Getting Together – When you are assessing a child’s progress by finding his strengths and noting his needs, Collaboration is sometimes needed. It’s similar to a patient receiving a diagnosis from one physician and then getting a second opinion on it from another doctor. It is a teacher moving from her personal FACTUAL observation to asking another member of the learning community to either observe or recall a child’s behavior or skill performance to see if the observations match. 

The first step in Collaboration is to ask for this reinforcement without giving away your own opinions, suspicions, or concerns.  It should just be a request for her to do her own factual nonjudgmental observation. The second step is to have a meeting with her to discuss the behaviors she has seen.  This can be done with trusted co-workers, parents of the child, or on-staff advisors, consultants, or senior teachers.  It’s simply a matter of confirming a concern about a behavior or skill level before making more formal observations and moving to the steps of documentation and referral.

Team Teachers who work together well in the same classroom often become good at natural collaborating IF they share the same mission and philosophy (which we hope is ALWAYS the case) and if they communicate openly and honestly with each other.

Team Teachers or Teacher & Assistant Teacher do not have to agree on specific teaching methods. It’s always good to have some personality and preference differences – like “Good Cop, Bad Cop”, “You Do Diapers, I’ll Touch Bugs”, and the like, but they must agree on mission and DAP.

Collaboration with co-workers may be informal, but must be done in a professional manner with the utmost regard for fact and confidentiality.  You should not preface or color the request for a second opinion with your personal opinion.  If you think a child may have a speech delay or speech problem, you should ask another teacher or staff person who also comes into contact with the child to listen to the child speak.  You do not say, “I think Thomas has a lisp.  Listen to him talk,” but “Listen to Thomas and tell me what you hear.”

Tattletale, Tattletale! – The idea of confidentiality is BIG, BIG, BIG. You must keep your observations factual and your opinions about those observations in confidence. I know some children’s behaviors are the talk of the playground. Been there, heard that. To share information about a child’s needs outside of those directly associated with meeting those needs is both unprofessional and unkind.

Not only do too many cooks spoil the broth, too many opinions really stink up the preschool. You’ll have teachers in other classrooms offering opinions like, “Oh yes. I had Thomas’s sister last year and she had the same problem”, and “Thomas’s mother is a doctor. You’d think she’d get him speech therapy”, and “He’s my sister-in-law’s cousin’s boy. I’ll tell his daddy at the next reunion.” Be professional. Be confidential. Do what’s right.

Next Blog: A Little More Collaborating