This post is dedicated to all the former co-teachers I have had. Thank you for teaching me, about good teaching, about collaboration and sometimes even about friendship.
I have been in co-teaching relationships with regular and special education teachers for the past 7 years. This has taught me more about teaching than any class I have ever taken. This has also taught me more about work relationships than any other work out there. The best c0-teachers for me have pushed my thinking. Together we have capitalized on each others strengths to make our team stronger for our students. Quite frankly, I love co-teaching and I am so thankful that I have had the opportunity to learn from so many teachers.
Here are somethings that I have learned these last few years:
- be honest with your team teacher about things you like and don’t like, including your pet peeves.
- thinking about your team in terms of a unit, we or us instead of individually. This helps students see you all on equal footing.
- play to each other’s strengths.
- allow students to build relationships with all the teachers, but accept that some might have a stronger relationship than you.
- make time for team building, great teams take effort and time to be successful.
- over communication never makes anyone feel as left out or mad as not communicating.
Thanks to my co-teaching relationships I have learned more about ALL kinds of students. Teaming with special education teachers has only benefitted my whole class and how I approach all of my learners. Thanks to a co-teacher who supported me during an especially difficult time, I have learned more about self care and relying on team work to make teams successful. Thanks to a co-teacher, I now have a better learner goal setting practices in place. Thanks to a co-teacher and phonics whiz, I now have a better understanding of beginning skills reading. Thanks to a co-teacher who supported me during an especially difficult time, I have learned more about self care and relying on team work to make teams successful. All of these separate co-teachers helped push me in ways I don’t know I would have gone had I been alone in the classroom.
One last word, co-teaching during a pandemic is wild and isolating, this post would be missing a big part if I didn’t mention my current co-teacher. Who would have known when we teamed up in 2019 that our teamwork would bring us through emergency remote teaching, into remote teaching and now to the new phases. Thanks to my current partner teacher who gives me pep talks when I don’t know what I am doing, co-plans with me to make our wild ideas happen, and brings fresh and new ideas to the table.
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