opposition must be irrational, wrong, and neurotic" (Evans, p. 93). Instead, we have to be mindful that no innovation or school reform can be successful "unless it attends to the realities of people and place" (Ibid., p. 92). And the realities in the lives of older faculty members are, without doubt, more complex and draining. For example, many of these teachers are dealing with the departure of children as their "nest empties." They may be caring for their own parents who are in ill health. Some may indeed be “sandwiched" between both. In my case I was dealing with older departing children, nursing an ailing parent, and caring for a late‑life baby, now a precocious four‑year‑old. I wasn't just feeling sandwiched; I was completely squashed. During these years such teachers may also experience the reality of their own mortality as their bodies show signs of aging: energy diminishes, vision and/or hearing may weaken, short‑term memory declines, sleep becomes more fragile and fragmented, concentration deteriorates. Even perspectives on life and work shift. We acknowledge these shortcomings and infirmities through self‑effacing jokes and good‑natured teasing but to anyone who is experiencing them, they are anything but humorous. "An English teacher put it this way: 'I'd taught John Donne's 'never send to know for whom the bell tons' for years. When my father died, the shock of finding that the bell really tons for me, too, was intense. Things I had worried about‑‑how old my car was‑‑ suddenly seemed trivial. And things I had tolerated ‑‑‑ useless faculty meetings‑ suddenly became unbearable'" (Evans p. 99).

"The passages and preoccupations of midlife exert three pressures against innovation. First, they mean that most people are coping with considerable change, some of it quite unwelcome and much of it quite absorbing, before they even come to school. When we prescribe reform, we too often act as if it were the only change people were encountering and hence as if everyone should be readily open to it. In reality, most people usually look to their work as one constant that won't change. Second, they make people less likely to throw themselves wholeheartedly into any new movement. If veteran staff seem doutbtful about promises of rapid, radical change, we must think not first of rigidity or resistance but of a perspective on life that no longer sees the world (in the same terms), that has become more sophisticated and more skeptical. Third, they leave people much less likely to pursue activities that do not fit their personal priorities. Few people can invest themselves in an idea, plan, or project that does not truly appeal, least of all those to whom time and energy are increasingly precious" (Evans, p. 100).

Thus, in light of the demographic shift that has occurred in America's public schools in terms of the "graying" of the teaching force that has 1) the average age of teachers being nearly forty‑five (in 1973 it was thirty‑four), 2) the majority of teachers teaching in their current school for twenty years or more, and 3) only five per cent of teachers being under twenty‑five (versus 17 per cent in 1970), the implications for supporting veteran teachers as they adjust to reform initiatives (like the PDS) are significant (Ibid., p. 93).

Of course, a logical ensuing question to counter the above information might be "Why even bother to recruit older, more experienced teachers into a Professional Development School Initiative if they are so resistant?" The obvious answer is because it is precisely this group that has become the leaders and models of the school. By virtue by their experiences, it is they who are thought to be wise; it is they who are regarded as seasoned. They are the master‑craftsmen to whom the apprentice teachers look for advice and counsel. "By this age whether or not they occupy formal positions of responsibility and authority,...teachers are usually established. They have some seniority by virtue of their age and they can, therefore, have a considerable influence on younger, junior teachers and upon teacher cultures and the ethos/ atmosphere of the school" (Sikes, 1992, p. 45). If it is the hope, therefore, of a Professional Development School to change the face of teacher education preparatory programs, to create knowledge through teachers as researchers engaged in inquiry, and to begin to institute educational reform, then experienced teachers must be key players. To ignore their power and impact would be folly.

My research and reflection in May brought me to another realization about my traumatic and turbulent school year. It surfaced as I stumbled upon some writings of Lortie and Gilligan. To begin, over twenty years ago Lortie (1975) coined a term called the "psychic rewards" of teaching. By this, he is referring to the tremendous satisfaction some (I would guess, many) teachers obtain, not in pay, prestige, or promotion, but in the sheer joy of teaching and even just being in the company of children and teenagers. Some teachers he interviewed spoke of taking recess and lunch with the children as opposed to being away from them during that time. Others recalled the great pleasure of hearing a child read his first words. Still others commented that seeing a student succeed at a difficult task was, indeed, its own reward. "Even when bureaucratic pressures and constraints seemed overbearing, it was the kids and being with them that kept some of those teachers going A number of them questioned the value of meetings, required cooperative planning, and other administrative initiatives insofar as they took them away from their kids" (Hargreaves, 1993, p. 64).

Hargreaves (Ibid.) certainly underscores the importance of psychic rewards and reminds that their significance should not be minimalized. He even points out what every teacher already knows, that these rewards "are central to sustaining teachers' sense of self and their sense of value and worth in their work" (Ibid.).

Tied to this notion of psychic rewards is what Gilligan (1982) has referred to as an "ethic of care." This means that actions are motivated by concerns for care, nurturance of others, and connectedness to others. The ethic of care can often be bound up with other orientations toward ownership and control. It suggests that teachers have prime, perhaps even sole, responsibility for their classes and that their students somehow belong to them (i.e "my kids"). It is an ethic common among, but not exclusive to women. At the other end, Gilligan has also identified in educators an "'ethic of responsibility," where improvements to planning and instruction are stressed as well as professional obligations. These can be opposing forces. If teachers are invested toward the ethic of care orientation, change efforts aimed at other endeavors such as collaboration with colleagues or instructional effectiveness, (which are aligned with an ethic of responsibility), might then cause great dissonance. Expressed another way, attempts to eliminate the habits of individualism (and isolationism) also unintentionally threaten teachers' commitment to care" Hargreaves, 1993, p. 69). For me, our PDS caused these two powerful and diametrically opposing forces to meet head on and collide because from the first moment I set foot inside a classroom as a young woman of twenty, I have always been a nurturer. For obvious reasons, coteaching compromised much of what I had always valued about teaching, the intimate bond, the one‑on‑one connection. Also, the amount of time spent away from the classroom in off‑site meetings soon became disconcerting. Even my students could be heard lamenting, "Are you going to be gone again tomorrow, Mrs. . We don’t want another substitute!" One of my colleagues, also a very warm and nurturing teacher, journaled about some of these same concerns:

I have to tell you my best teaching story of this week. My time 8th period in MRC (Motivational Resource Center or in‑school suspension) has been interesting. I am meeting a whole new segment of kids in our school and true to me, I like them. Anyway, about a month ago I had a repeat customer‑‑ a young 9th grader named Tyler. He had been kicked out of English class several times and we started having lots of discussions. He was failing everything and school "sucked" big time. Turns out he said he was moving and I made the comment,

"You know, Tyler, if you were not moving, I would ask that you be moved to our team because I think you might be happy with us." He gets "learning support" and mentioned (what I had said) to his learning support teacher who jumped on it and started making provisions to transfer him. My teammates rolled their eyes at my recruiting an MRC regular, but Tyler came to us two weeks ago. The first week he was disengaged, put his head down, no eye contact, no speech. But something funny happened this week. Because of his schedule change, he has to give up lunch so I told him he could bring a lunch in and eat it in class. He hadn’t done it and that (mother in me..) worried me. I stopped at (the local grocery store) this week and picked up juice boxes and peanut butter/ cheese crackers and put them on a shelf in my room. So Tuesday I said, "Tyler, where's your lunch?" He said, "It doesn’t matter... " and I said, "Yes, it does because I am responsible for your being here and missing your lunch." So at a very unobtrusive break, I went over and grabbed a can of grapefruit juice and put it on his desk. He quietly protested, but I walked away. Ten minutes later, I saw him quietly open up the can and drink it. The next day I did the same thing but gave him juice and crackers ... the same thing happened... except that day he raised his hand, answered a question, and then actively participated in his group work. The next day, not wanting him to feel singled out, I gave a juice box to another kid (who never has problems eating in class!) who also misses lunch so that Tyler wasn’t the only one. It was funny because Steve (my big St. Bernard ... ) said, "I don't like grapefruit juice and Tyler quietly exchanged his OJ for the grapefruit juice. Then Tyler turned in the group assignment for the whole group! At bus duty he came walking by, hand‑in‑hand with his girlfriend. I always smile in those situations but reserve speaking since I don't want to embarrass kids who are awkward outside of class sometimes with "teachers..." He looked straight at me and said, "Hi, Mrs. . " I said, "Have a good weekend', Tyler." This is the reason I teach. It rather flies in the fac6'at times of all the high powered discussions of "literacy communities" and "register" that we have been holding in our PDS partnership.

... It is now mid‑June. I have hugged the kids goodbye, wished them a great vacation, begged them not to forget to read and write over the summer, and spent six days of my own time boxing up my room and materials in preparation for a new space assignment in September. Like all endeavors related to school‑life, we have to remember assessment and accountability. So, at year's end, this teacher will prepare a 'report card" for our Professional Development School Partnership. These grades are, of course, subjective.

Subject: Collaboration Grade: B

Comments: At times the co‑teach model was pure magic. Thank you for providing the impetus and the pressure to try new things and for pushing us beyond our comfort zones. I hope we can work toward an even more synergistic ideal. I am intrigued by John Goodlad's notion that both schools and teacher education programs need to change and that they can accomplish this through simultaneous renewal. To me, that's what collaboration is all about.... learning, growing together. And, thank you, too, for working so hard to learn what it means to be called a teacher. Perhaps now you can appreciate the wisdom of this anecdote: Kathy Brott, a former teacher who decided to go to law school once told a colleague, "Margaret, I'm going to let you in on one of the great secrets of this society. Take a vacation: go to law school. After teaching public high school, it's a breeze" (Metzger, 1996, p. 349).

Subject: Teamwork and Trust Grade: C

Comments: We need to get to know and like each other as people more effectively, more genuinely. To our university colleagues: Remember, "institutions are fifedoms, and people protect them with their lives" (Lawrence‑Lightfoot, 1999, p. 65). To our interns: Watch the eye‑rolling and choosing sides. Doe t bite the hand that feeds you.

To our teachers: Lighten up!

Subject: Inquiry: Grade: C

Comments: I must respectfully disagree that "it is at the point of rupture that enables us to create distinctions where inquiry begins"' (from university researcher's writings on pedagogy). The very term rupture connotes tearing... bursting.... At its worst it can be life‑threatening... at its least it will cause scarring.... It is a brutal word. I am not convinced that inquiry and gentle, respectful questioning are mutually exclusive. In fact, I think they are absolutely incumbent upon each other to truly foster collegiality and camaraderie ... qualities that eluded our partnership for most if not all of the year.

The "no put‑downs" ground rule that we attempted to institute before school even began still makes sense to me. Even the "gadfly" who stirs to life the steed who is tardy in his motions ... arousing, persuading, and reproaching... (from Socrates" ""The Apology") better do so graciously and tactfully if trust and a risk‑free, no‑fault environment are also considered essential to the success of the enterprise. Most teachers feel about their classroom, their students, and their school as Yeats did: I have spread my dreams under your feet ... Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

Subject: Support and Resources Grade: D

Comments: I have to give low marks to both the district and university for failing to provide us with commensurate support to really sustain our partnership. From a promised university stipend which dried up and thus compromised trust, to long, un ompensated hours spent in after‑ school meetings which might have been extended ontract time, both institutions need to re‑examine their commitments to this initiative o ensure its continuation. This problem plagues other PDS partnerships, too...

"Colleges get a fat tuition check before handing off their students to public school teachers, who do most of the mentoring but receive a pittance in return" (Rich and Leo Nyquist, 1998, p. 42.). 1 might have been tempted to give even a failing grade in this category had not the university granted the mentor teachers graduate credit for their participation, and had not the school district provided released time to its teachers after our public lamentations at the Holmes Conference. Thank you to our secondary principal in charge of curriculum for lobbying on our behalf.

Subject: Benefit to Students Grade: A

Comments: We all saw our students respond to the interns in unique, interesting, meaningful, and often times exciting ways. We need to explore avenues and

instruments to document and measure this impact. Having two pairs of eyes, sets of hands and feet, and most importantly two perspectives in a classroom was energizing. Let us be mindful, too, of what the tragedy at Columbine has again shown us. We had better try to break down the size of our large and impersonal schools. We had better try to reach out and connect with all kids, but particularly with those who might feel disenfranchized, marginalized, lost... This partnership strives to do that by placing two adults, co‑teaching, and perhaps more importantly, co‑caring in one classroom.

Subject: Melding Theory and Practice Grade: C

Comments: Several of us journaled about this topic, calling it a "chasm" between public school and university. We need to continue to work cooperatively to bridge this gulf. It is not easy, and the interns most often get wedged in the middle. Having "two discourse communities" and using "'university speak" caused divisiveness from thebeginning. Caution: "teachers cannot allow themselves the luxury of time that lingering in critique or abstraction demands" (Fecho, 1993). Remember... "teachers... find themselves too busy bailing out the water to plug the leak in the boat" (Adelman and Walking‑Eagle, 1997, p. 99).

Subject: Effort and Enthusiasm Grade: A+

Comments: There is no doubt that the fourteen members of our group gave this initiative their "all" and made significant contributions of time and talent. This "subject" was definitely our strength, even if we were, at times, chaotic and unruly and our energy, unchanneled and unfocused. It was always evident that we are committed to this vocation which is also our advocation. We never had a paucity of passion!

A Final Word...

This was a fledgling endeavor and in many respects the participants were pioneers, of sorts. When we continue with this journey next year we will know where the bumps were in the road and try to navigate them more smoothly. Of course, potholes always appear anew each spring, don't they, despite our best efforts? And as President Clinton commented during the Ken Starr investigation (in turn quoting Ben Franklin), "Our problems are our friends." Said another way by our university liaison, "Humidity built the snowman and sunshine brought it down."

As for me... I am profoundly changed. In terms of being an English teacher, I can no longer think of anything in the same way that I did before I began this partnership. I have indeed become a reflective practitioner, have "tested my assumptions," and examined my practice in ways I would have never previously imagined. It is my hope that we can work on team building next year, perhaps creating simple rituals that help form community. We need to learn to laugh together and like each other, capturing, early on, more of the spirit and tenor that was evident at our end‑of‑year dinner in June. Sadly that was too little, too late.

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