3.2.4.2 Team Teaching

Well - adapted place of work for the Teacher Team

Although in many if not most schools the most common organizational pattern is based upon teacher isolation and self-containment, there is a very strong tendency in recent literature to favor teacher collaboration and collegiality. It has been noted that very little if any support for the self-contained-teacher pattern has appeared in the educational literature almost anywhere in the world for at least ten or fifteen years. By contrast, virtually all writers in the field of educational change and reform take a strong position in favor of teaming. That a major feature of the Skönsberg School program 1989 - 1993 was teachers working closely together was, therefore, very consistent with recommendations about best practice.

When the teachers and I discussed new ways to use our resources and create a new organization, nongradedness and team teaching were two of the most important corner-stones. We organized teaching-instruction-groups with about 40 - 45 pupils. There were one work-team with teachers / instructors (about 2,7 full-timers) and pre-school-teachers (about 2,5 fulltimers) responsible for each group.

To afford such an organization, no group-hours were allowed. (In Sweden it is common to divide the class in two groups some hours a week.) No extra remedial teacher could be afforded. The remedial teacher of the school, became one of the teachers in the teacher team and at the same time she consulted for teacher-teams without any remedial teacher. We made great demands on the staff, specially within the teacher-teams, for a high general competence in special pedagogics.

One of the goals in our vision was to "create" INDEPENDENT pupils with confidence. Our opinion was that, if you want independent pupils in your school, you have to give them as much responsibility as possible, of course depending on their age. Self-learning tasks during part of the day, became therefore an important part of the organization, at the same time as it made our organization less costly. Some hour/hours of the day, all the 40-45 pupils had only one teacher. For example, about 20 pupils worked on their own in different study rooms without any help, while the teacher worked with 25 pupils together. Because of this way of organizing the pupils work, we installed many windows between the rooms when we reconstructed the school. The lone teacher could "see" all the 45 pupils even if she, at that time, only was directly responsible for 25 pupils.