Teacher Communities

There are many reasons to cultivate teachers' professional community-from providing opportunities for teacher learning to enriching the possibilities for student learning, from retaining talented teachers to enabling teachers to work together toward a common goal. Pamela Grossman, Sam Wineburg, and Stephen Woolworth, authors of Toward a Theory of Teacher Community, believe that local professional communities can help achieve these goals. After spending 3 years in one Seattle urban high school the listed authors shared their findings of the importance of all dimensions of true teacher community.

The first dimension of community involves the formation of a group identity and the development of norms for interaction. Initially, members of a group may identify with subgroups or factions within a larger group. In a meeting of teachers, individuals are interchangeable; if a member leaves and someone else joins, little is lost. However, as community evolves, people begin to recognize the unique contributions of individual members and feel a keen sense of loss when members leave.

A second dimension of community formation has to do with the navigation of fault lines. In its initial stages, a group may deny differences and proclaim a false sense of unity. During this stage, conflict is hidden in order to preserve the sense of a united front. But if a group spends enough time together, conflict will inevitably erupt onto the main stage. As differences become impossible to ignore, members may try to appropriate other perspectives by claiming them as mere variations of the dominant view. With the formation of community, differences among participants can be acknowledged and understood. With such recognition comes the ability to use diverse views to enlarge the understanding of the group as a whole.

Negotiating the essential tension is an inevitable task for teachers' professional communities. Initially, members may see attention to student learning and efforts to promote teacher learning as irreconcilable, locating themselves at one end of the continuum or the other. In a professional community teachers come to recognize the interrelationship of teacher and student learning and are able to use their own learning as a resource to delve more deeply into issues of student learning, curriculum, and teaching.

A final indicator of teachers' professional community is the willingness of its members to assume responsibility for colleagues' growth and development. As schools are currently constituted, teachers' responsibility is to students, not colleagues. Professional growth is the responsibility of the individual (with occasional nudges from administrators) rather than that of the faculty as a whole. Initially, participation in group discussions are solely voluntary; if individuals feel like it, they contribute. If they have pertinent knowledge that could push the thinking of the group forward, individuals can choose whether or not to contribute. As community develops, individuals begin to accept responsibility for their colleagues' continuing growth. Members begin to accept the obligations of community membership, which includes helping colleagues articulate developing understandings.

To read more about the teacher community project by Grossman, Wineburg, and Woodworth please refer to the Teachers College Record article titled Toward a Theory of Teacher Community in Volume 103 Number 6 or log onto http://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=10833.