Collegiality and Professionalism Plan

During Session Eight, Pam, Angela, and I created a three day professionalism and collegiality plan.  A few of the highlights of this plan included lending advice and or resources to a fellow colleague who has been at our school for less time than we have, having another colleague observe us for a specific intention other than evaluation, and exchanging feedback about teaching strategies with the same colleague.  When I think about the usefulness of these activities, I am reminded of the many days I spent working with my mentor during my first year of teaching.  She and I were constantly reflecting, which took the form of something as simple as me stopping by her room before I left for the day and sharing a story of a recent lesson or student incident.  Those simple conversations helped me to understand what happened during my day, what mattered during my day, and what I could do better tomorrow.

I believe that collegiality is about helping colleagues to find these things within themselves.  Collegiality is coming together as teachers of different styles and approaches, with the greater goal of doing the job better.  Collegiality is sharing- ideas, materials, and success stories in addition to failures.  I have been lucky enough to work in two departments that are very open to sharing and thus helping me to feel a part of the department.  However, I have a more difficult time thinking of collegiality on a school-wide scale.  I don't think there are enough opportunities for multiple departments to share what works- more often than not, I hear about fellow teachers sharing WHO doesn't do the work!  In other words, conversations when not structured often become more based on misbehaving students than students who are learning from our hard work.

Having said a lot about collegiality, professionalism is something that I learned more about through Marzano's words.  I used to put collegiality and professionalism in the same boat, but now I understand that professionalism is more about how you conduct yourself and collegiality seems to be about how you interact with your colleagues.  Some ways that I strive to keep a high level of professionalism at school are by writing non-emotional e-mails (especially in response to upset parents), dressing modestly and taking pride in my appearance as an example for my female students, treating faculty meetings as I would want to be treated in my classroom, and constantly working to improve my craft.