There are things we assume. I did this in my classroom. A lot. It’s probably called the “Blame Game,” but I like to call it being blinded by the things I thought I learned in college.
“These kids won’t work together.” I would say it a lot. I would provide them these opportunities I had carefully planned out, and then I’d be disappointed that the collaboration and cooperation I’d planned for would never unfold. I blamed them.
I should have blamed myself. I had never given them the foundation for collaboration. The community. The team building. The pieces where they learn each other’s personalities, appreciating the intricacies of each strength and weakness they bring to the table. I was rolling them around like marbles in a jar, wondering why they never stuck together.
I should have been helping them to see themselves, and each other, as pieces of a puzzle.
Now, I zoom out. The bigger picture. Not just the classroom, but school wide. Those kids that I learned with, back when I was learning, in eMINTS training, about collaboration and community, and the power of teaching, embedding, and modeling those skills, they taught me.
Collaboration isn’t innate. What’s innate is the drive to do what’s best for kids. We believe in it. It’s why we teach, lead, get up every day. Because we believe in our jobs. But, we also are taught to believe that we need to have all the answers. We grew up in an educational system where the “A” was our responsibility and in a college program where we needed to be an expert.
So while it is innate that we need each other to make it, to grow, to do better, it’s just not in us to automatically know how to do that. If we find ourselves, standing back, scratching our heads, wondering WHY collaboration isn’t happening, maybe the question we really need to be asking is, “How can we support people to understand HOW to collaborate? What can we do today to break down the fear embedded in us that makes us believe we have to know all of the answers?”
I learned that from kids. And now I’m left thinking, isn’t this exactly the same for us, as adults? Collaboration isn’t innate. It’s a skill learned through modeling, teaching, practice, and ongoing support. It doesn’t matter if you are the student or the teacher. We are all learners.