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I (g Ijrémsrmzkfl ill/ll ' L 7.. #1 L I B R A R Y Michigan State University _._.._~:rn\m‘g This is to certify that the thesis entitled A PARTICIPANT OBSERVER STUDY OF TEAM TEACHER PLANNING BEHAVIOR IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL SETTING presented by Paula J. Stein has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. Philosophy degree in (I a | Major professor Date August 8, 1978 0-7639 .-_. , ML' ' 'h .V © 1978 PAULA JUDITH STEIN ALL RI GHTS RESERVED A PARTICIPANT OBSERVER STUDY OF TEAM TEACHER PLANNING BEHAVIOR IN A 'MIDDLE SCHOOL SETTING By Paula J. Stein A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum 1978 . 4 365 J ~'\ #9 ABSTRACT A PARTICIPANT OBSERVER STUDY OF TEAM TEACHER PLANNING BEHAVIOR IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL SETTING By Paula J. Stein The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the pro- cess of planning that occurs in a seventh grade teaching team.in a mid— dle school. Research and theory were reviewed in the areas of teacher plane ning, team.teaching, and small groups. The methodology employed for this study was that of participant observation which has its roots in symbolic interaction theory. A team of four teachers was observed be- tween March and June, 1977, and that same team, with two changes in personnel resulting in a five-teacher team, was observed again between September and December, 1977. The results of this study indicate that the processes engaged in by the team.constitute administrative maintenance (grouping, time allocation, response to problems), personal maintenance (sharing infor- mation, socialization, support, sharing teaching), and public relations (meeting with parents, compliance with middle school philosophy) func- tions. The team did not join together as a group to engage in inter- disciplinary teaming or goal oriented curricular planning to meet the developmental needs of students. This suggests that the maintenance Paula J. Stein functions were not only of more value to the individual team teachers, but that these functions were also supported by the environment. This study suggests further study in teacher planning and team- ing. It has implications for both preservice and inservice teacher education, for the middle school, and for the training and education of administrators, and for all those interested in the change process. Dedicated to My parents, who instilled in me a desire for excellence and My son, in whom I hope I am able to encourage the same high standards ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all those who gave me their help and their support in making this study possible, especially the following: Dr. Philip A. Cusick, the Director of this dissertation, whose persistent support, attention to detail, and standards of quality con- stantly challenged me to the best of my ability. Dr. Samuel S. Corl, the Chairman of my Committee, whose confidence and belief in me carried me through the rough times and who enabled me to experience a genuine teaming situation. Dr. Lee S. Shulman, whose ability to think and to create provided a model for my own thinking. Dr. Keith Anderson, whose incisive questions and perceptions of reality helped me maintain my perspective. Dr. Lawrence Sarbaugh, who always asked the practical questions which clarified my sense of purpose. Dr. Charles A. Blackman, whose infinite wisdom about the truly important things in education guided me throughout my entire doctoral program. The team teachers and other faculty of Harrison Middle School who must remain nameless, but without whom this study would not have been possible, for allowing me into their lives. My typist, moral supporter, and friendly advisor, Barbara Reeves, for her typing and for her comments and help with the finer points of this study. iii my friends who believed in me, who accepted my disappointments and shared my enthusiasms at critical moments - Denny who shouted, "That's it; that's you; it's perfect!" when I finally settled on my disserta- tion topic; Gini, who was my personal sounding board for all my thoughts and feelings; Nancy, who diverted me with tennis and who listened to my often incoherent babblings; Al, who offered much needed personal sup- port and reminded me of who I was and where I was going at the times I needed it most; Lynne, who, quite simply believed in me; and my neigh- bors and friends, especially Ericka, who said, "Of course you can do it," and who were a great encouragement. And, of course, to my parents and my son, for their total accep- tance of me during some very difficult moments and for their unwaver- ing love, which is what everything is all about anyway. iv Chapter II III IV TABLE OF CONTENTS THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM . . . . . . Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background and Probmem Statement . . Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . Symbolic Interaction . . . . . . . Exploratory Questions . . . . . . . . Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . Selection of a Study Group . . . . . Significance of the Study . . . . REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early Descriptions of Team Teaching Research on Teaching Teams . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Processes of Participant Observation Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . PRESENTATION OF THE DATA . . .' . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . Description of the Environment . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . Philosophy and Organization . . . H OOVNJ-‘J-‘l-‘I-‘H H 12 12 18 19 19 29 32 33 41 41 43 43 43 52 S4 65 67 67 68 68 68 Chapter Physical Layout . . . . . . . Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . Description of Team.Between March Introduction . . . . . . . . . Description of Individuals . . Henry . . . . . . . . . . . Faith . . . . . . . . . . . Rick . . . . . . . . . . . Carol . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . Organization of Team . . . . . Introduction . . Meeting Time and Place Roles . . . . . . . . . . . Leadership . . . . . . Topics . . . . . . . . . Interactions . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . Team.Activities . . . . . . . Students . . . . . . . . . Support Staff . . Parents . . . . . . . . . . Grouping . . . . . . . . . Instructional Activities . Other Topics . . ..... Summary . . . . . . . . . and June, 1977 Description of the Team.Between September December, 1977 . . . . Introduction ......... School Environment . . . . Description of Team 71 and Its Henry . . . . . . . . . . Faith . . . . . . . . . . Martha . . . . . . . . . Jackie . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . Team Organization . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . Organizational Pattern Meeting Place and Time Rales O O O O O O O O O O O 0 Leadership . . . . . . . . Tapics . . . . . . . Interactions . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . Team Activities . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . Mechanical Activities . . . People-Related Activities . vi Members . and 73 76 79 80 80 81 81 87 93 98 104 104 104 105 107 . 113 114 116 119 121 122 130 136 139 148 186 194 197 197 197 . 200 200 . 202 204 207 208 209 209 209 216 220 226 228 228 231 233 233 234 248 Chapter APPENDIX Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary and Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . Answers to the Exploratory Questions . . . . . . When and Where Do Teachers Plan as a Team? . . What Do Teachers Do When They Plan as a Team? How Is the Team Organized? . . . . . . . . . . What Do the Teachers Agree on? . . . . . . . . What Did They Plan for as a Team? . . . . . . What Do They Take into Consideration When They Plan as a Team? . . . . . . . . . . . Is Their Planning Goal-Oriented? . . . . . . . What Is the Balance Between the Individual and Team in Its Planning? . . . . . . . . How Do These Individuals Work Together as a Team? What Is the Role of the Team in Planning? . . Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Suggestions for Further Study . . . . . . . . . . BIBLIWRAPHY O O O O O O O O O O O I O O O O O O O O O O . 265 268 . 272 272 272 275 275 276 277 277 278 . 278 279 279 280 280 281 283 . 285 . 298 CHAPTER I THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the pur- pose of planning that takes place within a seventh grade teaching team in a middle school. There are two important concepts in this purpose. The first is planning, and the second is team or group. Background and Problem Statement Planning Planning is commonly defined as making a blueprint for future action. Yinger1 has defined planning as a "process of preparing a framework to guide future action." For him, the term "process" sug- gests decision-making that is ongoing rather than static. "Framework refers to a whole set of decisions instead of individual and unrelated decisions, and "future action" implies anticipation and prediction of possible events based on current knowledge. In his definition, plan- ning is a framework only; it is not the actual action. Indeed, his de- finition implies a very deliberate and rational process. As it is commonly conceived, teacher planning involves a set of perceptions about teaching, the role of the teacher, the nature of learning, the learner, subject matter, and the enviornment. Perceptions 1Robert Yinger, Colloquium, Michigan State University, April, 1977. 1 about teaching and the role of a teacher include an individual's motives for entering the profession, his self concept, and his beliefs about what constitutes good teaching. It is also generally believed that a teacher has some idea of how people learn, some knowledge about the age group he is teaching, and, frequently, some information about specific students in his class. He has knowledge about his subject, what is con- sidered important in the field, and some belief about the subject's re- levance. Probably most consciously, a teacher has knowledge and per- ceptions of his working environment including time, space, material, class size, and organizational structure. While these perceptions may not be conscious considerations, a teacher's knowledge of and attitude about these elements constitute the background of planning. Furthermore, planning is both a personal and a mental activity. It is personal because a teacher's knowledge, attitudes, and percep- tions may differ from those of other teachers. The way one combines these elements in light of his own experience and his present situation make this set of perceptions possibly unique to an individual teacher. Planning is mental in the sense that when teachers make decisions about what they will do in their classrooms, they make these decisions in their minds. Occasionally, they may represent their thinking on paper, but often there is little observable behavior. The probelm in studying planning is how to conceptualize this complex process that is personal, mental, and, essentially, unobserv— able. One way that is commonly used is to conceptualize the process as linear or composed of a set of orderly steps. This view of teacher planning as a problemrsolving behavior involves the following steps: stating a problem, listing alternative solutions, evaluating these alternatives, selecting and trying out the best alternative, and evalua- ting the results. But the problem with this approach is the assumption that planning is a logical, rational, linear, unidimensional, and well- reasoned process. According to the literature in teacher planning, this 2 is not the case. Of this approach, Morine has written: This approach has not been as productive as one might expect. The fact is that teachers don't really plan instruction by forming hypotheses and then testing them as if they were carry- ing out the logical steps of problemrsolving. Probably most teachers never perceive the planning they do as a "problem” to be solved at all. Planning, as a personal and mental activity involving a complex set of perceptions, is far from a linear and unidimensional process. Teachers do not perceive planning in such a linear fashion, and it is doubtful that teachers form their perceptions and make decisions based on these perceptions in a unidimensional manner. Therefore, research attempts to study planning in such a logical and linear way have not been successful.3 Planning is a set of decisions to guide future ac- tion; these decisions which may be unique to the individual are based on a set of perceptions about one's environment and are unobservable to the researcher. Although this linear concept of teacher planning does not provide a feasible conceptual framework for this study, the concept of team or group does provide a way of thinking about the plan- ning process. 2Greta Morine, "Planning Skills: Paradox and Parodies," Journal of Teacher Education, 1973, 24:135-143. 3J. A. Zahorik, "Teachers' Planning Models," paper presented at the meetings of the American Educational Research Association, Washing- ton, D. C., April, 1975. Teaming The second concept in the purpose of this study is team. The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the process of plan- ning that takes place in a teaching team, A teaching team consists of at least two teachers from different subject areas who share and make decisions together about the same group of students, time, and facili- ties. The research will focus on a team.for two reasons. First, team teaching is a common situation in many schools and, hence, it is of in- terest in its own right. A second reason for studying teacher planning within a team context is that teaming makes individual planning mani- fest. The researcher will be able to study individual planning as it becomes verbalized within the group interaction of the team. In order to have group interaction, the team.must consist of at least three peOple. Henceforth, the terms "group" and "team" will be synonymous and will refer to three or more people from different sub- ject areas who share and make decisions together about the same group of students, time, and facilities. Symbolic-Interaction One way of conceptualizing groups comes from the sociological theory of symbolic interaction. A.major tenet of symbolic interaction is that man has a self and is able to give meaning to objects. An in? dividual does not merely react to a stimulus; rather, he is able to in- terpret and define what goes on about him. He makes decisions about his environment and acts upon these judgments. Man's perceptions about himself and his environment are built up over time as he continually interacts with his environment. While "any particular action is formed in the light of the situation to which it takes place," the individual acts are "constructed...through a process of interpretation."4 Based upon this conception of the individual, Blumer defines group action as the ...fitting together of individual lines of action. Each in- dividual aligns his action to the action of others by ascer- taining what they are doing or what they intend to do - that is, by getting the meaning of their acts.5 In this way the group becomes an acting unit, similar to the individual, as it interacts with its environment - assessing, judging, interpret- ing, and acting upon its collective perceptions. Thus, like an indivi- dual, a group has a unique perspective. Shibutani offers this defini- tion of perspective: A perspective is an ordered view of one's world - what is taken for granted about the attributes of various objects, events, and human nature. It is an order of things rememe bered and expected as well as things actually perceived, an organized conception of what is plausible, and what is pos- sible; it constitutes the matrix through which one perceives his environment. The fact that men have such ordered per- spectives enables them to conceive of their ever changing world as relatively stable, orderly, and predictable.6 Therefore, what a group does can be understood through getting at its unique perspective -- what is assumes and takes for granted and how its members define the situation. Thus, symbolic interaction offers a feasible way to conceptua- lize teacher planning.) It is multidimensional and takes into account 4Herbert Blumer, "Society as Symbolic Interaction," in Symbolic In- teraction: a Reader in Social Psychology, ed. by Jerome G. Mania and Bernard N. Meltzer (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1967), p. 145. 5Ibid., p. 142. 6Tamotsu Shibutani, "Reference Groups as Perspectives," in §XET bolic Interaction: a Reader in Social Psychology, ed. by J. G. Mania and B. N. Meltzer (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1967), p. 161. the personal nature of planning which is based on unique sets of percep- tions. The theory provides a framework for understanding the interac- tion of several individual perspectives to form a group perspective. Within a team.planning situation, each member is continually interpret- ing his environment and making individual decisions about what to do in the classroom. Within the group, these individual interpretations and perceptions and the consequent actions are fitted together so that the group has its own unique perspective of its planning. There is, however, a disadvantage in using symbolic interaction as a conceptual framework. The purpose of the study is to describe and explain the process of planning that takes place within a team.teaching situation. The advantages of a team situaiton are that (1) teams are common, and (2) in the process of group interaction, individual and group planning will be made manifest. In addition to these advantages, the group adds a considerable amount of complexity to the study. The dynamics of the group may well have many interactions that have nothing to do with planning. It may be that the group has purposes other than planning, individual roles that have nothing to do with teaching, and norms that have nothing to do with instruction. Just because the group is thought of as a teaching team does not mean that other elements, even elements that conflict with planning, will not be present. In fact, the group may be more than just a teaching team. With this additional complexity in mind, the purpose of this study is to describe and explain the process of planning that takes place within a teaching team. More specifically, the study will: (1) Describe the way individuals plan in a group setting, focusing on the elements they choose to share and imp plement, and (2) Explain the group perspective which is a sharing and blending of parts of the individual perspectives. Exploratory Questions The exploratory questions which provide the focus for this re- search include the following: (1) When and where do teachers plan as a team? (2) What do the teachers do when they plan as a team? (3) How is the team organized? (4) What do the teachers agree on? (5) What do they plan for as a team? (6) What do they take into consideration when they plan as a team? (7) Is their planning goal oriented? (8) What is the balance between the individual and the team in their planning? (9) How do these individuals work together as a team? (10) What is the role of the team in planning? Methodology The process of symbolic interaction requires the student to catch the process of interpretation through which they (the group) construct their actions. In describing the technique of participant observation, Blumer outlines the role of the researcher: To catch the process, the student must take the role of the acting unit whose behavior he is studying. Since the inter- pretation is being made by the acting unit in terms of objects designated and appraised, meanings acquired, and decisions made, the process has to be seen from the standpoint of the acting unit.8 7Blumer, p. 145. 8Ibid. The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the process of plan- ning that occurs within a teaching team. Thus, in order to study this process, the researcher should become a member of the team he is study- ing. He meets with them as they plan over a period of several months and, in essence, he becomes a member of the group. In this way he is able to adopt its perspective and see the planning process from the group members' points of view. Denzin has described the role of "participant as observer" as one where the researcher: ...makes his presence as an investigator known and attempts to form a series of relationships with his subjects such that they serve both as respondents and informants. Becker describes the role in more practical terms: The participant observer gathers data by participating in the daily life of the group or organization he studies. He watches the people he is studying to see what situations they ordin- arily meet and how they behave in them. He enters into con- versations with some or all of the participants in these situa- tions and discovers their interpretations of the events he has observed. In terms of this particular study, the researcher will carry out the fol- lowing activities: (1) meet with the team as it plans over a several month period, (2) talk with the individual teachers about their planning, (3) interview each teacher individually about his perceptions of the team, (4) observe team teaching activities, (5) observe individual teach- ers in their classrooms, and (6) make copious notes (including 9Norman R. Denzin, ed., Sociological Methods: A Sourcebook (Chica- go: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970), p. 190. 10Howard S. Becker, "Problems of Inference and Proof in Participant Observations," American Sociological Review 23, December, 1958, p. 652. description, narration, quotation, and comment) at the end of the day while will later be analyzed. This method is utilized primarily for the purpose of understand- ing a group from its point of view, rather than testing hypotheses. Obviously the research has some preconceived notions about what aspects of the group he is interested in. This investigator is focusing on the aspect of how the team plans. The assumptions that are a part of the study have been mentioned; namely, that planning is personal and usually mental, that a team situation will make the process of planning observ- able, and that the group will function in a way that combines the way each of the members of the team functions individually. With these as- sumptions in mind, the researcher will be able to describe and explain the process of planning that occurs within a teaching team. Selection of a Study Group Since team teaching is most commonly found in middle schools, this researcher approached the administrator of a local middle school. She explained that since the research involved teachers and not students, there should be no problem of needing approval above his. He further explained that his school had two four-man teams, that he would intro- duce the investigator to each team, and that if both of them accepted her decision between them, the teams were hers. He did add that one of the teams met on a more regular basis and that the other team was more committed to each other as individuals. The investigator visited with and observed both teams during a two week period. The team.described by the principal as more committed to each other had many questions relating to methodology and assurance 10 of confidentiality. Their acceptance of me took the full two weeks and was not complete until I informed them that I would be staying with them throughout the school year. The second team accepted me immediately to the extent that I was a participant within two days. I did not choose them for this reason: I feared that such immediate and complete parti- cipation might jeopardize my role as researcher. Siginficance of the Study There appear to be several areas where this study can be signifi- cant. The first is in the area of the description itself. Little re- search has been done on what teachers actually do when they plan, and this study can provide some insight into how one particular group of teachers views and executes the planning process. Insight can also be gained into how the way they plan operates effectively for them. Too often educators believe they have answers to school problems without really understanding those problems within the context of a real school and without respecting the perspective of the peOple involved. Methodologically, it is haped that this study will demonstrate the feasibility of participant observation as a legitimate research tool in the field of education in general and in the area of teacher planning in particular. It can add richness of description to the type of re- search in teacher planning of Morine and Joyce.11 Conceptually, this study can offer enpirical evidence toward the building of a theory of teacher planning that explains what teachers do when they plan. That can then we weighed against the ideal of what they 11Greta Morine and Bruce Joyce, "Teacher Information Processing and Variables that Effect Teachers' Decision-Making: a Proposal." 11 should do when they plan as further research is done relating planning to effective teaching and to effective learning. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Introduction In order to describe and explain the process of planning that takes place within a seventh grade teaching team in a middle school, it ‘is necessary to review the relevant literature and research in several areas. First, the area of teacher planning will be examined to determine what is already known about the concept and how it has been studied. Secondly, the literature on team teaching will be reviewed for insights on the concept of teaming and for additional research on planning within a team.setting. Finally, a theoretical perspective on groups will be offered as a framework for understanding how groups Operate. The litera- ture in these three areas will contribute to the formulation of a concep- tual framework within which the process of planning that occurs in a middle school team teaching situation can be described, explained, and understood. Planning The literature on teacher planning is sparse. Most of the re- search that has been done is based upon theoretical concepts proposed by Ralph Tyler in curriculumdevelopment.l An early prOponent of rational- ity in teacher planning, Tyler identified "four fundamental questions 1Ralph W. Tyler, Basic Principles of Curriculum.and Instruction (Chicago: the University of Chicago, 1950). 12 13 which must be answered in developing any curriculum and plan of instruc- tion." These are: (1) What educational purposes should the school seek to attain? (2) What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes? (3) How can these educational experiences be effectively organized? (4) How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?2 Tyler's four questions form the core decisions which he and others feel must be considered in curriculum.development. Tyler and MacDonald3 have identified three general data sources as basic referents in answering the core questions. One referent is the learner as a person and includes concepts of growth and develOpment and consideration of individual needs and interests. The second referent involves the idea of society as the definer of those attitudes, skills, and knowledge necessary for participation in the democratic way of life. The third basic referent relates to knowledge, or the subject disci- plines, as the keystone in outlining what is necessary to learn. Schwab4 added a fourth referent, that of the role of the teacher, as a necessary consideration in developing curriculum. 21bid., pp. 1, 2. 3James B. MacDonald, "Some Contributions of a General Behavioral Theory for Curriculum." Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1956. 4Joseph J. Schwab, "The Teaching of Science: the Teaching of Science as Enquiry; Elements in a Strategy for Teaching Science" in Th; Elementary School by Paul F. Brandwein (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). 14 Others, notably Tabas and Goodlad,6 have further elaborated on Tyler's basic work to the extent that we have algorithims and comprehen- sive sets of heuristics as guidelines for curriculum development. These approaches to curriculum development are primarily prescriptive and imp plicitly assume that planning is a rational and sequential process. Jackson7 felt that such models of rational inquiry have consi- derable descriptive power in examining teacher planning. From his ob- servation of teachers, he noted that teachers begin not with behavioral objectives, but rather with selecting an activity relevant to the sub- ject matter; the teacher's objective in this approach is for each stu- dent to "get" something from involvement in the activity although this something is different for each student. Although Jackson8 was looking at life in classrooms in general and not at planning specifically, he commented on the conceptual simplicity of teachers - that they hold an uncomplicated view of causality, use an intuitive rather than a rational approach to classroom events, are opinionated in their stance on teach- ing alternatives, and have narrow working definitions for abstract terms. His suggestion of viewing teacher planning with rational models of inquiry has been followed by researchers. These studies have util- ized the Tyler model to assess what teachers actually do when they plan. 5Hilda Tabs, Currriculum Development: Theory and Practice (New York: Harcourt, Brace & world, Inc., 1962). 6John I. Goodlad and Maurice N. Richter, Jr., The Development of a Conceptual System for Dealing with Problems of Curriculum and Instruc- tion, Cooperative Research Project #454 (Los Angeles: University of California School of Education, 1966). 79111111: Jackson, The WaLTeaching Is, ASCD, NEA, 1966. 8Philip-W. Jackson, Life in Classrooms (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968. 15 In emphasizing goal setting in the form of behavioral objectives in teacher training skills, Popham.and Baker9 discovered that teachers did not state behavioral objectives unless they had been specifically trained to do so. ZahoriklO attempted to define, by means of a ques- tionnaire, what kinds of decisions teachers make and which decisions are made first. Decisions used by the greatest number of teachers involved student activities. Teachers generally made content decisions first and decisions about objectives second. Taylorll studied over three hundred secondary teachers in Bri- tain and posed the following questions: how do teachers plan their courses? what criteria do they use? how are these criteria stated? how do the criteria relate to each other? He recorded open and undirected discussions with groups of teachers, examined course syllabi, and re- quested responses to a questionnaire. His findings suggest that teach- ers begin their planning with consideration of the context of teaching, followed by thought about the type of learning situation which will interest and involve their students, and then they give attention to the purposes of their teaching. Based on these findings, Taylor believes that teachers are aware of the complexities of the planning process. 9W. James Popham and Eva L. Baker, Establishing Instructional Goals (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1970). 10J. A. Zahorik, "Teachers' Planning Mbdels," paper presented at the meetings of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, D. C., April, 1975. 11Philip H. Taylor, How Teachers Plan Their Courses (New York: NFER Publishing Company, Ltd., 1970). 16 "What they do not seem to have done is to develop a procedure for syste- matically taking them into account."12 Morine13 investigated the differences among teachers in their daily planning. She analyzed written plans and teacher responses on two simulation tasks, and she interviewed teachers after they viewed video- tapes of themselves teaching the lesson they had planned. She found that teachers tended to write fairly specific plans in outline form stating non-behavioral goals and that teachers did not include any men- tion of student preassessment, evaluation procedures, or instructional alternatives. The studies reviewed here verified that, in reality, teachers do not plan in the same way the theorists would have them plan. They do not begin with objectives, and they do not include plans for assessment or alternative methodologies. In short, teachers do not consider Tyler's four questions nor Schwab's four referents in a logical and sequential way. We do know that teachers make decisions about activities and con- tent, and that somewhere in their thinking may be a consideration of goals. Most of this research has depended on teacher reports of plan- ning behavior or on written plans. All of the studies have focused on measuring actual behavior against a postulated ideal of behavior. 121b1d., p. 71. 13Greta Morine, Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study, Special Study C, a Study of Teacher Planning (San Francisco: Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development, March 15, 1976). 17 However, a proposed study by Harnischfeger and Wiley14 is viewb ing planning from the standpoint of grouping and individualization, time allocation, curricular choices, and use of aids. And Smith and Geofé frey15 in their study of an urban classroom, assumed the primary goal of planning to be the establishment of a social system in the classroom where the teacher was concerned with sequencing of material, finding common experiences and textbooks to meet student needs for relevance, and planning around the frequency of interrupted activities in the classroom. A third study which diverges from the Tyler model has recently been completed by Yinger.16 His research is the most comprehensive study done to date on planning. By using ethnographic and information processing methods over a five month period of time, he studied one teacher's thought processes in depth. He found that teaching was by no means a simple process; that the teacher he studied focused her planning on activities; that much of her planning involved the selection, organi- zation, and sequencing of routines; and that a teacher's planning, while not following the Tyler model, does indeed have its own rationality. Yinger proposed a structural model of a particular teacher's planning behavior and suggested a theoretical model of teacher planning in 14Annegret Harnischfeger and David E. Wiley, "Conceptual and Policy Issues in Elementary School Teaching -- Learning Processes," proposal for research project submitted to Basic Skills Group, National Institute of Education. 15Louis M. Smith and William Geoffrey, The Complexities of an Urban Classroom (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1968). 16Robert Yinger, A Study of Teacher Planning: Description and Theory Development UsiggEthnographic and Information Processinngethods. Unpublished dissertation, Michigan State University, 1977. 18 general. He noted that his model did not include data about group plan— ning decisions like those in team teaching situations because the social variables in such a situation complicate the process. He further pointed out that these types of decisions had not been examined by any study of teacher planning. These last three studies are relevant in their divergence from the Tyler model in examining planning. They are not so concerned with goal setting's being the first step in a sequential process. Smith and Geoffrey's work, although not about planning in particular, alludes to a differing conception of planning functions for a particular'teacher. Yinger's research was conducted in a way that responded to this sugges- tion and a model of teacher planning was proposed based on data col- 1ected on one individual, previous planning research, and planning theory in fields other than teaching. This notion of examining plan- ning from the teacher's perspective is a new one since it has been found only recently in the existing literature on teacher planning. Summary Most of the studies of teacher planning have been based on Tyler's assumptions that planning is a rational and sequential process that proceeds from consideration of goals, through methodology and or— ‘ ganization, to evaluation. The studies have found that teachers do not plan this way; instead, they consider activities and content most fre- quently. It was suggested that while teachers may be aware of the com- plexity of the planning process, it is difficult for them to approach planning systematically. Three studies were mentioned that suggest 19 different conceptions of planning. This section has related what is known about teacher planning and how the concept has been studied. Out of this review has emerged the notion of studying planning from.the perspective of the teacher, rather than from.the perspective of the prescriptive theorists. The perspective of the teacher includes answers to the exploratory questions of when and where do teachers plan, what do they plan for, what do they take into consideration as they plan, and is their planning goal oriented. Teaming The literature on team teaching falls into two categories. There is a body of writing which describes various team teaching projects and proposes definitions, purposes, and guidelines for effective teams. There are also several reports of research conducted on teaching teams. Early Descriptions of Team Teaching Team.teaching has its origins in a series of experimental pro- jects launched by the Commission on Curriculum Planning and Develop- ment.17 The Commission, led by J. Lloyd Trump, was created by the Na- tional Association of Secondary School Principals in 1956 to study the problems connected with the teacher shortage and to find new approaches to such problems as curriculum development, teaching methods, recruit- ment and training of teachers, and space and staff utilization. The staff utilization projects alone involved nearly one hundred junior and senior high schools across the country, and the most significant idea generated was that of team teaching. Ironically, however, many of the 17David W. Beggs, III, ed., Team Teaching} Bold New Venture (Bloomington: 'Indiana University Press, 1964). 20 team teaching experiments were conducted in elementary school. The first team teaching project was set up at Franklin School in Lexington, Massachusetts, with a grant from the Ford Foundation in 1957. There have been many definitions of team teaching formulated by both theorists and practitioners. Shaplin, one of the original con- ceivers of the concept of team teaching, along with Francis Keppel and Robert Anderson, defines the concept as: ...a type of instructional organization, involving teaching personnel and the students assigned to them, in which two or more teachers are given responsibility, working together, for all or a significant part of the instruction of the same group of students.1 He points out that the definition is descriptive and is based on the pro- jects. He cites several projects which emphasize differing purposes of the team. A team.in Norwalk, Connecticut, focused on improvement of career opportunities for teachers; a school in Easton, Pennsylvania, used a team situation to provide for different levels of ability and was utilized only for academically capable senior high students in Eng- lish, history, and mathematics; the University of Chicago Lab School used well qualified teachers in a variety of disciplines to provide for differences in student ability, interest, and need. Singer19 defines team teaching as an arrangement whereby two or more teachers, with or without teacher aides, cooperatively plan, in- struct, and evaluate one or more class groups in an appropriate 18Judson T. Shaplin and Henry F. Olds, Team Teaching_(New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 15. ”Ire J. Singer, "What Team Teaching Really Is," in David w. Beggs, III, ed., Team Teaching: Bold New Venture (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1964). 21 instructional space and given length of time, so as to take advantage of the special competencies of the team members. The basic factors nec- essary to a team teaching situation involve cooperative planning, in- struction, and evaluation; student grouping for specific purposes; flex- ible daily scheduling; use of teacher aides; recognition and utilization of individual teacher talents; use of space and media appropriate to the purpose and content of instruction. Teams may include teachers of the same discipline, teachers representing different subject areas,om teach- ers who have students for a two- to four-year period. Some of the ob- jectives of team.teaching, according to Singer, are the following: (1) To develop creativity, adaptability, responsibility, \éw and habits of inquiry in students. (2) To make more intelligent use of teachers' specialized talents, interests, training, time, and energy. (3) To improve the quality of teaching through the in- service nature of the team design. (4) To provide a program of student grouping which permits instruction to be more effectively geared to individual student ability. (5) To provide realistic treatment of individual differences to supplement the identifying and diagnosing of these differences. (6) To provide time and facilities during the school day for teachers to prepare lessons, develop imaginative materials, and keep abreast of new developments. (7) To provide students with group experiences prerequisite to successful citizenship in a democratic society. 0 Begg321 identifies some assumptions made about teachers who work in teams. He feels that they can work productively and in harmony with 201b1d., pp. 27-28. 21Beggs. 22 other teachers on instructional problems. An improvement in teaching performance can occur through team membership, and teachers are afforded an opportunity to specialize in content and methods of instruction. Beggs further points out that more research is needed to support the con- tention that team teaching helps to improve staff competency. While many varieties of teaming exist, the researcher needs to consider the common aspect across all teams of content, instructional procedures, learning group size, student composition, duration of class meetings, and fre- quency of class meetings. He supports team teaching primarily because it brings the teacher out of isolation. Another framework for describing teams is presented by Olds.22 He suggests four categories for differentiating teams. The first is the structural requirements of the school and includes such characteristics as gradedness, departmental structure; school size, resources, and goals. The second area to be examined is autonomy - of pupils, of teachers, of curriculum, and of schedules within the team. A third category involves the authority structure and degree of specialization among teachers on the team. Finally, a researcher needs to examine how the team coordi- nates both procedural and substantive issues and concerns. Hair and Woodward23 view team teaching as a "practical means to a desirable end, the improvement of the teaching-learning process." For them, the team represents a solution to the problems of the teacher shortage, the knowledge explosion, additional understandings of child growth and development, and the redefinitions of the purposes of 22Shaplin and Olds, Chapter 4. 23Miedill Bair and Richard G. WOodward, Team.Teachigg in Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), p. 11. 23 education. Group diagnosis, planning, and evaluation are superior to individual efforts in these areas; more sharing will occur between and among teachers. The concept of team teaching lies in the spirit of cooperative planning, constant collaboration, close units, unrestrained communication, and sincere sharing rather than in the details of struc- ture and organization as they claim: Overriding all these characteristics is a fierce spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction with current curricula, and a sense of personal commitment by team teaching personnel to improve the manner in which the needs of youngsters are met. This spirit cannot be expressed - it can only be felt -- but a visitor to a team teaching school soon has a strong sense that here, perhaps more than in most schools, are teachers who deeply care about what happens to their pupils.24 Hair and Wbodward also feel that flexibility is important and that the team is more than a collection of individuals. Planning in a teaming situation is discussed in some detail. They emphasize five types of decisions to be made in the planning pro- cess: goals, methods, grouping, pacing activities (time), and evalua- tion. An entire chapter is devoted to a description by the team.leader of the planning of one team during their second year in operation. The team consisted of the leader whose subject area was language arts; two senior teachers, one in science and mathematics and the other in social studies; three teachers, one clerical aide, and one teaching aide. Dur- ing the team's first year, they grouped students in five homogenous groups in language arts and math, and in five heterogeneous groups in science and social studies. The function of the team leader was to ob- serve, teach demonstration lessons, plan and execute large group lessons, conduct seminars, give individual instruction, develop new curricula, 24Ibid., p. 34. 24 familiarize the team.with new research, do individual pupil analysis, and to suggest new lessons to the teachers. During their second year together, they changed the team organi- zation. Each teacher taught in each subject area. They had two typesof planning meetings - one to discuss their weekly plans and one for long range planning of team units. When they met to share their weekly plans for language arts and math, they listened to each other to determine the following: (1) If other pupils might benefit from what another teacher was doing. (2) Check for overlap between groups and possibly combine students for large group work. (3) Check for continuous pupil progress. (4) Check for a balance of emphasis for each child.25 In addition to these formal meetings, there was much subteam.planning. The leader diagnosed reading difficulties and then worked with indivi- dual teachers on how best to serve a particular student. This description of an actual planning process was unique. Much of the literature did not address itself to the issue or importance of planning, per se; many of the books and articles, after describing a particular project, would set forth a list of guidelines to be followed. In regard to planning, Trump commented: The average teacher should not be scheduled with groups of students more than fifteen hours per week. This will pro- vide teachers with the time they need for professional plan- ning...Until teachers have time for professional planning, 251bid., p. 98. 25 with all that that term implies, there is little likelihood that ma or improvements in the quality of education will result. 5 The views of planning presented in the team teaching literature usually reflect a particular purpose or goal for teaming. Anderson27 forsaw a lack of adequate time for planning and evaluation as a major problem in team teaching. The greatest potential in teaming was providing impetus to significant curriculum improvement. A different view of team teaching was presented by Cunningham.28 He established the following rules as musts for real teams: (1) Examine together goals and objectives of their students. (2) Share joint responsibility for instruction of a group. (3) Spend major part of planning time in cooperative planning. (4) Assume responsibility for criticizing members' perfor- mances. (5) Develop evaluation techniques together. (6) Criticize their subjects to make them more meaningful. (7) Bring total resources to bear on the growth of each student.29 Meeting these criteria would allow for effective group planning which, in turn, would result in quality presentations to the large group of students. Lectures would allow for even more planning time. Thus, for 26J. Lloyd Trump, "Some Questions and Answers about Suggestions for Improving Staff Utilization," Bulletin of the NASSP, Vol. 45, No. 261 (January, 1961), pp. 19-28. 27Robert Anderson, "Team Teaching," NEA Journal, Vol. 50, No. 3 (March, 1961). Pp. 52-54. 28Luvern L. Cunningham. "When Is a Team a Team?"H Mg hSchool Jour- nal, Vol. 45, No. 1 (October, 1961). 29Ibid., pp. 7-13. 26 Cunningham, as for others, planning is the key to a successful team. He specified what team planning meetings would be like in the following way: Cooperating teachers need to establish a planning routine and approach the task in a business-like way...At planning sessions content must be discussed, teaching responsibilities have to be allocated and agreed upon, provisions for examin- ing must be intelligently thought through, problems of in- dividual students must be aired, and the clarification of specific classroom objectives made. Most of the literature on teaming has not differentiated among teaming in elementary, middle, and senior high schools. DiVirgilio31 comments that not enough has been written about interdisciplinary teams used by middle schools with their emphasis on preadolescents ...as growing organisms in need of a curriculum and process that is dynamic, relevant, and subject to change as deter- mined by teachers who have professional knowledge and skills in child growth and development.3 He suggests three reasons why interdisciplinary teams hold meetings: (1) To become professionally effective with children as beings which implies discussing, evaluating, and act- ing of adjustment, level of operation, quality and quantity of work, homework, and services available for students. (2) To become professionally effective in the selection and use of various teaching strategies including in- dividualizing and the necessary logistics for dif— fering strategies. (3) To become professionally effective in planning and organizing the curriculum.33 He further believes that if teams are not effective, it is because their objectives are not clarified. 3OIbid., p. 11. 31James DiVirgilio, "Guidelines for Effective Interdisciplinary Teams," Clearninghouse, Vol. 47, No. 4 (December, 1972), pp. 209-211. 321bid., p. 209. 33Ibid. 27 This emphasis on clarification and communication is viewed as crucial by several authors writing on teaming. Heller and Belford comment: Perhaps in no other teaching situation is the need for ini- tial understanding among the faculty members as important and vital to the success of an enterprise. It is not easy for teachers to share their ideas in a manner which is free from excessive ego involvement, professional jealousies, and biases. Michael35 views the value of team.teaching as being determined by the extent to which team organization allows effective coordination of the variables of time, space, group size, group composition, teacher assign- ment, and resource allocation. Heller36 writes of the importance of pliability, the maintenance of individual strengths while remaining flexible enough to use various abilities in a variety of ways. This includes respect for the worth of all the members of the team. COOpera- tion is needed on even minor details and communication must be clear, free, and open. As an example, he includes notifying others of changes in plans and spending little time on gossip and petty discussions in the team meetings. In a section on the decision making process of teams, Buffie stresses the uniqueness of each team, depending on their background and personality characteristics: 34Melvin P. Heller and Elizabeth Belford, "Team Teaching and Staff Utilization in Ridgewood High School," NASSP Bulletin, January, 1962. 35Lloyd S. Michael, "Team Teaching," Bulletin of the NASSP, Vol.4Z No. 283 (May, 1963). PP. 36-63. 36Melvin P. Heller, "Qualities for Team Members," in David W. Beggs, III, ed., Team Teaching: Bold New Venture (Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, 1964). 28 Each of these elements contributes to the determination of the particular Operational procedures used by the teaching team within the broad framework of the school-wide construct. The team members determine by their interaction with each other how positive the functional operation will be.37 Buffie suggests an examination of the decisions the team makes about group size, organization and operation. What decisions do they make and how do they make them? Koob38 warns that a team will have problems if purposes are not clearly understood, if there are personality problems, if duties overlap, or if missing details are not planned for. Lovell echoes these same thoughts: A most important aspect of team.teaching is the degree of coordination among members of the team. It has repeatedly been shown that members must at least partially accept the goals and structure of the team in order to insure its smooth working. Team members must have, more or less, a common philosophy so that they will have, within limits, the same order of priorities. 9 And Chamberlin40 believes that team teaching demands that all cooperat- ing teachers have common objectives. Essentially, teaming is a coopera- tive effort and a successful team must collaborate, communicate, and cooperate. Such is the literature written on team teaching from practi- tioners and the theorists who have worked with them on the projects . 37Edward G. Buffie, "Potentials for Team Teaching in the Junior High School," in David W. Beggs, III, ed., Team.Teaching: Bold New Ven- ture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), p. 65. 38Albert C. Koob, "What Is Team Teaching?" in C. Albert Koob and J. Lloyd Trump, eds., Shgping the Future (Washington, D. 0.: National Catholic Educational Association, 1966). 39Ken Lovell, Team Teaching (University of Leeds, Institute of 40Leslie J. Chamberlin, Team Teaching: ‘Qgganization and Adminis- tration (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co., 1969). 29 conducted under the asupices of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Team teaching is viewed in many different ways, and several authors have made grandiose claims for its potential to solve virtually all of the problems faced by educators. In summarizing this review of the descriptions of teaching teams, it can be seen that a variety of kinds of teams exist. The teams have different purposes and different structures. While the various authors present their own biases and guidelines for team operation, they all as— sume, either implicitly or explicitly, the necessity of cooperation, coordination, communication, and agreement on purpose as key variables to the effectiveness of a teaching team. The areas in which teams co- operate, coordinate, communicate are many. The areas suggested are gen- erally similar to the questions posed by Tyler and include purposes, ex- periences, logistics, and evaluation. These categories are often stated in terms of the more specific decisions made such as students,diagnosis, grouping, time, space, and materials allocation. What is important in this review is the deveIOpment of the concept of team agreement as a necessary component of effective teams. While teams may have different purposes and structures, it is important to discover those areas in which they agree, communicate, coordinate, and cooperate. Thus, there is support for examining what teachers plan for, how a team is organ- ized and areas in which the team members agree. Research on Teaching Teams A group of researchers at Stanford University, working on the Environment for Teaching program, have conducted several studies which focus on team teaching. In studying team.arganization, 30 Molnar41 looked at teacher interaction in six planning meetings, at team status structure, and at teacher perceptions of decision making author- ity as indicators of influence and autonomy. She found that when people work together in groups, there is conflict between individual autonomy and group power. When these forces are balanced, there will be less conflict in the group. There needs to be coordination of individual and group instructional activities so that there will be little conflict between the individual and the group. Where participation is equal, conflict is minimized because individuals feel a sense of influence within the group. Molnar felt that the important decisions to be made by the team included grouping, scheduling, and classroom management. Bredo42 looked at elementary teams with regard to the context in which they worked and focused on the work organization of the team, of ways members work together and coordinate their work. His contextual variables are architecture, team autonomy, and team size; his interven- ing variables were collegial influence, team morale, and instructional practice. He defined three levels of interdependence. The lowest level was a team in which the members worked alone and shared only ideals or materials. Next, was a team.ln which there was a division of labor and where students were exchanged, but teachers worked separately; The most interdependent team required more personal coordination. Bredo 41Sheila R. F. Molnar, Teachers in Teams: Interaction, Influence, and Autonomy (Technical Report No. 22) (Stanford, California: Stanford Center for Research and Development in Teaching, 1971). 42Eric Bredo, Collaborative Relationships on TeachingiTeams: Imp plications for Collegial Influence Team Morale, and Instructional Prac- ,tices (Technical Report No. 45) (Stanford, California: Stanford Center for Research and DeveIOpment in Teaching, 1975). 31 categorized coordination as programmed communication, lateral communi- cation, or hierarchical communication. He administered a Likert ques- tionnaire to sixteen schools with a total of 226 teachers. His speci- fic findings included the following: (1) Small teams work together more easily. (2) Autonomous teams are happy teams. (3) Common policies were related to higher morale and collegial influence. (4) Open space schools' teams had more participation among members. (5) Teams are happy when the interdependencies are voluntary. (6) It is easier to practice individualized instruc- tion in teams. (7) In open space schools, non-routine instruction was more difficult. (8) Non-routine instruction was easier with joint teaching.43 In general he found that teaching teams are mostly small, equal status groups with unimportant or non-binding interdependencies because of the uncertain nature of the teaching task which makes coordination dif- ficult. In summarizing the Stanford research on teaming, Cohen44 come mented on the wide variety of work relationships. For this reason, she suggests that rather than studying teaming, researchers should focus on the concept of interdependence, or the degree to which other teachers 43Ibid., pp. 30-31. 44Elizabeth G. Cohen, Problems and Prospects of Teaming (Research and Development Memorandum No. 743) (Stanford, California: Stanford Center for Research and Development in Teaching, 1976). 32 are taken into account when a teacher makes decisions about time, con- tent, teaching approach, and the extent to which teachers actually teach jointly. She developed a scale which measured this interdepen- dence and administered it to over two hundred teachers. The conclusions which are significant to this study included the following: that teach- ers communicate and evaluate each other more often in an informal man- ner in Open space schools; that teachers encountering team.problems tend to give up joint teaching and drOp down to a level of interdepen- dence requiring less in the way of time, coordination, and communica- tion; and that team.teaching may be inherently unstable, expecially when a whole school is teamed. Cohen emphasized the role of the prin- cipal in supporting and coordinating a complex staffing pattern. As a group becomes more interdependent, it can sustain complex and sophisti- cated instruction which requires non-routine decision making. A neces- sary prerequisite to effective teaming is active participation of all the team members. From the Stanford research can be gleaned the concept of inter- dependence. Effective coordination balances the conflict between indi- vidual autonomy and group power. Because team teaching is unstable, the interdependence within teaching teams tends to be non-binding, and this makes coordination on non-routine tasks difficult. Thus a team will coordinate in those areas in which its members can agree, and this will balance the conflict between the individual and the group. Summary The literature on team teaching was reviewed in two areas. The early descriptions Of team.teaching projects and the definitions and 33 guidelines they proposed suggested that a variety of purposes and struc- tures exist for teaching teams. What is important is that teams must agree, communicate, coordinate, and cooperate. The areas in which they agree may provide a basis on which to analyze teaching teams. The re- search conducted on teams suggests a need for further study of the con- cept of interdependence, or the degree to which teachers take each other into account in their decision making. Coordination occurs in those areas in which team members can agree, and it balances the con- flict between the individual and the group. The questions of team.or- ganization, agreement, and balance between the group and its indivi- duals are legitimate and, in part, derive from the literature on team teaching. Groups In the preceeding sections of this chapter, literature on teacher planning and on team teaching was reviewed for the purpose of understanding these two concepts and of determining how they had been studied and what infommation these efforts yielded. In order to clarify further the concept of a teaching team, a theoretical perspec- tive on groups will be offered. Klaus and Glaser45 distinguish teams from small groups in their naval research. They defined teams as well organized, highly struc- tured, and having formal Operating procedures such as baseball teams and aircraft crews. Groups, on the other hand, are not so formal nor well defined and specialized; examples include a jury, a board of 45Robert Glaser, "Descriptive Variables for the Study of Task Oriented Groups," Current Trends in the Description and Analysis of Behavior (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958). 34 trustees. In addition, teams have well defined member assignments, depend on the cooperation of specialists, are involved with equipment or perceptual motor tasks, and can be given specific guidance based on task analysis or the team mission or situation. Groups have assumed rather than designated positions so that task accomplishment depends on members' personal characteristics. Furthermore, groups are usually in- volved with complex decision making and cannot be given specific gui- dance because the quality and quantity of participation by individuals is not known. With this kind of distinction in mind, team teaching is more of a group than a team in the strict sense of the word. However, Mblnar noted that while teaching teams are a special kind of small group, much of the experimental research in small groups does not apply to teaching teams. Teaching teams and experimental small groups are similar in that each is task oriented and the tasks are of a collective nature. Teaching teams are different from the groups studied in experimental small group research in two ways. First, team teacher tasks are multi- ple and varied, whereas experimental small groups perform only a single task. Furthermore, teams are continuing groups, whereas experimental small groups meet for a predetermined and limited number of times. Even though the experimental small group research may not be valid in studying teaching teams, some of the theoretical concepts of small groups are applicable to teaching teams. Shaplin distinguishes two types of groups: the primary and the secondary. The primary or affective or expressive group point of view emphasizes friendship and personal factors. The secondary or working or instrumental or task oriented group literature stresses organization, group goals,. principles 35 of universalism.and achievement. Shaplin feels that much of the litera- ture views teaching teams as primary groups. He suggests the need to view teaching teams as secondary groups and to examine their social structure, organization, leadership, goal behavior, communication sys- tems, and morale. He cites the Getzels and Thelen46 model as useful and powerful in looking at teams as social systems because the model suggests many fruitful dimensions which have been ignored. Mbre specifically, Shaplin defines some of these dimensions. The model focuses on goal directed behavior in defining goals and es- tablishing roles and role expectations. Getzels and Thelen include personalities and need dispositions which have an important effect on the way these role expectations are met. A group may take on a climate and intentions which are at variance with the formal objectives of the team. In turn, the formal organization of the team meshes with indivi- dual personalities and needs. Finally, the model is useful in its de- lineation of the types of conflict which may arise. Getzels and Thelen outline the characteristics of working groups. All working groups have a goal they wish to achieve, partici- pants who are linked together to achieve the goal, group activities which are located in some type of leadership, and relationships to other groups or to a larger institution. They emphasize that groups are like indiyiduals in having a unique character, and that "the unique 46Jacob W. Getzels and Herbert A. Thelen, "The Classroom Group as a Unique Social System," in The Dynamics of Instructional Groups, ed. by Nelson B. Henry. The 59th Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), pp. 53-82. 36 character...lies in the peculiar configuration of the specific charac- teristics."47 There are two classes of characteristics in viewing the group as a social system. First, there are institutions with certain roles and role expectations that will achieve the goals of the system. All social systems have functions which must be carried out in certain es- tablished ways; thus, these functions are institutionalized. The most important unit of the institution is the role or dynamic aspect of a position which defines the behavior of the person in that position. Roles are defined in terms of role expectations or behaviors that are appropriate for the person occupying a certain position. Roles are in- terdependent and cement the units of the institution together in a way that is rational and goal-directed. Secondly, there are real indivi- duals who hold these roles. These individuals have personalities or dynamic organizations of need dispositions which govern an individual's unique reactions to the environment and its expectations. Getzels an Thelen view these need dispositions as the central analytic elements within the individual. Thus, they postulate the following graphic description of these two classes of characteristics operating within a working group:48 institution -—> role ———> expectation social . -Observed system , behavior individual -—€> personalitya—fi) need disposition 471b1d., p. 53. 431b1d., p. 69. 37 It is this interaction of institutions and their roles and expectations with actual and unique individuals which produces behavior that is ob- served. Getzels and Thelen enlarge upon this model by adding other di- mensions. To the individual aspect, they add a biological aspect; and to the institutional dimension, they add an anthropological dimension so that the model becomes:49 ethos -——e> mofes -——§> values institution -——e> role. -—-—€> expectation social observed system behavior individuali-—§> personality -fi>»need disposition organism -——€> constitution -—€> potentialities Conflicts may occur among the different dimensions in the dia- gram. For example, the values in society may be in conflict with the expectations of the institution. Or the expectatitons of the institu- tion may be in disagreement with individual need dispositions, which could be at crossed purposes with an individual's potential. Getzels and Thelen view the group as mediator between role and personality con- flicts. "It mediates between the institutional requirements and the individual dispositions."50 They have represented its position in the following way: 49Tb1d., p. 73. 50Ibid., p. 79. 38 Ar moaufiamfiuoouoe TI coauouaumcoo T amfiomwuo 0O Av poo)... g a a A. 6C 332 All EHizommun inn—SEE NA\ m. h g g f ESE n .238 «Sign Adel. monezmezH All Esau .5on All < 2 .28 m $30 an a A _ A. / mzofiflumaxm All Boa onsBEmzH A... _ A A J. mosao> T memos monuo 39 The group is seen as an integrative structure which reflects the inter- play among the different dimensions of the individual and the institu- tion. Viewed in this light, the behavior of the group is goal directed, but those goals and the behavior represent the dynamic interaction among individuals and their perceptions and the larger forces of their envi— ronment. ' Bion defines a good work group as having the following charac- teristics: (l) A common purpose. (2) Common recognition by members of the group of the boundaries of the group and their positions and func- tions in relation to those of larger units or groups. (3) The capacity to absorb new members and to lose old members without fear of losing group individuality. (4) Freedom from internal subgroups having rigid boun- daries and the value of subgroups to the main group must be recognized. (5) Each individual is valued for his contribution to the group and has free movement within it. (6) Group must have the capacity to face and the means to cope with discontent within the group. (7) The minimum.size is three.51 Groups which meet these characteristics are what Bion refers to as ma- ture or work groups. The work group takes cognizance of its purpose and can define its task. For this group, a task exists and cooperation is achieved by SOphisticated means. He further comments: I attribute great force and influence to the work group, which, through its concern with reality, is compelled 51W. R. Bion, Experiences in Groups (New York: Basic Books,1959), pp. 25-26. 40 to employ the methods of science in no matter how rudi- mentary a form. He believes that the organization and structure of the group are the product of cooperation among members of the group and that this organi- zation and structure function to obtain still further cooperation from the individuals. Bion's work group depends on the ability of each individual to use his skills toward the group goal, to meet his own needs and at the same time accomplish the group task. Bion has lent a psychological in- terpretation to explaining small group behavior. His is a description of how groups operate in the same way that Getzels and Thelen offered a way to help understand how the purposes of the group can be viewed through their organization and their behavior. The group's behavior represents a compromise of all the individuals within the group as well as a compromise with the institutional environment it is located in. Bion's concept of boundaries has been further clarified by Rice who proposed the following: (1) The effectiveness of every intergroup relationship is determined, so far as its overt purposes are concerned, by the extent to which the groups involved have to de- fend themselves against uncertainty about the integrity of their boundaries, and (2) Every relationship - between individuals, within small ~ groups, and within large groups as well as between groups - has the characteristics of an intergroup re- lationship.53 521bid., p. 135. 53A. K. Rice, "Individual, Group and Intergroup Process," Human Relations, V01. 22’ NO. 6, P. 5650." 41 In other words, groups are effective only when they are certain of their boundaries. Boundaries must be made clear that exist among members within the group and that exist between one group and the larger insti- tution. A group is affected by what the larger institution does in carrying out its tasks, and the group must fit into this larger plan. Summary Teaching teams are not teams in a strict or experimental sense of the word; nor are they experimental small groups. However, the theoretical perspective of small groups proposed by Getzels and Thelen offers a framework that is applicable to teaching teams. In their model, the group acts as a mediator between institutional roles and individual members. Thus, it is worthwhile to examine both the team organization and the way in which a particular group of individuals work together. Summary The purpose of this chapter has been to review relevant litera- ture in the areas of teacher planning, team teaching, and small groups in order to formulate a conceptual framework within which the process of planning that occurs in a middle school teaching team can be de- scribed, explained, and understood. The literature on teacher planning suggests the need to study planning from the perspective of the teachen The literature on team.teaching stressed the importance of teacher co- ordination or interdependence and raised the possibility of this inter- dependence's occurring in areas in which there is agreement and balanc- ing conflicts between the individual and the group. A small group per- spective suggests that the group acts as a mediator between institution 42 requirements and individual dispositions of its members; the group's organization reflects areas of agreement and, thus, degree interdepen- dence among individual members. MOre specifically, this chapter has provided a framework and support for asking the following questions posed in Chapter I: When and where do teachers plan as a team? What do the teachers do when they plan as a team? How is the team organized? What do the teachers agree on? What do they plan for as a team? What do they take into consideration when they plan as a team? Is their planning goal oriented? What is the balance between the individual and the team in their planning? How do these individuals work together as a team? What is the role of the team in planning? CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Introduction The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the pro- cess of planning that takes place within a seventh grade teaching team in a middle school. The reason for such a study is to allow the re- searcher to study teacher planning within the group interaction of the team, as it becomes verbalized and thus observable. The method chosen for such a study is participant observation. In this chapter the methodology of participant observation will be discussed. Specifically, the theory underlying participant observa- tion will be presented and the rationale for utilizing this methodology will be explained. In addition, the processes followed by the re- searcher and the limits of these processes and this methodology will be described. Theory Participant observation as a methodology has its roots in the theory of symbolic interaction. A major tenet of symbolic interaction is that man has a self and is able to give meaning to Objects. The no- tion that man has a self is central because it allows him."to make in- dications to himself of things in his surroundings and thus to guide his 43 44 actions by what he notes."1 Blumer explains the importance of this con- cept as follows: First, to indicate something is to extricate it from its setting, to hold it apart, to give it a meaning or, in Mead's language, to make it into an object. An object -- that is to say, anything that an individual indicates to himself - is different from a stimulus; instead of having an intrinsic character which acts on the individual and which can be identified apart from the individual, its character or meaning is conferred on it by the individual. The object is a product of the individual's disposition to act instead of being an antecedent stimulus which evokes the act. Instead of the individual's being surrounded by an environment of pre-existing objects which play upon him and call forth his behavior, the proper picture is that he constructs his objects on the basis of his on-going ac- tivity. In any of his countless acts...the individual is designating different objects to himself, giving them mean- ing, judging their suitability to his action, and making decisions on the basis of the judgment.2 An individual does not merely react to a stimulus; rather, he is able to interpret and define what goes on about him. In between man's per- ception and his behavior lies his thinking, his judging, his ability to make sense of his environment. His perceptions about himself and his environment are built up over time as he continually interacts with his environment. The idea that his action is constructed or build-up means that human behavior is not a mere release. According to Blumer: Whatever the action in which he is engaged, the human indi- vidual proceeds by pointing out to himself the divergent things which have to be taken into account in the course of his action. He has to note what he wants to do and how he is to do it; he has to point out to himself the various con- ditions which may be instrumental to his action and those which may obstruct his action. His action is built up step by step through a process of such self-indication. The human 1Blumer, p. 141. 21pm. 45 individual pieces together and guides his action by taking account of different things and interpreting their signi- ficance for his prospective action. Thus, man's behavior is based upon his interpretation of the objects, the people, and the happenings of his environment. While "any particu- lar action is formed in the light of the situation in which it takes place," the individual acts are "constructed...through a process of interpretation."4 Based on this conception of the individual, Blumer defines group action as the: ...fitting together of individual lines of action. Each individual aligns his aciton to the action of others by ascertaining what they are doing or what they intend to do - that is, by getting the meaning of their acts.5 In this way the group becomes an acting unit, similar to the individual. as it interacts with its environment -— assessing, judging, interpret- ing, and acting upon its collective perceptions. Blumer believes that it is this process of interpretation or definition that is the "core of human action,"6 and that is crucial to the analysis of what occurs in human groups: All sociologists - unless I presume too much - recognizes that human group activity is carried on, in the main, through a process of interpretation or definition. As human beings we act singly, collectively, and societally on the basis of the meanings which things have for us. we can and, I think, must look upon human group life as chiefly a vast interpretative process in which people, 3Ibid. 4Ibid., p. 145. SIbid., p. 142. 61bid., p. 87. 46 singly and collectively, guide themselves by defining the objects, events, and situations which they encounter. The process of interpretation may be viewed as a vast di- gestive process through which the confrontation31mf experi- ence are transformed into activity. While the process of interpretation does not embrace everything that leads to the formation of human group activity and structure, it is, I think, the chief means through which human group life goes on and takes shape. For Blumer, the process of interpretation is the key to socio- logical analysis. In order to know and to understand group life, the researcher must understand how the group he is studying interprets the world around them; he must know their context for behavior. It is this context which shapes their behavior. In the case of this particular study, it is this process of interpretation which gives meaning to team planning behavior. Wilson8 observes that man's behavior is grounded in his percep- tions and interpretations of his environment; that the social scientist cannot understand human behavior without understanding the framework within which subjects interpret their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Objectivity comes from studying behavior within the context of its sub- jects and their thoughts, feelings, and actions. The methodology of participant observation is predicated upon the idea that the researcher becomes a participant in the group and comes to adopt its perSpective. At the same time that he is a participant, he is also an observer so that he may become aware of the distinctiveness of the group's unique 7Ibid., p. 88. 8Stephen Wilson, "The Use of Ethnographic Techniques in Educational Research," Review of Educational Research (Winter, 1977), Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 245-265. 47 perspective. Wilson maintains that it is this dynamic tension between the dual roles of participant and observer that allows the researcher to remain objective. This theoretical stance forms the basis of the method's validity which will be discussed later in this chapter. A group is a part of an individual's environment and it is also similar to an individual in that group behavior must be grounded in the context of the group's collective perception, interpretations, and judgments. A group can come to have a unique view of the world in the same way an individual has his perceptions and interpretations to each other when they are together and thus the group forms its own perspec- tive, or ordered view of the world, which enables them to work together. Wilson notes that behavior must be studied in such a natural setting so that the behavior is natural and not artificial and also because "such settings generate regularities in behavior that often transcend dif- 9 This theoretical stance forms the basis ferences among individuals." of the method's reliability which will be discussed later in the chap- ter. Methodologically symbolic interaction theory has the following implications: Insofar as sociologists or students of human society are concerned with the behavior of acting units, the position of symbolic interaction requires the student to catch the process of interpretation through which they construct their actions.12 He continues: 9Ibid., p. 247. . 10Blumer, p. 145. 48 To catch the process, the student must take the role of the acting unit whose behavior he is studying. Since the inter- pretation is being made by the acting unit in terms of ob: jects designated and appraised, meanings acquired, and de- cisions made, the process has to be seen from the standpoint of the acting unit.ll Blumer summarizes the relationship of a method acknowledging the process of interpretation to the theory of symbolic interaction in the following way: ...based on the premise that the chief means through which human group life operates and is formed in a vast, diversi- fied process of definition. The scheme respects the empiri- cal existence of this process. It devotes itself to the analysis of the Operation and formation of human group life as these occur through this process. In doing so it seeks to trace the patterns of relations, and social forms are develOped, rather than to relate these formations to a set of selected items. It views items of social life as arti- culated inside moving structures and believes that they have to be understood in terms of this articulation. Thus, it handles these items not as discrete things disengaged from their connections, but, instead, as signs of a supporting context which gives them their social character. In its effort to ferret out lines of definition and networks of moving relation, it relies on a distinctive form of pro- cedure. This procedure is to approach the study of group activity through the eyes and experience of people who have developed the activity. Hence, it necessarily requires an intimate familiarity with this experience and with the scenes of its operation. It uses broad and interlacing observation and not narrow and disjunctive observations. For a study of group life, the purpose of which is to describe and explain behavior within the context of the group's process of inter~ pretation with the goal of generating theory, one instance of this type of group life is sufficient. Glaser and Strauss point out that: Theoretical sampling is the process of data collection for generating theory whereby the analyst jointly collects, codes, and analyzes his data and decides what data to collect llIbid. 12Ibid., p. 142. 49 next and where to find them, in order to develOp his theory as it emerges. The process of data collection is controlled by the emerging theory, whether substantive or formal. The initial decisions for theoretical collection of data are based only on a general sociological perspective and on a general subject or problem area. They emphasize that the sample is selected according to the criterion of theoretical purpose. In the case of this particular study, the pur- pose is to describe and explain how one specific teaching team plans. Thus, one specific team is needed. In theoretical sampling, categories and the relationships among them emerge as "hypotheses pertinent to direction of the relation- ship." Glaser and Strauss state that in conventional theorizing: ...one assumes that if the relationship holds for one group under certain conditions, it will probably hold for other groups under the same conditions.1 The purpose of data collection is to describe as thoroughly as possible the dimensions of the categories of behavior and to probe the direction, not the magnitude, of the relationships among them. An adequate theor- etical sample, according to Glaser and Strauss, is one which yields well integrated theory without too many unexplained expectations. The data from which theory is generated must be valid. The ob- servations of the researcher must be accurate, that he recorded what actually occurred among the participants and within the group. The issue of validity of a study involves questions of reality: did it actually happen the way the researcher said it happened? In order to insure an acceptable degree of validity in a participant observation study, Bruyn states six indices of subjective adequacy: 13Glaser and Strauss, p. 105. 14Ibid., p. 106. 50 (1) Time: the more time an individual spends with a group, the more likely it is that he will obtain an accurate perception of the social meaning its members live by. (2) Place: the closer the researcher works geogra- phically to the people he studies, the more ac- curate should be his interpretations. (3) Social circumstances: the number and variety of social circumstances which the observer encounters within the social structure of the community in- crease his accuracy. (4) Language: the researcher and his subjects should share a common language. (5) Intimacy: the greater degree of intimacy the re- searcher achieves, the greater his accuracy. (6) Consensus: confirmation that the meanings inter- preted by the observer are correct. If these criteria are met by the researcher, then his findings are valid, or accurate, and the theory based upon these data is sound. The validity of this type of utilizing theoretical sampling in order to generate theory is addressed philosophically by weber: It is entirely a question of expediency, to be settled se- parately for each individual case, whether a regularly re- current casual relationship of everyday experience should be formulated into a "law." Laws are important and valuable in the exact natural sciences, in the measure that those sciences are universally valid. For the knowledge of his- torical phenomena in their concreteness, the most general laws, because they are most devoid of content are also the least valuable. The more comprehensive the validity - or scape - of a term, the more it leads us away from the rich- ness of reality since in order to include the common elements of the largest possible number of phenomena, it must neces- sarily be as abstract as possible and, hence, devoid of 1SSeveryn T. Bruyn, The Human Perspective in Sociology: the Methodology_9f Participant Observation (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966), p. 181. 51 content. In the cultural sciences, the knowledge of the universal or general is never valuable in itself.1 Weber concludes that any objective analysis of cultural events which re- duces empirical reality to "laws" is meaningless because: Firstly, because the knowledge ofsocial laws is not knowl- edge of social reality, but is rather one of the various aids used by our minds for attaining this end; secondly, because knowledge of cultural events is inconceivable except on a basis of the significance which the concrete constellations of reality have for us in certain indivi- dual concrete situations. In which sense and in which situations this is the case is not revealed to us by any law; it is decided according to the value-ideas in the light of which we view "culture" in each individual case. Thus, the validity of a study of this kind is grounded in the narrative description it presents, allowing the reader to draw his own conclu- sions. It is theciescription of the specific situation which gives meaning to the theory generated. Related to the question of validity is the issue of reliability. Reliability refers to consistency of occurrence of the phenomena ob- served and experienced by the researcher. Data collected must be ac- curate and reliable. The reliability of a participant observation study is merely an extension of the study's validity. It is the con- sistency of the phenomena observed by the researcher which contribute to the validity of the findings. One of the criteria of validity is that of time spent with a group. Over a long period of time, certain phenomena will occur over and over again. These regularities which the researcher notes occurring over time give meaning to a group's view of 16Max Weber, "Objectivity in Social Science and Social Policy," in Max Weber on the Methodology of the Social Sciences, trans. by Edward A. Shills and Henry A. Finch (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1949). 171pm. 52 the world and thus to the generalizations drawn about a particular group within a specific context as they interpret the world about them. In a participant observation study, reliability is a necessary condi- tion for the validity of the study. Rationale Participant observation was chosen as the methodology for this study of teacher planning for several reasons. First, it is consistent with the purpose of this study. Second, the assumptions which parti- cipant observation makes and the theory upon which it is based are con- sonant with group theory and similar to personal assumptions held by the researcher. And third, participant observations provide a method to collect the type of data necessary to answer the questions posed in Chapter I. The purpose of this study is to make teacher planning manifest. One way in which this can be undertaken is to study planning in the natural setting of a team where decisions are talked about among team members. An essential element of participant observation is the study of behavior in a natural setting and within the context of a group. Such methodology allows the researcher not only to study the behavior itself, but also to understand the context in which this behavior has meaning. The study is sociological and the methodology chosen is also sociological. That is to say, the study is a study of groups and the methodology assumes that groups are real, that they are definable, and that behavior can be described in group terms. Participant observation 53 includes study of many kinds of groups, including task groups where the membership is not necessarily voluntary. Participant observation is built upon the concept of man as a perceiving being who interprets the world around him and behaves in ways that are based upon his perceptions and interpretations. Such a conceptual framework is harmonious with researcher bias which is con- cerned with the process rather than the product of the study. This re- searcher assumes that man is a rational being who behaves in ways that make sense for him, based upon his perception of the world and more specifically his perception of his immediate environment. Furthermore, such assumptions are also consistent with the Getzels and Thelen model of groups. Getzels and Thelen view the group as a mediator between the individual members and the institutional role requirements. A summary of the research on team teacher planning indicates that a team of teach- ers will coordinate on those areas in which agreement is perceived. Thus, the methodological assumptions, the researcher's biases, and the literature in the area all view groups similarly -- as a mediation be- tween and among individual group members and their perceptions of each other and the institution; that the group's behavior will reflect a blending of individual member perceptions. The questions posed in Chapter I include the following: When and where do teachers plan as a team? What do the teachers do when they plan as a team? How is the team organized? What do the teachers agree on? What do they plan for as a team? What do they take into consideration when they plan as a team? :7 54 Is their planning goal oriented? What is the balance between the individual and the team in their planning? How do these individuals work together as a team? What is the role of the team in planning? Participant observation allows the researcher to join the group and to find answers to these questions both directly and indirectly through . the process of observation and throughchppprocess of informal inter- viewing. The specific focus of this study is to describe the way indi- viduals plan in a group setting and to explain the group's perspective, how it grounds and puts into context the planning behavior. These aims are consistent with the aims of the methodology which is to describe and explain a group's perspective or ordered view of the world. Processes of Participant Observation Becker defines participant observation as follows: The participant observer gathers data by participanting in the daily life of the group or organization he studies.18 The researcher becomes a member of the group he is studying so that Tue is able to participate in its activities and to observe its memberS' behaviOr. The act of observation is an interactional act; the re- searcher observes behavior as it occurs in interaction among partici— pants. The goal of such data collection is to view the world from the. same perspective as the participants he studies. In this way is the researcher able to describe and explain the group's behavior. 1~83ecker , p . 398 . 55 Gold19 has defined four possible roles for sociological field observations. The roles are placed on a continuum from complete parti- cipant to complete observer. The significant characteristics of the participant-as-observer role include awareness of the field relationship between the researcher and the group members, development of relation- ships with group members over time, and researcher time spent in parti- cipating as well as in formal and informal observations. Denzin,20 in his introduction to a section on participant obser- vation, notes six specific problems which characterize the participant- as-observer role. They are: gaining entry into the group to be studied, establishing and mainining objectivity, recording and analyzing the qualitative data, and overcoming the ethical aspects of observation. In the remainder of this section, a more detailed analysis of these problems will be undertaken, and methods for overcoming the problems will be presented. The problem of gaining entry into the group to be studied is not as difficult in the participant—as-observer role as it might be in another field observation role. In the participant-as-observer role, the researcher does not conceal his purpose in joining the group. His research purposes can be made clear to the group and their cooperation- secured. In one sense he can be honest with the group members in ex- plaining the purposes of his research and in their knowledge about the reasons for his presence. Thus, the researcher needs to find a group which is open to his participation and one which is secure enough in 19Gold, pp. 370-380. 20Norman R. Denzin, ed., Sociological Methods: a Sourcebook (Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970), p. 366. 56 their own purposes to allow an outsider to observe and participate in their life. Thus, the researcher must secure the necessary "permissiod' and must be sure that the group he chooses is one which meets the needs of his research. For the purposes of this study, the criteria used to select a group consisted of the following: (1) The group had to be a team of at least three teachers. (2) The group had to have times at which they met to plan. (3) The group needed to understand the purposes of the research. (4) The group had to approve of the researcher's joining them. (5) The proper authorities needed to approve of the researcher's efforts. The principal of the first school approached by the researcher in Feb- ruary, 1977, approved of the research and the researcher's coming into his school. He offered to introduce her to both fourdmember teams. From that point, it was her responsibility to explain her purposes and to secure permission and approval from the teams to continue her study. The researcher met with the two teams, a seventh grade team.and an eighth grade team, separately to explain the purposes of the study. It was to be a study of teacher planning within a team.situation. The methodology chosen was that of participant-observer whereby the re- searcher would be sitting in on team planning sessions, observing classes, interviewing the teachers individually, and asking a lot of questions. At this point, two teams were being asked to accept the researcher, although, in time, she would probably select one of the two for intensive study. The seventh grade team had many questions about the amount of time spent with them together and individually, about the 57 possibility of accompanying them on trips outside the school, about helping individual students, and about respecting the confidentiality of students' personal problems. This team also mentioned the complex interpersonal relationships that had been built up over the years, the fact that much individual planning had already been done. The team agreed to let the researcher sit in on its planning. The eighth grade team listened to the researcher's explanation. The members of this team were eager to have another person sit in on their team.planning, and they had few questions to ask about the nature of the research. Thus, entry into the teams was relatively easy. Each seemed to accept the researcher in the dual role of participant and ob- server. The next step of the process involved selecting one of the teams and establishing and maintaining membership in the group. The second problem of the participant-as-observer role is estab- lishing and maintaining membership in the group. After a group accepts the researcher, it is the job of the researcher to join the group to the extent that he feels accepted as a part of the group and the group accepts him as a full and equal member. There is no fixed set of rules that, when followed, will assure the researcher of acceptance. There are, however, some guidelines to be mentioned and some actions that may indicate acceptance. The researcher must keep in mind that his purpose is to understand the group's perspective. With this goal in mind, it is to his advantage to listen and to ask questions rather than to talk and to give his view of the world to the group. The researcher knows that he is a member of the group when the group members, unsolicited, share opinions and confidences with him and when they invite him to accompany them on outings. This is a concern because the researcher 58 needs to feel comfortable within the group, but not to the extent that he assumes leadership of the group. This problem of establishing and maintaining membership in the group is a complex one because it involves the nature of the research role which is dual in nature. The researcher is both a participant in the group and observer of that same group. It is this dynamic and con- stant tension between the two roles that allows the researcher to be objective, that affords him the opportunity to experience the world in the same was as members of the group and, at the same time, stand back from this same experience and make meaning of it. In this particular study, the researcher used this criterion of acceptance and comfort to pursue these dual roles in her selection of a team.from.the two that were possibilities. A total of eight days was spent with each group over a two week period in March, 1977. Mbrnings were spent with the seventh grade team, and afternoons were spent with the eighth grade team. At the end of this two week period, the re- searcher spent two weeks away from the school to review what she had learned. It was impossible to make the decision at that point since both teams offered interesting directions and aspects for a study of teacher planning. The researcher decided to attempt a study of both teams and spent another week in the school with this focus in mind. At the end of this third week in the school, the system had spring break for a week. As the researcher again searched her own mind, she. realized that studying two teams simultaneously would dilute the study and weaken the possibility for fully understanding either team. A decision needed to be made. 59 The seventh grade team was selected, primarily because of the criterion of the dual nature of the role. The seventh grade team of- fered more flexibility to the researcher both to participate and ob- serve as compared with the eighth grade team which encouraged partici- pation. The researcher was drawn into the temptation of participation with this team; they asked for and utilized her opinions. It was dif- ficult to maintain objectivity in the face of such flattery and such a pull for involvement. By contrast, the seventh grade team.paid little attention to the researcher during meetings; in effect, they allowed her to observe and, over the three week period of initial observation, to define her own role. It was out of concern and respect for the duality of the participant-as-observer researcher role that the seventh grade team was selected for intensive study. The third problem which characterizes the participant-as- observer role is that of avoiding the alteration of the group's behav- ior. While participant observation, and the theory of symbolic inter- action on which it is based, is essentially an interactional process, the researcher's role is that he blend into the existing group, not that he alter its behavior. In this way is he able to participate in and experience the behavior and gradually come to assume the perspec- tive of the group. A problem which may arise out of the researcher's blending into a group and adopting its norms is that the researcher typifies the group to such an extent that he is perceived as a leader. Awareness of this potential is helpful to the researcher, and he may find it necessary to retreat from the group for periods of time in or- der to reclarify his position within the group for both the group and for himself. 60 This criterion of not altering group behavior was also used in selection of the seventh grade team for study. They accepted the re- searcher's presence by asking how things were progressing, but they in no way invited her to participate in decisions they were making during the three week exploratory period of observation. It was only after a final decision was made to continue with the team that they refered to the possibility of the researcher's help in remembering what occurred on a previous day. It was clear to the researcher that her opinion was not necessary to their functioning. In effect, the seventh grade team allowed the researcher to work her way into a participant role while respecting the observer role. By contrast, the eighth grade team.fre- quently apologized for not having more time to spend with the research- er; they sought out her opinions and referred to the fact that she would be good for the team.because they were becoming more efficient. Al- though the problems were not insurmountable had the eighth grade team been selected, the researcher felt more comfortable in a participant- as-observer role with the seventh grade team. The fourth characteristic of the participant observer role is the problem of maintaining objectivity. This is perhaps the greatest problem inherent in the role for the researcher who chooses to under— take qualitative research. The theoretical position of objectivity stemming from the dual nature of the role creating a constant dynamic tension between the participant and the observer has already been dis- cussed. The issues of validity and reliability of the research are more immediate and concrete concerns. Within the context that the purpose of participant observation is to understand and explain a group's perspective, the validity of the 61 findings can be confirmed in several ways. First, it is imperative that the researcher be aware of the biases he carries into the field. Second, the researcher must stay over a long period of time and view the group's behavior invarying situations. Finally, the researcher can verify the validity of his conclusions with the group members, theme selves, to make sure that he sees their behavior accurately and inter- prets it similarly to the way they perceive their actions and the world about them. If the validity of the research is verified in these ways, then the reliability of the research is assured since the researcher has, indeed, viewed behavior over a period of time and in a variety of situations. The study described in this paper was undertaken over a period of seven months, from March, 1977, until Christmas vacation in Decemr ber, 1977. During the first three and one-half months of the study, the researcher spent from one to six hours a day in the school, five days a week. This time was spent with the team in their planning ses- sions during and after school, with individual teachers in and out of their classrooms, and in team activities including both students and teachers. During the last half of the study, the team.was different in composition. Two teachers were replaced by teachers returning to the system after leaves of absence. As the student enrollment for the team increased, a fifth teacher was added to the team at the beginning of October; she had been one of the two teachers to leave. At the begin— ning of the new school year, the researcher was with the team from.cne to four hours a day for three days a week. In this way, the team was observed over a long period of time, with some changes in membership. In addition to the observations and participations, the researcher 62 interviewed each team member individually at the end of the school year in June and again after Christmas vacation of the 1977-78 school year. The fifth problem characteristic of the participant-as-observer role is that of recording and analyzing the qualitative data. One ad- vantage of the role is that notes may be taken during the observations. Observations should be recorded as soon as possible following each per- iod of time spent in the field. They contain as much description as can be remembered, verbatim conversations that were held, questions asked and answered, non-verbal gestures, and any thoughts of the ob- server.Becker213uggests four steps to be followed in analyzing the data: selection and definition of problems, concepts, and indices; checking on the frequency and distribution of phenomena; incorporation of the finding into a model; and presentation of evidence and proof. Initially, there is a period of exploration followed by time spent analyzing the data to sharpen and narrow the research questions. This process is constantly repeated over the course of data collection. The researcher then may elect to keep quantitative results of the frequency with which certain behaviors occur. As the researcher has entered the field with some notion of what he is studying, he continues to weigh the evidence he accumulates with the theories or models he generates in his role of observer. The last step in the process is when he defines a model which provides an explanation for all he has seen and which accounts for all the data he has collected. While there may be several models which could explain the perspective of the group and the behav- ior recorded, it is the task of the researcher to select the one which 21Becker,~p. 398. 63 best represents and explains how the particular group he studied viewed its actions within the context of its perspective. In this particular study of teacher planning, the researcher entered the field with the intention of studying specifically the plan- ning behaviors of teachers within a team setting. Her assumptions and biases were congruent with the methodology employed, namely that the team of teachers would do the kind of planning that made sense to them. The researcher initially spent two weeks with two different teams of teachers to confirm that there was, indeed, planning behavior to be observed. During this time, the exploratory questions were more speci- fically defined in order to allow for the exploration of the role of the team in planning. Throughout the period of data collection, the researcher continued to read in the areas of teacher planning, team teaching, and small group theory. She also continued to analyze what she was observing, to search for appropriate theories, and to recheck her observations against her reading. She went into the field for an additional week before a decision was made about which team to select for thorough study of planning. As the observations for the day were completed, data were recorded in the form of typed, double-spaced notes. For each day there were between two and twelve pages of notes. Over the seven month period, there has accumulated a total of 499 pages of notes. In addition, there are 121 pages of transcripts from the individual interviews. The researcher kept frequent notes re- garding the topics discussed by the team. During a two week period of time in the fall, she kept detailed track of the amount of time spent on each tOpic. Field work was completed when the researcher found that all of the behavior she was observing fit into a model and that 64 she could predict with accuracy what she could find the team.doing whenever she entered the school and what she could expect individual teachers doing and saying. Her final interviews confirmed the hypothe- ses generated. The final problem characterizing the participant-as—observer role is that of ethics. As the researcher becomes a part of the group, he also becomes privy to confidences which may or may not be part of his study. Often the group forgets his role as observer and researcher or, if they remember it, they express concern over whether these confi- dences will be reported. It is at this juncture that the researcher knows he has gained full acceptance into the group and that he must wrestle with his own conscience. Generally, this problem can be over- come by the researcher's constantly defining his role and his purpose for himself. Gold,22 in describing the four researcher roles in parti- cipant observations, mentions Simmel's distinction between intimacy in content and intimacy in form. It is acceptable for the researcher to be privy to intimate information, but it is necessary for him to remain somewhat of a stranger in relating to his subjects on a personal level. This is most important for the researcher to be aware of since he is in control of the way he allows himself to relate to the people he is studying. In this particular study, the researcher was confronted with explicit concerns about confidentiality by members of the teaching team. She assured them that names of individuals were not important but that the content was. They accepted this position. The researcher 22Gold, pp. 370-380. 65 was privy to personal problems of school faculty members and to con- cerns which were outside the scope of her study. She constantly de- fined for herself the purpose of the study and her role. Once the pur- pose of the study was clear, then the pertinent data were decided upon. The decisions were often personal ones, but the researcher was always clear in her own mind that respect for the individual with whom.she was working was paramount. These, then, are the problems and the processes of the participant-as-observer role in participant observation research. The next section will present the limitations of this methodology. Limitations The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the pro- cess of planning that occurs within a seventh grade teaching team in a middle school. The methodology and processes of participant observa- tion are congruent with such a purpose; the goal such methodology serves to achieve is an understanding of how and why a particular group behaves as it does. A study such as the one described employing the processes of participant observation does not, but its very nature, presume to be generalizable to all team planning situations. Nor is its goal a prescriptive model of planning or team teaching. It is merely a complete description and explanation of a particular team's approach to its planning and how this approach works for that team. It cannot provide answers to the questions of judgment: is this plan- ning good? is it best? is it better than another method? how could it be changed to be more effective? The goal is one of understanding and explanation. 66 This study can, however, suggest directions for further re- search in both team teaching and teacher planning. The researcher can offer a model and additional variables to be considered in the process of planning. How and why various teachers and team handle the vari- ables of the planning process may differ from teacher to teacher and from team to team. CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION OF DATA Introduction The purpose of this study is to describe and explain the pro- cess of planning that takes place within a seventh grade teaching team in a middle school. The data collected for this study will. be presented in this chapter. In Chapter II, a model was presented which suggested that all working groups are located within an institutional or environ- mental setting, that all groups are composed of individuals, that all groups are organized in some way, and that all groups undertake goal- directed activities. These characteristics of working groups which can be applied to teams form the framework of this chapter. In the first section, the environment will be described including the institution's philosophical stance and its organization, its physical layout, and the activity which takes place within this setting. In the second section, the team between March and June, 1977, will be described; the descrip- tion will include descriptions of the individual team members, the or- ganization of the team, and the goal-directed activities undertaken by the team. The third section of this chapter will be parallel to the second section and will include a description of the team members, their organization and activities between September and December, 1977, and also changes that occurred in the environment between the two school years. 67 68 Description of the Environment Introduction Harrison Middle School is located in a Midwestern university city of approximately 40,000. It is one of two middle schools in the city and has a student population of 450. The building was constructed in 1926 and originally served as the city's senior high school until the mid-1950's when a new senior high school was built and Harrison be- came the junior high school. When a second junior high was needed, Morrill Middle School was built in 1968, and Harrison changed from a junior high to a middle school, encompassing grades 6-8 and dedicated to the middle school philosOphy. Philosophy and Organization The purpose of a middle school is to meet the changing academic, social, and developmental (both physical and psychological) needs of the transescent (ages 11-14). The concept is based on the assumption that youngsters between these ages have special needs and that a par- ticular school organization and curriculum should be establiShed with the needs of students in this age group as its primary focus.1 Harri- son Middle School has defined the following as student needs: (1) Developing and organizing knowledge and concepts neces- sary for everyday functioning. (2) Accepting increasing changes in one's physique. (3) Learning new social-sex roles. 1Tony Egnatuk, Nicholas P. Georgiady, C. Robert Muth, Louis G. Romano, The Middle School: a Position Paper (East Lansing: Michigan Association of Middle School Educators, 1975). >. 31.11 CI!“ 69 (4) Developing friendships with peers. (5) Becoming an independent person. (6) Developing an awareness of transition of role within the family and how to deal with this change. (7) Developing an awareness of elementary moral concepts and values. The middle school is also committed to basic skills, real-life learning situations, opportunities for success, a curriculum emphasizing variety rather than specialization, attitudes which support individual differ- enCes, and evaluation procedures which diagnose and aid in setting goals and measuring progress.2 The middle school concept relies heavily on team.teaching and a different type of school organization. One of the purposes of team teaching is to allow a group of students to be shared among a team of teachers; such an arrangement should encourage a variety of student groupings which, in turn, facilitates individualizing instruction and meeting student needs. According to the middle school philosophy, team teaching allows for flexibility in learning and implementation of the middle school philosophy. ‘Middle school teachers should know the uni- que characteristics of the transescent, should be student-oriented rather than subject-oriented, and should be committed to sharing re- sponsibility for the student with the administration, the support staff and the community. According to the writers of the position paper on middle schools, the following are purposes of the team: Team organization at the middle school is needed to provide continuous leadership in the face of staff turnover, to imple- ment school philosophy and program, to utilize varying teach- ing strengths, to provide on-line in-service training, and to 2Acomplete statement of the Harrison Middle School philosophy can be found in the Appendix. 70 effect teacher-peer influence, unity, and control. If the goals of the middle school are to be achieved and individual staff effectiveness maximized, a sub-organization within the school is necessary. The team approach can be developed around a family of subject areas so that teacher talents will com- pliment one another.3 Within this framework and organizational pattern, the principal is the key to setting an appropriate tone, to providing leadership, and to modeling sensitivity, respect, and concern for each student as an individual. He serves to increase communication among student, teacher, counselor, and parent. His support staff of counselors and other pro- fessionals needed to work with transescents also play an important role in implementing the middle school philosophy by working with individual students and by helping team teachers to work with special needs of students. A key word is sharing. The entire staff shares responsibil- ity for students. The principal of Harrison Middle School identified the followb ing four principles as goals for team teaching in his school: (1) An interdisciplinary approach to the interrelationship of subject matter and skills. (2) .A home base of activity for students and teachers to allow teachers to view kids in a multidimensional way by sharing their knowledge about students and their development. (3) .A way to make better use of time by giving team teachers control over time and grouping of students. (4) To aid in the understanding of the concepts of develop- ment, acceptance of differences, and interpersonal re- lationships. His particular method of implementing these four goals is by his own description "getting the staff to understand what the philosophy of a 3Egnatuk, p. 11. 71 middle school and what the philosophy of teams is and also helping them understand that they can relate with kids, kids can come to us and everybody is talking the same concept and kids are going to understand that." He noted further that this kind of understanding developed through in-service activities focusing on decision-making skills and interpersonal skills and through his own modeling of an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. He saw his job as trying to make teachers feel secure and to encourage them to try new things. At faculty meetings he felt that he was open and honest with his teachers as he attempted to involve them in decisionemaking for the school. He also believed in giving individual teams the autonomy to create their own style and or- ganization to meet their own and their students' needs for growth. The specific organization of Harrison Middle School includes a principal who remains active in the state middle school organization and who, in fact, contributed to the conception of a middle school philosophy. He is aided by an assistant principal and, during the 1976-77 school year, by a support staff which included two counselors, a reading teacher, librarians, a part-time social worker, a part-time special education teacher, and a part~time English-as-a-second-language teacher. Academic areas such as language arts, social studies, mathe- matics, and science are taught by teachers on multidisciplinary teams. During the 1976-77 school year, there were two two-person sixth grade teams, one two-person combination sixth and seventh grade team, one four-person seventh grade team, one four-person eighth grade team, and one two-person eighth grade team. In addition, there were special area teachers in physical education, art, music, home economics, industrial arts, and foreign languages. 72 The entire staff is expected to act as a team whose purpose is the facilitation of student growth, based on a respect for each student as an individual with unique needs and interests. The faculty itself had a variety of formal groupings in order to accomplish the goals of the middle school. There were meetings of people by department or sub- ject area specialization, by teams of teachers which often included mem— bers of the support staff and parents, by the principal and his support staff which might also include individual students or teachers, and meetings about specific topics and anyone interested could attend. The evaluation procedures of Harrison Middle School were insti- tuted to inform students and parents of progress in academic and social areas and to aid in diagnosis of student needs and abilities. "Report cards" consisted of computer print-out statements. The district had a data bank of statements for all grade levels and subject areas and, at the beginning of the year,teachers identified which statements they would be needing during the year. The introductory statement on all middle school cards for each subject area included a choice from among the following: has met none of the objectives has met some of the objectives has met almost all the objectives has met all the objectives satisfactorily has surpassed the objectives Following this introductory remark, there were specific objectives listed for students such as "has difficulty dividing," "can multiply double numbers," and "cannot multiply where carrying is involved." In addition to academic objectives, there were data banks of social objec- tives such as "works well independently," "is not motivated to learn," "respects the rights of others," and "easily influenced by peer 73 pressure." Some teachers would also write in student test scores or other comments that were not located in the data banks. Thus, at Harrison Middle School, there was familiarity with the middle school philosophy and an implementation of the kinds of proce- dures which such a philosophy suggests. When a visiting principal asked how much the school stuck to the philosophy they had, one of the teach- ers replied: I may not be the best one to ask because I helped write it. Do you know ? well, I took his class for three credits and wanted six so he let us write a school's philo- sophy with other people from Harrison Middle School who were in the class. But I think we stick to it as closely as any middle school I know. Of course, not as much as I think we should follow it, but we're getting there. Physical Layout As a visitor approaches Harrison Middle School, he sees a tradi- tional three story school building, facing east, with a large, deep lawn in front encircled by a driveway. To the right of the school is a large athletic field and off to the left is a parking lot. The main entrance is in the middle of the building front,and along either side of this entrance under the windows is a row of flowers - tulips, daffodils and crocuses - planted on a Saturday by the assistant principal with the help of ten-fifteen student volunteers. Slightly to the left of the front entrance is a large, modern piece of sculpture made by the students several years previously. Lining the walkway are concrete benches which are frequently occupied by students before and after school and during breaks. There is a second entrance on the left of the main entrance; it is used primarily by the teachers and as the en- trance to the pool, located at the south end of the building. 74 In entering the school by this pool entrance, one goes through a set of double doors into a ten foot long corridor at the end of which are three choices. Straight ahead is a set of stairs leading to the second floor; to the left is another narrow hallway leading to the pool; and to the right is a set of double doors which lead into the school's main corridor. It is wide and lined with lockers. The corridor feels cool in the summer and warm in the winter. 0n the right side of the hallway is,first, the counseling office and, farther down the hall, the main office. 0n the left side, across from the main office, is the door to the teachers' lounge and then the cafeteria entrance and the girls' restroom. If one walks down the hallway, the main entrance to the building is on the right,and a second set of stairs is on the left. Beyond the main entrance are classrooms on both sides of the hall and a third set of stairs on the left with another set of double doors to the outside at the north end of the building. Since their academic classes are all on this floor, the seventh graders occupyf‘ the first floor before and after school and during their breaks. In a similar manner, the second floor is the domain of the sixth graders, and the third floor belongs to the eighth graders. The special area class- rooms are scattered among the three floors with art and industrial arts in the basement. Mbst of the social activities of the teachers center around the lounge and the main office. The main office is cheery, usually with some students sitting on chairs along the wall or asking the three secretaries questions. The assistant principal's office is to the left, and the principal's office is to the right, next to a small hallway connecting the main office to the counseling office which 75 houses a secretary and two counselors. In this hallway is storage space for supplies, a coffee pot, and a copying machine. The main of- fice is cheery in part because of the morning sun's coming in the front which is lined with windows and, in part, due to the white walls and green plants hung from the ceiling and on the window sill. There is usually a flurry of activity between the main office and the lounge directly across the hall. The lounge is a fairly large room, carpeted, spacious, and air conditioned. It becomes the teachers' cafeteria at noon. It has two work tables with chairs around them. One of these tables frequently has a cake or bread or cookies that one of the teachers or secretaries has made. Someone usually brings in.a campus newspaper for others to read. There are plants hanging from the ceiling. At one end of the lounge, the left end, there is a round table and several easy chairs in a conversation pattern. There are ashtrays on the tables and a sign which says "No Smoking." There is also a cubby hole with a telephone in it from.which teachers take or make calls; it is semi-private. There are two coat racks. At the right end of the lounge, there is a room where two secretaries, referred to as teacher aides, work at desks and where the ditto machine is. There is a huge pot of hot water and some instant coffee, cream, sugar, and tea; a sign says, "Coffee - 10¢." There is also a sink in this workroom and above the ledge where the hot water is hangs a peg rack for teachers' coffee cups. The lounge is pleasant and comfortable. 76 Activity Secretaries, administrators, custodians, and teachers come and go. Most of the conversation is social, although, from time to time, someone will ask a question about a student or a school procedure. Conversation ranges from clothes, children, gardening, television, cur- rent movies, doctors, and weekend or summer plans to what's happening in the building and with other teachers and schools inside and outside the district. Once when a teacher commented on report card dates by saying, "Oh, yuck, the stuff's due on the sixteenth. Boy, why do they do that? And I'm starting a new unit then," the assistant principal replied, "Oh, that's the County. They tend to be late and a part of that is just their usual being behind. The other thing is the trend away from.centralization, and they have desk top computers. What used to take a whole roomfull of computers, the same job can be done now on a much smaller one. I think schools will go back to their own systems next year and maybe reverse the trend." As they stood and talked, the teacher had his arms crossed and, as the assistant principal started to launch into a more detailed description of the computer system, the teacher said, "Oh, the potluck is coming up soon," and walked away. He had just wanted to register his complaint, not listen to a lecture. The rule in the lounge for talking was nothing serious or complicated, just short comments so several people could get in on a conversation. In the morning, before classes, the lounge was quiet and teach- ers might be grading papers. Lunchtime was always a noisy affair with much laughter and interesting anecdotes and joking about the school lunches. Sometimes teachers would go out to lunch or order a sub- marine sandwich from a local restaurant. One day a teacher got a 77 pineapple out of the refrigerator that one of his students had brought back from Hawaii. He and another teacher spent about five minutes maneuvering the corer around to cut through the fruit and remove the skin at the same time. This was the focus of attention, and then every- one got a piece and commented on how delicious it was. Occasionally, students would knock at the door to ask teachers for passes or because they had questions about something. There was not much animation in the lounge after school since teachers were anxious to go home or fin- ish up grading papers. The lounge was also a place for written communication. One day there was a sign up sheet on the table for anyone who was interested in having one of the teachers bring back fresh asparagus from.up north. On other days there were signs on the inside of the door announcing faculty meetings, potluck dinners and breakfasts, and that the swimming pool would be open for teachers at 7:15 two mornings a week. The as- sistant principal started a lottery in the lounge on the exact time and date when one of the teachers would have her baby: twenty-five cents to enter, payable to the secretary, and entrants could also guess the sex and suggest names for the baby. The lounge was a social place to ask questions, receive information, and just relax. It was the re- searcher's first stop each day as she came into the building and her last stop on her way out. It was only natural then that on the last day of the term, she brought into the lounge a coffee cake and wrote a note of thanks and appreciation; the cake was gobbled up immediately, and most of the staff commented on the note during the day. Many still were not sure exactly what the researcher was doing there, but they accepted her presence and her questions. 78 It was in the lounge that the researcher met the faculty and gathered impressions about the school. One day there was a group of visitors in the lounge from a junior high school about seventy miles away. They were in the building for the day because, according to the assistant principal, "They wanted to do some teaming in their school," so they came to observe. One of the teachers from the sixth-seventh grade combination team responded to the question of, "How do you like teaming?" by responding, "I can't stand four-man teams. Twoeman teams are much easier, and Jim and I teach all four subjects and really like it that way. Four-man teams are too many people, and one always ends up being leader, and I tend to be dominant, but I don't want to be known as the leader. But Terry (the principal) is the one who makes it work." The visitors commented on the casualness of the school and were not sure they were that casual. The teacher emphasized the need to give up possessiveness of kids and room and subject. Another teacher commented on the principal and what the school was all about by saying in an interview, "As you get to know him (the principal), you realize the amount of freedom.that he gives you to do what you think is professional and a right thing to do. And also with that comes a lot of responsibility. And that's really the truth, not some platitude. That's why I think he gets a well-done job on his part, because you really do feel that, hey, he said that you can do it. Also, you're the one that's responsible for what you're doing. And if you see it as a good experience for the kids, then try it." There was concern expressed in the lounge, as early as the end of April, about what would happen next year. Enrollments were declin- ing and the principal needed to post the list of specific team 79 assignments for the next school year and inform those teachers who would not be returning to Harrison. One teacher summed up the situation in the following way, "The meeting (faculty) last night was really some- thing. They were toying with the idea of two- and three-man teams and maybe even a five—man seventh grade team with all the seventh graders. They pulled out the plug. It got heated, but I suppose that's neces- sary. As the faculty gets smaller, problems get more clearly defined." The assistant principal would be leaving for a position as principal in a middle school in a neighboring district. Teachers were worried about who they would be working with and what the school would be like during the next year. This was a frequent topic of conversa- tion in the lounge along with the other day-to-day concerns of people. Over time, much information and many moods of people were expressed in the lounge. There was concern over futures and a sense of openness about the school. Harrison was a comfortable building in which to work; it was easy to find acceptance, and questions asked of others were never threatening or too personal. Summary In summarizing the environment or institutional setting in which a team.worked, it can be said that although the physical layout of the school was a traditional one, the philosophy and the organiza- tion of the school into teams was nonetraditional. General institu- tional aims were traditional in terms of the maintenance function of providing education to groups of students by the scheduling of time and activities, in terms of the social function of providing a support system in which these activities can be accomplished, and in terms of 80 self-renewal function of enough creativity to support growth when needed so that the school could continue to provide education to students. The more specific philosophical goals within the framework of these broad aims are embodied by a different type of organization -- teams of teachers - and characterized by an atmosphere of autonomy, cooperation, and trust. The broad goals of maintenance, support, and self-renewal remain the same; the basis of the middle school philosophy is to carry out these aims by means of a different organization than the traditional, hierarchical lines of authority. It is this organization into teams that reflects a particular philosophical orientation and differentiates the middle school from the traditional junior and senior high school. This is the institutional setting in which the process of planning was observed within a teaching team. Description.of Team Between March and June, 1977 Introduction The purpose of this section of the chapter is to describe the team during the end of the 1976-77 school year, March — June, 1977. In addition to the institutional setting in which a group works, groups are characterized by their individual members, by their organization, and by their activities. These three elements as they existed between March and June, 1977, will be described in this section as a method of organizing the data collected about the process of planning which oc— curs in one particular teaching team. During the 1976-77 school year, Team 71 consisted of four teachers and 118 students. The name Zl_refers to the fact that it is a seventh grade team and the number was, in the past, an arbitrary 8l designation to separate this team from other seventh grade teams. This year, however, 71 was the only seventh grade team, but the gng_was kept. All teams in the school had a two digit designation. The four teachers on Team 71 included Henry in social studies, Faith in language arts, Rick in math, and Carol in science. "Each teacher occupied a room at the north end of the building with windows that faced out to the front lawn. The purpose in describing the individual members on Team 71 is to present a picture of each individual with his/her own unique view of the world as reflected in his/her interactions with others, behavior in the classroom, needs as an individual, and definition of the team task. For it is these individual elements that blend together, along with the institutional expectations to form a team organization which functions to do certain goal-directed activities. How the team func- tions is a result, in part, of the individuals who comprise it. There- fore, it is necessary to present a description of the individual team members. Description of Individuals Henry The first room to the right of the main entrance is 103, Henry's room, where social studies classes are held. Henry is in his late forties, tall, lanky, and angular with red hair and freckles. He is usually busily active and animated, even when thinking. His hands are frequently busy with shifting papers, picking up paper in the halls, or straightening his room.and watering his plants. His eyes are alert and not much escapes his notice. His language is precise, and he chooses 82 his words with care when he speaks, giving attention to correct pronun- ciation and complete sentences. His only deviation from this precise- ness is in his use of the word maybg_which he uses frequently and pro- nounces "meb-be." His dress is casual, usually slacks and a short sleeved shirt. One day, when he appeared in an obviously new outfit of yellow slacks and a yellow, light blue, and white striped tee shirt, one of the teachers commented on "what a snazzy tee shirt." Henry re- plied, "I got it this morning for my birthday" with a grin. When be pressed the intercom during the team meeting to ask a question, the assistant principal replied with a cheery "Happy Birthday, Henry!" Henry was the building representative for the district's teacher association this year and enjoyed the politics. As he commented to one of the younger and newer teachers on the team, "...the first few years were concerned with getting that Master's; but after you've been here long enough and know what's going on, you realize that this is your profession, and it becomes important." Room 103 which Henry occupied during the year is approximately twelve feet wide by twenty-five feet long. The two doors from.the hall entered the side of the room, one at the front and the other at the rear. The desks were arranged in long rows - five rows with six desks in each row. At the front of the room was Henry's desk, by the windows, facing the student desks. There was a strip of empty space about five feet wide at the back of the room with a table just inside the door at the back. There were two maps pulled down in the front 0f the 1'00!!! "' one a political map of Africa and the other a geo- graphical map of North.America. Stretched across the room, diagonally, from the front by the windows to the back door were two-dimensional 83 representations of all the planets in the solar system. In the middle of the room was a light fixture which was the sun. When the windows were open, the planets bobbed back and forth and up and down with the breeze. They were hanging on elastic string and were brightly colored. Hanging in about the middle of the room on the door side of the wall was a paper model of a prehistoric bird. It also swayed back and forth and turned around in the breeze. Leaning on a shelf against the windows was a panel which looked like stained glass. It was of different kinds of fall leaves pressed between wax paper and separated with strips of black cardboard to look like stained glass. There were several plants on the window sills which Henry waters or at least checks every day. As students enter his room, he would frequently be checking‘ on his plants or picking up pieces of paper and straightening the rows of desks. The curriculum for seventh grade social studies was set up about four years ago and specifies a study of the major cultures of the world. Henry felt that in this way, students could see some historical sequence at the same time. Three units he mentioned in particular were China, Africa, and South America. He also includes a unit on major religions, which was his own addition to the curriculum. He added, "The curriculum is written so that we have sixty percent planned stuff and forty percent creating our own units. The way I teach, it usually works out to be ninety-five/five." He is exceptionally well qualified to teach this unit of study since he had taken a sabbatical several years previously to travel around the world for an entire year. He had bought many souvenirs and had slides that he would show to his classes to illustrate places they were studying. In an interview, he stated: 84 I am satisfield with the curriculum as it is. I think it is a good curriculum for these kids at this age, to Open their eyes to something outside of their own neighborhoods. During the middle of April, he was having students finish their three-dimensional projects on a geographical feature of the world and just beginning his unit on religions which he had originally planned to take one week. His students were still working on projects from the religions unit into May. In addition to the class work, he also re- quired OOC's. These are Out-of-Class projects. The projects should have to do with geographic and cultural aspects that we don't cover in class. The point is to ex- pand their horizons, like National Geographic Specials or the King Tut exhibit would have been good. * Another team member explained the OOC's as follows: See, kids can get points for doing extra stuff. Once when the parents came in the fall to hear each of us explain what we were doing in our classes, Henry said he gave points for anything and they all laughed and Henry couldn't understand what was so funny. He takes these very seriously. Why, you could have given points for Chicago (referring to a class trip many students took), couldn't you, Henry? In class, students feel free to ask questions. Henry commented that he rarely sat at his desk during class because he was always moving around. Several students would stop at his desk on their way into the room, asking about an OOC, their three-dimensional geography project, or their religious symbols: "Can I use flags to represent the lake's depth?" "How can I represent the coastline of the U.S.?" "Where can I get red and blue cellophane?" He took time with each student's ques- tion, and then said, from.the front of the room: I'd like to talk about your geography projects for a minute. Remember, one of the requirements is that it be three- dimensional. One student asked about showing depth with flags. That is not sufficient. When a student asked, "Mr. Jones, my project is the Crater Lakes and 85 you said I didn't have to show depth. Is that okay?" Henry replied: Yes, because the purpose is to show the relation of the lake to the surrounding area so you must remember to build up the terrain surrounding the lake. Many of you have similar projects where the point is to show that there is no outlet from the lake, so build up the land and mountains around the body of water to make it three dimensional. He then showed a statue that he had purchased in Nepal: ...in Katmandu, to be exact. There are several different interpretations of which god this is. One woman in Nepal said it was the goddess of destruction that is common in the north and east part of India. He pulled down the map in the front of the room and indicated the loca- tion of this area as he pointed to Nepal and commented that it was located right around north and eastern India. Henry said that the mother of one of his students had a different interpretation. He picked up a piece of paper and read from it. He then said that he pre- ferred the first interpretation and showed how the second one was not so different. "Remember that Shiva had many different forms and names." On other days he would give the students vocabulary words, show filmstrips, give a short lecture, and then have them work on the sym- bols. His question and answer periods on the filmstrips were always interesting, at least to an adult. For example, one of the vocabulary words was evangelism.and he asked,"Does anyone know who is the greatest evangelist in the world today?" One student answered, "The Pepe?" Henry said: No, he's all proper and rigid and political. Who is it who preaches a lot and tries to save people from their evil ways? This time a student responded with, "Billy Graham," and Henry said, "Yes, that's correct. He wants people to repent from their evil ways and to change their lives." He giggled when he privately recounted the 86 incident from a class where a student had said that Idi Amin was the greatest evangelist. As students were drawing their symbols, one stu- dent asked about the meaning of the lotus, and Henry replied: Yes, that certainly is a symbol of Buddhism. You see they believe that out of the mire and much of everyday existence rises this lovely flower, representing purity of the soul. And in the middle of the flower sits Buddha. Henry commented on his teaching style in an interview: As for my teaching style, I believe there is time that the kids have to be taught certain concepts generally so I do some classroom delivery. At times I think I do too much. But, I feel that I have to labor these points. And from testing as opposed to reading, I feel that that's how they get a lot of their learning. They get better learning from that type of instruction than going off and individual read- ing books and magazines and doing their own thing. They don't get the insight, so I feel that my obligation is to enlighten them at times on different social contexts. I know that I am much more cognitive oriented than affective. And I do this purposely because I believe at this age they are ap- proaching the ability to abstract. They need a lot of cognitive base to make sense out of abstraction. That's why I spend a lot of time on practical materials. On some days, his students had the whole period to work on the symbols, and Henry would walk around the room asking, "How are you doing, Jane? Those are nice, Eric. I wouldn't put them all on the same page, Joe." He had a discussion with the whole group, and one of the boys announced a bet that he could eat two Big Macs, one Quarter- pounder, one cheeseburger, two large fries, two milk shakes, and two apple pies at McDonald's. He has an easy manner with students and jokes with them occasionally. He is also concerned about their exhi- biting proper and appropriate social behavior. On one occasion, a student got up to sharpen a pencil and raced to the sharpener ahead of a girl who had gotten up before he had. Henry said, "Hey, that was impolite. Where are your manners? wait until it's your turn." He made the student wait in line behind the girl to resharpen his pencil. 87 Henry had very definite ideas on his position as a classroom teacher and on his position as a team teacher. The primary purpose of the team meetings should be to check out how things were going, to take care of problems effecting the functioning of the entire team, and to coordinate the grouping of students and use of time, materials, and space. It was up to the individual teacher to formulate his thoughts in these areas, privately, and then to state them in the team meetings, publicly. Together, all four teachers would share responsibility for coordinating individual preferences on topics. Faith The room next to Henry's is Faith's room, number 105, and she teaches communication arts. Like Henry, she came into the system in 1958 and is in her late forties. Physically, Faith is short and very earthy with clear, smooth skin, glasses which cannot hide her expres- sive eyes, and short, straight, light brown hair parted on the right side. Her first words of a personal nature were: I never seem to be on top of the job. Things have been hec- tic for me. You see my husband died in January after a long and hard illness he had since December, 1975, so the past two years have really been in disarray. People here have been wonderful, but there has been a lot of running around for me both in and out of school. The impact of her husband's death and the subsequent mourning and recovery were the primary concerns of Faith during the spring of 1977. She was rarely in the teachers' lounge and spent most of her time when not teaching at home or in her room. Up until the end of May, she wore light blue dresses everyday. Of herself she said: You see, I don't like to go in the teachers' room very well. I never do get all my work done, so I tend to stay in my room or go home. Then this year has been a rather unique one for me because I have had to provide time between home 88 and school quite tightly and strongly. Then, the aftermath still is very difficult for me. I find that I spend a lot of time just thinking of what I have to do and I don't do it. In other words, disorganization. . Faith's voice was clear and soft, and she commented that her first three years of teaching were in a girls' school in Japan and that she sometimes used her voice in a dramatic way, especially in recounting incidents in the classroom. In addition to her voice, she gestured with her hands and with her whole body when she spoke to add to the dramatic effect. She had a dry wit and a mischievous gleam when she told of something she had heard on the radio one day when she went home for lunch: A man from HUD was speaking and said that one out of three people were mentally ill. He said you should look around, and that if the person on each side of you looked okay, then it must be you! She rolled her eyes and giggled. She could be a fount of interesting bits of information. One day she brought apples in for the other teachers on the team. They were Granny Smith green apples and she had gotten them from a grocer on the west side of town. When asked about them, she said: I can't believe that you don't know what Granny Smith's are. They should be in at Kroger's because once they start coming, any store can get them.and A & P's had them last year. When I went there this weekend, I told the manager that they were in and he could order them. When I said these were a golden gift, I really meant it. You really didn't know what they were? She told of how they can only be grown in New Zealand and Australia be— cause of the climate. Faith's room was larger than Henry's and was connected to his by a sliding partition which remained closed most of the year. This parti- tion was the back of her room, with windows along the side and the 89 blackboards were at the other end. Her room was carpeted and always slightly messy, although not uncontrollably so. Her desk was in front of the windows about midway between the two ends and faced the doorway into the room. It was always covered with papers although she had several in-and out-baskets which were also piled with papers. Round and rectangular tables were scattered about the room with three-six chairs around each. At the back of the room were two tables for con- ferences or for students to work alone. The wall across from the win- dows was blocked up with tables and file cabinets and more tables piled high with books and papers and kits. This storage area sticks out five or six feet into the room. There were also twenty-thirty cardboard boxes piled up along this side closer to the front of the room. Faith commented on how difficult it was to find storage room since the math and science rooms used to be the communcation arts rooms and were equip- ped with appropriate facilities and magazine racks. She said her boxes were packed up when she was on the second floor last year,and a science teacher had left a hose on on the third floor over the weekend when he had come in to feed the animals in his room. When she walked in on Monday morning, she walked into ankle-deep water. Someone had packed up her stuff and put it in the conference room, so the boxes had been with her for almost two years; she had not had time to sort through them. She said that sometime she would have the time to find the "treasures among the trash." The outstanding feature of her room was its comfort in spite of, or probably because of, its disorganization. On the ceiling were hanging paper hangers, some of which were covered with yarn or foil. Some were several hangers wrapped together. They were mobiles and had pictures or pieces of paper with words 90 hanging on them. There was also a table stacked with showboxes. Her description was: These are some of the twenty-five ways to spark book reports. Some of them are good and pretty clever, but some are awful. I don't know why kids think they can get away with sloppy stuff for a project. I never could. The partition separating the two rooms had some posters on it. Some seemed like epithets. One was a picture of a nun in a blue habit hold- ing a small black object and was entitled "The Black Pearl." Another was a little girl looking skyward with the writing, "Mister, God, Anna is waiting." These were obviously done by students, another of the twenty-five ways to spark book reports. Faith's main unit during the spring was one called "Projec- tions" about short stories and poems. Frequently, she would have an assignment on the board, like the following: Get the book "Projections" and take it to your table. Turn to page 24 and read pp. 24-32, 33 about the author. write out "Discussion" la.b.c.d 2a.b 3b 4 5 Read poem. Read pp. 34-42 Students would come in to do the work, and she would talk with stu- dents individually either at her desk or in the front corner of the room. She would call out their names and then hand a paper back to them or check on missing assignments. Sometimes a student would come up to her with a question from the book. She would check her grade book and then call out another name in a clear but quiet voice that did not interrupt or disturb the students' reading. 91 Faith genuinely liked her students and took time with them in- dividually. When one student was having a problem, she talked with him for a long time while the rest of the class worked on their assign- ments. She said that he must have missed the instructions. He was explaining something to her. She would smile at him to encourage hbm to keep talking while he explained. Finally, the student said, "I give up; you win." Faith said as he started back to his seat, "That's the way our conversations always end, with your giving up." He replied as he walked back over to her, "What do you want me to do, put up another argument?" They talked for awhile longer, and then she said, "Oh, you shouldn't sit on your knees; you'll pull the knee tendons." He ended the conversation by saying, "I'll see what I can do," and she answered, "All you need to do is ask if you've missed something. Faith described herself in the following way: I think I try to see all sides of the question. I do try to see all sides of the question. I think it is a habit of mind with me. I'm not deluding myself on that. She extended this attitude to her work with students and commented that the principal and counselor saw one of her strengths as being her ac- curate perceptions of students. When complimented on a quiet and orderly class, she responded, Part of that was the nature of the assignment. I go back and forth like a pendulum. One time I'll give written and indi- vidual assignments and another time I'll do a lot of group work. When asked about assigned seats, she said, Yes, and that may be part of the reason why they were so quiet. I go on a pendulum with that, too. First, I'll think, "Oh, they can sit wherever they want or with their friends," and then I'll say, "No, they need to have assigned seats," and I really mean business. I don't know. I guess that's what teaching is all about. 92 Faith felt disorganized during the spring, but on a day-to-day basis, her classes worked quietly and were well organized. The major factor in Faith's perceptions of the team.was her own perception of herself as a newcomer to an already extant group. That was helpful to her in the support they offered her and in the framework for operating which the structure provided. She described that frame- work as: ...a very powerful, positive force that Operated in this team.in terms of how the four teachers interacted and worked with each other. Her basis for this judgment was because "I always thought I could throw out ideas if I wanted to and they were careful to include me." She frequently questioned her own perceptions and often wondered what the others thought. At the same time, she said that she had learned from past experience on other teams that arguing or pushing her own point of view was not worth the cost involved. "If I disagree, I tend not to say anything." She would have like to know more about both Carol and Rick because: You feel more human toward a person you're working with if you understand more about where they're coming from in terms of how they are as people. She would have liked for Rick and Carol to ask more about her husband's death. The important purpose for the four of them to meet together was "to share ideas and to bounce ideas off each other." While the agenda format was helpful in the structure it provided, she would have liked more joint teaching on thematic units. She felt that the team was not as creative as it could have been, but was ambivalent about her role as a newcomer to the team. 93 'Rigk Rick's room is next to Faith's and he teaches math. He is in his early thirties, of average height, a little on the stocky side, and has curly black hair peppered with flecks of gray and a mustache. This was Rick's third year of teaching, and he had been enrolled in a special five-year teacher education program that had given him more than the average amount of experience in classrooms during his training. His main reason for teaching was for the kids, for Rick said, "Even though I can't wait to get here each day, it's mainly because of the kids." He would frequently stay after school to help students with math - "Maybe they'll come in after school so they don't have to admit to their friends that they don't know" -- or with extra-curricular activities in the school like the talent show and yearbook. He enjoyed taking part in activities: ...where it is the continuous communication with kids in a way that makes them feel really comfortable about learning and being with people. Rick usually wears either slacks or jeans and a tee-shirt. His manner is informal and he likes to chat and joke with students. He was most interested in this particular study because he felt people needed to know what teaching was all about; it was not like his educa- tion courseswith writing objectives and assessments. At another point he commented: That's what they never taught me in teacher training, that kids are different and so are classes on Mondays and Fri- days. I don't know why they never said anything about that. It's so important. 94 He felt the only way forlxhnto learn anything of value was to get in- volved with the kids: "You can find out more by interacting with the kids, and you'll feel more natural." As the year came to an end, he became quiet because he had been transferred to an elementary school due to declining enrollments at the middle school and his lack of seniority in the building. Nevertheless, he remained easily accessible to his students and would comment on other aspects of their lives. Once after a movie on Martin Luther King, a student from South America mentioned that she had trouble understand— ing the movies, even though there were Blacks in her country. Rick re- plied, I imagine it does seem strange for someone from another country. But in our country, Negroes or Blacks were brought over as slaves and kept that way, and it takes a long time to evolve out of it. He frequented the lounge, but would often end up pacing unless he was involved in a conversation about students or talking with the other teachers he knew well. He enjoyed nothing more than expounding on how well a particular student or class was doing or an exciting pro- ject they were involved with. Rick liked to relate special things that happened in his classes. One day he related how well a whole class had done on a test: I said to them."You know, you did so well, it's kind of embarrassing. Teachers don't know what to do. But I guess there are two choices: one, that you are all smart and that I'm a terrific teacher," and they all groaned, "or that the test was too easy," and they all said, "Oh, no!" Even the kids who came in for help had caught on. Rick's room was carpeted and the same size as Faith's room. It seemed even more spacious, probably because he had his tables or- ganized in three or four basic groupings, each against a wall, and a 95 few single tables near the front of the room. There were blackboards at each end of the room and over the front board were posters: one of a line of penguins jumping off a rock into the water, one of a chime panzee, one of Farrah Fawcett-Majors in a bathing suit, and one of a family of leopards sitting on a rock and looking menacing. The door into his room.was at the front and the desk was directly across from and facing toward the door. Rick was rarely at his desk during class as he moved around from group to group of students. On the wall across from the windows were built in-shelves enclosed with glass doors. There were a few Optical illusion pictures on the walls. In describing his class organization, Rick said: I have the kids grouped, not that it's better, just dif- ferent. It's really interesting. I have an algebra group, a pre-algebra group, and a fractions group, and I move around giving instruciton to one group while the others are working. Sometimes it's frustrating for me, but I think it works better for the kids. I get harried. But it's fun to watch the kids when they need help and I'm busy. Some wait, some get angry, and some get help from.a friend which is fine with me. He always urged visitors to come right into his room: "Don't hesitate to just walk in. You won't interrupt anything." On a typical day he would be talking with kids either in the hall or in his room before class started. When it was time to start, he would say, "Okay, let's quiet down," and wait until it became quiet. "I need to spend some time with the algebra group today explaining smme things." He looked to his left and said to several tables of students, You did the odd problems, right? Okay, then spend today on the even ones. That's about fifty-five problems and should give you the practice you need. Then that's the end of the chapter. He spent a few minutes with the group of students near his desk, re- viewing one sheet and handing out another. Then he moved to the back 96 of the room to a group of four rectangular tables and a small single table. He asked them to turn to page 325 in their books and asked if there were any questions on last night's homework assignment. Three kids had questions including one girl who was quite verbal in stating that she couldn't do the first four problems. He told them he would talk with them in a few minutes. To the whole algebra group, he said, I have a confession to make. When we start something new on a Monday morning, it's difficult for me because I didn't look at the materials the night before. He reviewed the material on inequalities equations and then answered individual questions. He moved from group to group and things got hectic as students needed help. He started a help list on3the board: those who had a question could write their names on the board and he would get to them in order. He commented, "See what I mean? It's really hectic, but I love it. I operate better this way." Every so often Rick would have a Sweepstakes in his room for each class. It is a review of math problems. The game is run like a quiz show with five categories (discount, percentage to decimals, ratios, decimals to fractions, fractions to percentage, on this par- ticular day) and four different point values for each category. Some of the questions have bonus points, usually fifty, but no one knows those in advance so Rick announces them when the category and point value is picked. One day a student complained about not playing the game the same way they did in science, and Rick said that they had dif- ferent rules. The student persisted, and Rick reminded him.that he could deduct ten points for complaining. Then he asked the class: Are you guys sure you want to play Sweepstakes? If you don't, we can do something else. Sometimes there's a lot ofHarguing with an answer or you get mad at yourself or 97 someone on your team.or another team. I really don't want that, so if you don't want to play, you'll have to let me know. Remember, if this makes you uptight or nervous, you can keep quiet and watch or do other work, but you must be quiet. They then went on to play the game. When the class was over, Rick said: A lot of these kids feel that pressure and that's why I don't make them participate. I let than sit out and watch or do their homework if they want. Do you know ? She's one of the fastest and brightest kids, but she just can't operate under the pressure. I wish there was some way around it, but there isn't, so I make it optional and it gives those kids that want to compete a chance. At least those that listen can review it. Did you see ? He's an average student, but he's really fast in there. I guess he likes the competition. He then commented on some kids' holding back to give others a chance to answer, and that he felt bad when a certain student tried and missed. Rick's manner is informal and his room and his classes reflect his attitude. He is aware of the differences among kids and tried to accomodate these differences in his expectations and the activities 'he plans. The primary function of his job is to know his students and to help them grow as human beings. Rick did not like a four-man team and his preference was for a two-man team where things could be looser and there would be more sharing: I can conceive of four people saying that the method of teaching would be worth some time. I don't think these four people would be able to agree on that decison. That's why I would not like to work on a four-man team because it is so easy on a two-man team to try those things. For him, the structure got in the way of what he called real teaming, including teaming on academics. He saw Team 71 as meeting to talk about schedule and students, primarily: 98 There's sort of a professional edge maintained. I think that's where basically our communication is just because of our job. The interaction of the team to Rick was such that if someone disagreed with something, "You have to go along with it." He felt that the team members tended to bend for each other a lot. When asked about the fre- quency of team meetings, he responded: I sorta look forward to it. ...Ith really neat and some- thing to look forward to when you're doing something like the metric or the reading, especially the metrics because it's so many things happening. It's essential that we have those meetings and they're really exciting and anything people relate to is enjoyable. It makes this job more enjoy- able. For Rick, the joy to be derived from teaching was in working with kids, and the joy to be derived from team teaching was in sharing the excite- ment of sharing and blending different ideas. He spent much of his time outside of the classroom with other teachers in the school and commented from time to time on another team's activities that he had helped to plan. £3211. The fourth member of the team is Carol who teaches science in room 108, the end room.on the first floor of the school. She is in her late twenties, and this was her third year of teaching and on the team. She is of average height, slender, with light brown hair and a pixie face. The best word to describe Carol is active. She is rarely sit- ting still; usually she has papers in front of her and is grading them or writing tests as she listens and talks. She is direct and outspoken as when she commented to Rick when he announced that he would be trans- ferred next year, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I'm glad it's you and not me." 99 She did not talk much of herself, other than to relate what was happening in her life. When questioned, she described herself as follows: I like the kids; I like this grade. I like to do enjoyable things; I like to do things with the kids, but I haven't done it this year. I think I'm tolerant of the kids. I am not beyond school. Her reasons for not being more involved with kids after school and with extra-curricular activities was that she had a one year old son and needed to be home by four o'clock so her husband could attend his late afternoon and evening classes. "What works out well," she commented, "is that I have my job for next year." When she checked with the principal on the enrollment figures and her position for the next school year, however, he said he would not know for sure for awhile and, since she was tenured, he was not re- quired to let her know until the end of the school year. She said, "Oooooooooh," as she slumped dramatically on the table in the teachers' lounge, "it worked for me the first time and against me this time." She was referring to the fact that she had not been let go with the other two teachers because she did have tenure, and that now she wouldn't know for sure until the end of the year because she did have tenure. This was at the beginning of May, and she spent the rest of the school year checking on enrollment figures and then applying for a job that was open in science at the high school. Carol commented later that she would probably be going to school full time in the summer to try to get started on an elementary certificate because this seemed to be a form of insurance to stay in teaching. At another point, she mentioned that she wanted to continue teaching for another two years or 100 so, until her husband got a job and she could stay home and concen- trate on her family. Carol usually dresses in slacks and a matching blouse or sweater. The effect is tailored. Once the weather got hot, she wore dresses and more informal outfits. Carol took an interest in her students' well-being and their questions outside of the classroom as well as within her classes. One day in the lounge, she commented to Rick about the writing in the girls' bathroom. Two kids' names had been there for a long time, but they had apparently broken up and someone had written "what happened?" Someone else had written that she had gotten pregnant, had had an abortion, and that he had gotten into trouble. Carol said, "Isn't it funny how they got it all wrong. Usually it's the girl who gets into trouble." She talked about how kids really seem to need more information about sex and related an incident in class that had come up around the issue of genetics. One of the students had written something down about two people having a child and seeing what its characteristics were and then putting the child up for adoption. She had been upset and talked with them about the responsibility involved in having a child and had offered to answer any questions they might have. Later, she found a note on her desk asking, "What do you do if you are twelve years old and preg— nant?" She was upset because she didn't know if it were a joke or real. The next day in all of her classes, she announced that she had found an unsigned note on her desk about a very serious matter. She wanted the person who left it to please let her know if it were a joke or if she or he needed some serious information. The next day one of the girls came up to her in the hall and said that she and her friend had lOl written it and that it was a joke and she was sorry and would never do it again. Carol thanked her. Later that day at the end of a class, the friend just fooled around, and Carol said she better get moving or she would be late. The girl burst into tears, unaware that the first girl had already told Carol. Carol explained to the second girl who then said that she realized that it wasn't something to joke about. While Carol appeared very outspoken on many issues, she was also thoughtful and would pose questions, wondering why people did the things they did. One day she said, You know, as I look around at some of these kids, it's a shame that so many mothers work. That's really not good. I always see kids hanging around here after school, and they say, "I guess I'll just hang around because I don't want to go home to an empty house." I'm certainly not the one to be talking, here I am a mother and working...I just hate going home to an empty house. Like the other teachers and their classroom, Carol's room re- flected her attitude toward teaching. It was warm, friendly, and or- derly. It was larger than each of the other three rooms. The desk was immediately to the left of the one entrance into the room and it faced the windows. There were many displays on the walls reflecting many different areas of sicence. The floor was not carpeted and there were sets of two black-topped tables with two or four chairs at each. Most tables were perpendicular to the window wall, but a few at the end and along the side were parallel to the walls. The room had a sense of variety and there were several plants hung from the ceiling. At the right end of the room, as one entered from the hallway was a lab counter and sink and behind that a storage room. The wall across from the windows was lined with glass—topped cabinets and shelves built into the wall. 102 The atmosphere in the room.when class was in session was a pro- ductive, no-nonsense climate in which students went about their work individually or in small groups. Carol was available at her desk or walking about the room to answer questions and make suggestions. Her approach was individualized instruction,and the planning for it had been done before the school year started. Students had just finished a lab unit in science and were beginning individual projects in one of several areas. Carol had a file box with activities written on file cards,and students moved at their own pace, turning in worksheets on each activity. Like Henry, Carol had OOC's. Students were required to write up summaries on a certain number of magazine or newspaper arti- cles as part of a the requirement for receiving 311's, almost 311's, or satisfactory's on their report cards. 'Like Rick, Carol also played Sweepstakes with her classes each week. The questions were based on articles in a weekly scienee maga- zine every student received. Usually, she would be frantically writing out the questions just before each class. One day she accepted an offer to help with the questions with: Just pick out any facts and they can have any number of points. Thanks a lot. I was going to do them last night but we had a birthday party for my brother, and I didn't think it would take so long. In the room, she picked two student judges, seated herself on the win- dow sill, and picked a girl to write on the overhead. In this frame there were five categroies - Falcons, Peking Man, Bird Houses, Jupiter, and Chance. The questions were worth ten, twenty, forty, and eighty points. The bonuses, one in each category, could be chosen only after the other point value questions had been selected. The chance 103 questions were taken from the entire magazine. She had only two teams and at the bottom of the plastic on the overhead were two columns to record the student's name who got the question correct and the number of points. Each team had only three peOple who responded correctly. Carol had many chance questions for different point values. The game moved quickly. With the exception of Sweepstakes, Carol's classes were similar each day. Students came in and worked on their projects, and she an- swered individual questions. Her classes were balanced between effi- ciency and concern for individual concerns’and questions. Carol felt that the year did not go as well as it could. The goals for the team were basically understood, she felt, among Henry, Rick, and herself, and she found it annoying at times to go back and reclarify. She wished the team.could have done more together and men- tioned skills for students, like checking their notebooks. She wanted meetings to move quickly with definite decisions made that everyone executed: Last year it was a lot stricter, and I know that there were feelings from other members (of the faculty) that it was too strict, for this seventh grade and for the school. I felt we did more teaming, more team units; we did more things with the kids,and this year has not been that way. She felt that the team was not as organized by pointing OUt: "It's the type of thing, sometimes, when you get wrapped up on your own, you don't push." She saw a major function of the team as offering support to individual teachers when they had problem students in classes or had to talk with parents. A disappointment to her was a decrease in social activity among the staff and especially within the team. 104 Summary In this part of the section describing the team between March and June, 1977, descriptions of the individaul team members - Henry, Faith, Rick, and Carol - have been presented. The purpose in describing these individuals is to see how each is unique from the others, in his be- havior, needs, and perception of the team task. For Henry, the team functioned for very practical reasons: to insure smooth operation, to schedule time, materials, facilities, and to group students. For Faith, the team was to provide personal support, to bounce ideas off each other and to be creative. Rick saw the team as a place to share ideas about how kids learn, and to create learning situations and discuss methodo- logies. Carol wanted the team to help provide a social life, to pro- vide structure in dealing with discipline problems, and to provide a way of teaching skills that she did not have time to promote in her classroom. Thus, there are four individual perceptions of the team task,and these needed to be coordinated or at least negotiated so that a task could be accomplished. The next section will describe how the team organized to carry out their activities. Organization of Team Introduction In this part of the section on the team between March and June, 1977, the organization of the team.will be described. A group's or- ganization is important in that it is a blending of each of the meme bers' perceptions of the team's task. The organization represents those areas that each of the members can agree upon and is a measure of the degree of cooperation and coordination among them. In the same way 105 that the organization of the building into teams represents a philoso- phical position and a way of implementing institutional goals, so does the organization of a particular team reflect a philosophical and prac- tical definition of its purposes and form a framework for its activities. The following are included in a description of a group's organization: where they meet, when they meet, roles, leadership, topics discussed, and interaction among the members. Meeting_Tbme and Place Team.7l always met in room 105, Faith's room, every morning for this planning. Planning time and the team's schedule was represented by the schedule on page 106.. Planning time was scheduled as fol- lows: Monday's, Thursday's, and Friday's from 8:55 until 9:50 a.m. and Tuesday's from 9:53 until 10:48. There was no planning time sched- uled for Wednesday's. Henry commented on this once during a meeting: It's really bad when we don't have team planning on Wednes- days. It really seems to interrupt the flow of things. Rick and Carol offered to add it, and Henry said, "Yes, sometimes we meet onflhere(indicating the free period between homeroom and class time), but it's just not the same." Occasionally, they might meet in the afternoon period from 12:47 - 1:42 on Tuesday, wednesday, or Fri- day or after school on Monday or Thursday if there was something urgent to finish up before the next regularly scheduled planning time. Gen- erally, though, they tried to keep these extra times to a minimum since that was supposed to be personal planning time. Faith commented on this arrangement: This is the first team.l've worked on in which team plan- ning did not spill over into individual planning. It has at times during the year, but I have been very accustomed 106 «3 £33 33 58m .2: £88 £3 :32 u: .22. e83 a a 8 ~23»... a «MES H u .83 .83 .3... e z a H w m z < e z ~83 83.5 a a a some .243 «exec .. a a 23:. a a e m a s u o .8 85% a z .83 e58 a a m .83 .25. u u o 2 H e > w m a .8 83 .83 83mm... 4 u n has a a m 83 any n a e s u 83 a a mouse... a a .888 .83 83 «MES z o 23:. o z cone seems menus "N oeuuumeua Neusnaeums undead -meusa eeuseunsuoa meuoaumnua omuanmnum unumumflum mana-oo.m a m o m < méfieom .88 8 38:. 107 to having to use team planning plus individual planning time to get things done for the team... Individuals on the team were careful to keep personal planning and team planning separate and to honor the times for each. 3222 The team.bad both formal and informal roles that each member played. The formal roles for this team are the four jobs they have de- fined to be done during the team meeting and the tasks rotate to a different member each month. One of the four is in charge of the agenda for the meeting which is kept in a daily calendar book about six by eight inches large. Every teacher in the building receives one of these books, and there is a page for each day of the year. The top part of the page has hourly times and lines, and the bottom is blank for notes. One of these books belongs to the team and is kept in the green team box. The person in charge of the agenda gets this book out of the box and writes in agenda items to be discussed on a given day. After the item is discussed, it is crossed out. A second job is "the board," which refers to a large (approximately twenty-four by eighteen inches) plastic laminated board that hangs on the wall outside room 105 and has a weekly schedule for the team. (See figure on page 108.) The felt-tipped pens in the box are used for writing on the board, and the ink can be wiped off with a tissue from.a box kept for this purpose. As the team makes decisions about scheduling,the board person records its decisions on the board. A third responsibility is the "dailies." Dailies are the daily schedules for each of the teachers. One of the team.members makes copies for the others of the times of the classes for the day. The fourth person is the runner. If there are any 108 m human as 3 %8e2 3 .8‘ ”AL La! SSN {...a 109 errands to be run during the meeting, this person runs them, such as signing up for the auditorium, giving the teacher aides typing to do, or checking with the office on anything. Carol commented in an inter- view: There has always been the agenda book. There's always been each person has a role to play in the meeting. And we switch roles each month. The informal roles were as regular and predictable as the meet- ing time and place and almost as formal as the formal roles. The meet- ings start the same way each day. Faith is always moving around, straightening up chairs and tables, picking up bits of paper, putting away books and getting out the team box which she puts on the two rec- tangular tables she has pushed together for the teachers to sit around. The box is approximately twelve by eighteen by four inches and is painted a bright green. In it are any notes they have written, some felt-tipped pens, stationary, address cards for each student, and as- sorted blank forms. Usually Henry arrives with a cup of coffee, fol- lowed by Rick with a cup of tea and an apple, and Carol with a cup of coffee. Faith then pours her own cup of coffee from a thermos in her desk. Invariably Rick, after the meeting has just begun, lifts his teabag out of the cup and throws it several feet into the wastebasket; somedays he misses or dribbles across the table, and other days he makes his basket with no mess. On rare occasions, Carol and sometimes ‘ Rick come in with pieces of coffee cake from the lounge. The teachers sit in the same positions around the table, shown in the following diagram of room 105. The only time the positions vary is if a substitute is present and sits down in one of the positions, then people shift accordingly. The only other time the seating 110 windows plastic board "_W F— E , ' Faith D D ....x , A ”—_7‘ [:1 .__. I: I: L..+ * D D D black w w x , [3 Henry sliding board E :1 I L 0 Rick 0 box partition 4.... .___l [:1 ‘_., A__., —-4' Observer Carol "" door lll arrangement changed was a few days after Rick had been notified of his transfer; then Carol sat beside him for the next few days. The seating arrangement indicates individual team members' feelings about who they are similar to on the team.and it also reflects their perceptions of who other members on the team are close to. During meetings the teachers usually had set routines of how they listened, in addition to the coffee or apples or coffee cake they brought with them. Carol would usually be grading papers, writing Sweepstakes questions, or just reading a science magazine. One day, in the middle of the meeting, she crumpled up one of the papers she was grading with the comment, "When will they learn I mean it when I say I won't accept papers without names on them?" On another occasion, she would be revising a form for a field trip, or reading out loud an in- teresting fact from the science magazine. If she had the board for the month, she would elaborately erase the schedule from the week before and write in the new schedule, often checking with the rest of the teachers on what they decided or mumbling about the limited choice of colors she had to write with. Some days the others would continue and some days they all joined in. For instance, the day Henry was trying to make up the agenda, Carol was joking about a form from the principal about teaming for the next year. Faith moved the wastebasket over for Rick so he wouldn't drip his teabag, and he said, "Ah, you're getting to know me." Henry kept clearing his throat and asking, "What's on the agenda?" Then Carol started singing "Happy Birthday" to him, joined by the others as Henry said again, "the agenda?" Carol responded with, "Well, your birthday is a matter of interest to the team!" 112 Faith usually had her own schedule book in front of her and would make notes to herself about team concerns and things she was re- sponsible for doing. Sometimes,she would have a folder of papers in front of her and would absent-mindedly sort through them. On other days she would stare out into space and then.shake her head and be brought back to the item under discussion. On occasion, she would get up to look through the papers on her desk for an announcement the team was discussing. Henry usually had his planning book in front of him. It was a green cardboard-covered booklet with squares on each page for lesson planning. Inside he had taped the movies that were in the school that week and perhaps a few notes. The book served more as a folder for student papers, and he also had grades listed in it. Somedays, he would just have it in front of him, and other days, he might be looking through it. When he had the board, he might absent-mindedly play with the felt-tipped pens. Rick would play with his tea and his apple core or he would sit and absent-mindedly brush imaginary crumbs off the table or doodle. Usually when he had to write something down, he would borrow a pen and paper and Faith would be hopping up to get supplies for him. When one of the four was absent and a substitute was present, the tone of the meetings did not change. They would inquire about how classes had gone, and if he needed any help with anything. If the substitute was a regular, they would have him run errands or do the board. An examination of formal and informal roles reveals both to be highly structured and unvarying. Each member had a formal task to do 113 each month, and each member also played a certain informal role which usually served as a type of distraction from the content of the agenda items. It was difficult to merely sit and concentrate on listening. Leadership Leadership on the team.was shared among the four members, both formally and informally. Faith pointed out in an interview: You are aware that that (no designated leader) is deliberate because when we went to look at schools before we went into teaming, all those teams had leaders. They had a master teacher. They decided we would do it more democratically. Each teacher was equal. This attitude is similar to the principal's notion of shared decision- making, in the building and within the teams. Carol echoed this per- ception of how they operated: I think that when something comes up, that one of us feels we must do or this is the way it is, it gets done because the rest of us say immediately, "Fine." It's notsomething_ we're going to fight the other person on...I think we're all to a certain degree very agreeable with different things that happen. If you are so positive that you have to become whatever it is you want it to become, then the rest, whether or not they agree, would go along. Carol did feel, however, that this year was different because a former team member was on sabattical. In other years, the former member would insist on putting things off until the next day, on being on time, and on keeping to the agenda. Carol felt that this year, as a consequence, team structure had loosened considerably, due to this leadership role's not being filled in the same way. Rick perceived the situation differently. He felt that senior- ity dictated the informal leadership of the team: I think that we all seem to lean toward Henry as the leader. Maybe we defer to Henry as the leader. I don't know what 114 the reason is for anyone else. I don't choose to tell people what to do; and until it becomes something I disagree with, it's fine with me if somebody feels like they want to lead the meeting. Rick and Carol both felt that it was important to go along with what the others wanted, and Faith indicated in another section of this chap- ter that, asainewcomer, she did not want to dictate how things should go. That leaves Henry remaining, and he was curious to know if any- thing had been discovered about leadership patterns although he did not share his observations on the tOpic. An important value, shared among the four of them, that has emerged from this section on leadership is the importance of harmony among them. Harmony has not emerged so much as a positive value, but as the opposite of conflict. Henry commented that it was a good year because it had been "very pleasant"; Faith mentioned keeping quiet if there was anything with which she disagreed; Rick said that he would be quiet unless he really disagreed, but that even then, he felt he was expected to bend to the more senior members; and Carol stated that a person's preferences were not something "to fight the other person on." They all waited to see who felt strongly enough on a given issue to push it, and they they would go along. As a consequence, no one pushed really hard for much of anything. If one did, there was no way of telling how the others really felt. Topics The topics discussed at the team meetings were usually put on the agenda at the beginning of the meeting. On some days, there are items on the agenda that were carried over from a previous meeting and the agenda person might ask, "Anything else?" or "Anything you want put 115 on the agenda today?" Henry would frequently start with, "Well, what's on the agenda for today?" whether or not he was the agenda person. The kinds of items listed will be discussed in more detail later, but might include a specific student's name, a problem one of the teachers was having, a bit of personal information, announcement of an absence, or discussion of a team policy. It was generally up to the agenda keeper to select items in order for discussion. Faith said, when she had the agenda, "How do I do this? Do I call off the next item?" As the month wore on, the agenda keeper would become more selective, picking either the large and difficult items first, or the little ones that could be crossed off quickly. Sometimes items were added during discussion. On alternate Tuesdays, one of the counselors, Linda, would meet with the team for the purpose of soliciting names of kids who might need help from.her and to report on those students the team had asked her to check on. From time to time, the reading teacher would stop in with information on testing she had done with the team's students or interpretation of reading scores. On one occasion, the physical educa- tion teacher requested a meeting with the team because she was having problems with particular groups of students who would not settle down. The team.also requested meetings with the principal or assistant prin- cipal when there was a particular discipline problem with a student or when a home contact was involved. It was the agenda which ruled what would be discussed in the team meetings, and it was the agenda which formed the format and the structure of the team. The agenda structured the nature and order of discussion. Henry commented: 116 Our agenda kept us somewhat away frmm that (interpersonal communication), and that was the purpose of that agenda be- cause some teams can be so monopolized by talk of nothing as far as school...I felt that we communicated, that our agenda method kept things going well. For Henry, interpersonal chit-chat belonged in the teachers' lounge. Carol had commented at an earlier point that this aspect of the team had loosened up. Rick and Faith, too, agreed that the structure had loosened. Even though the structure was not as rigid, Faith commented on her feelings about the team format in general: I really dislike having to work to an agenda; even though I understand very clearly that the agenda keeps you on tar- get, it's supposed to keep you on target in terms of the available team planning. The other side of that coin is, if you have the strict agenda, you really feel like you can't wisecrack or make jokes or talk about something personal. And this year my husband was dying, and I always felt that I couldn't talk much about it in team planning because there was a long agenda and people couldn't take time to listen. And on the other hand, it isn't that I wanted to spend a lot of time talking about it; I just felt that I shouldn't Rick felt that the format "kinda gets in the way of some more free type team.teaching." It was the agenda which dictated sticking to the topic at hand. Neither Faith nor Rick especially liked the rigidity, but neither did either of them push for the format's being anything other than it had been for the past two years. Thus, there was an agenda and there was little interpersonal communication, little conflict, and frustration on both Faith and Rick's parts that some of the their needs and some of their definition of the goal of teaming was not met in the team. Interactions The agenda, specifically, and the formal roles, in general, often determined the types of interactions that occurred. Or perhaps, 117 it was the manipulation of and references to the formal tasks that re- flected the mood of the team.on a given day. At the beginning of the meeting, the teachers would filter in and would sometimes talk about an incident that just occurred before starting the agenda. On other days, the agenda person would be there with the book Open, and the others would contribute topics to be dis- cussed. When Rick had the board, he announced that, since the team had decided to work with kids on Roman numerals, he would use them on the board. Another day Rick started by commenting on seeing three stu- dents at a local store the evening before and how polite they were. The team meetings usually lasted the entire period, whether there was a lengthy agenda or not. On a few occasions, several people would have other things to do during the hour and would hurry the agenda along by saying, "I've got things to do; let's hurry." Sometimes, it would not be this direct as when Rick said, "I wish Carol would hurry up; we've got lots to do," or Henry, commenting to the others, said, "Oh, come on, Rick, so we can get started." The one time the team did not meet in room.105 was when counselors from.the high school were using the room to register eighth graders for classes at the high school. The team met in the teachers' lounge. Henry was sitting at the round table,'Faith came in and poured her coffee, and Rick came in and sat down. Carol kept running around the lounge, and Henry told her they didn't need the board. He got out a piece of scrap paper, and said, "Agenda." Two items were listed, and the other teachers in the lounge were talking about going over to the other middle school for tuberculosis tests. Faith asked, "Are we going?" and Henry answered, "After we finish this. Where is Carol?" They went on with a few items, 118 and then Carol came over and said, "We don't need the board. I've got it done through Thursday." The others continued talking. When they finished, Henry said, "Well, that's it. Who's driving?" and they left. The mood of this meeting was definitely rushed, and the other activity in the lounge contributed to the mood. There were times when the mood was more relaxed. One day Carol started to write the agenda in the schedule book, and Rick said, Now, wait a minute. Isn't it time we changed jobs so I won't get something I don't like, or have we already done that? It was the middle of the month! Henry said that they hadn't, and counted the months on his fingers to show that April should be like December's schedule. That meant that Faith had the agenda, Henry the plastic board, Rick the dailies, and the runner was Carol. Rick said that he hated the dailies most of all. Henry laughed and said, "You hate all the jobs most of all," and Rick said, "Yah, I guess you're right." While they were bantering back and forth, Carol was leaning over whispering to Faith about items to put on the agenda. One Friday, Henry started laughing and said, "Someone punched a hole in Victoria Falls," referring to a three-dimensional project. his kids had done. Then he started laughing harder and kept trying to ' and say, "Someone else threw Victoria Falls into the Saragasso Sea,‘ practically collapsed with laughter. At that point, and because it was a Friday afternoon, Rick said, "Come on, guys, let's get down to business." On still other days, they would be all business and would walk in the room listing items for the agenda. If three of the four were businesslike, they would smile knowingly at the one fooling around and 119 move on to the first item. One day Carol announced, "I'm not doing the board again; I'll do anything else." Rick said, "You don't have to. Faith has the board, you are the runner, I have the agenda, and Henry does the dailies. What's on the agenda?" While he and Faith and Carol contributed items, Henry picked up a roll of cardboard and started toot- ing on it. The Others just smiled at him and waited, and then Henry said, "Okay, metrics, how are the groups going? Let me tell you about mine," and everyone laughed as the meeting was begun. The meetings ended when the agenda was finished, although,when no one was in a hurry, they would all sit around chatting about gardens, teaming for next year, and other assorted topics. If they were hurried, someone might look at the door and say, "Oh, the kids are here. I guess the rest will have to wait until tomorrow." In spite of the rigidity of the formal jobs, the team.members were able to meet their needs for some casual and even humorous inter- actions. The content of these interactions revolved around the topic of formal roles, or the team was brought back to the serious business by mention Of the agenda, one of the more serious invocations they had developed. Summagy The importance of the team organization cannot be overemphasized for it is the way in which they organized themselves which both reflects a compromise of their individual definitions of team task with each other and with institutional expectations and which determines the nature of their activities. In commenting on their organization, the principal said: 120 I think sometimes they may be so highly organized that it gets in their way, interferes with other things that they want to do. They are overly organized to the point that it interferes with even the public when they come in for con- ferences or for meetings...at the expense of what the little extra time or a little personal warmth or understanding would be given...They are task oriented in terms of specifying your job is this, your job is that...And I think they pro- bably reflect that in their teaching with kids and expecta- tions of kids that you better get organized and if you are not organized you are a failure. But even the principal, out Of his own busy schedule and out of his belief in team.autonomy, allowed Team 71 to operate the way it chose. The reason why the team agreed to the structure is best summed up by Rick: I would say that the personality of the Team 71 teachers has been established as we're in here and this is business and let's make a decision on what we're going to do and get out Of here. And as a new teacher,I learned that system and attempted to. And I also questioned it in the way I did things. And the stock answer has always been, this is a large team, this is the only way, the extreme structure. Henry appreciated the extreme structure, as did Carol. For Henry, the format structured communication and decision-making and allowed each of them to do his job. There were few surprises and few conflicts. Carol would have liked more social activities with the team, like going out to lunch, but she appreciated the support it gave her in dealing with discipline problems and parents. Faith did not like the for— malization because it kept her from knowing people and talking about herself, but avoidance of conflict was more important and the team's organization provided her with that security. Rick did not like the structure because it imposed that structure on students; but as a less senior member, he was not going to start a conflict. Prescribed methods of communicating and interacting became an accepted norm, along with avoidance of conflict which would allow them to work together during 121 the year. Working together was an important if not the most important expectation of the institution. The team was able to compromise each of their individual inclinations with the institutional expectation and the result was the team organizatiOn. Thus, the structure of the team reflected each of the individuals on the team and, at the same time, structured the team activities. The team structure can be characterized as the coming together of four individuals who remained individuals even in the division into four parts of the organization of the team. Leadership was shared to the extent that there was little of it as a means to avoid conflict. Roles and communication were structured around the organization and dealt with concerns of interest to the four individuals which resulted in the creation of a separate sphere of concerns labeled team concerns and which excluded the possibility of academic teaming. Team.Activities The purpose of this part of the section on the team between March and June, 1977, is to present the data which describes and illus- trates what the four teachers did together; what they talked about, planned for, and carried out; and how they did these things. Earlier parts of this sectionhave described the individual members of the team and its organization. In this part, the members' activities will be described. Their activities fall into one of three categories: talk about students, planning for and teaching team activities, and talk about noneteam.concerns. The category of talk about students includes dis- cussion with support staff, parent conferences, and the grouping of 122 students. The category of team activities includes year-long activi- ties such as scheduling of time, government and corporation, tardy policy, and homeroom reading and special units such as reading, class- room meetings, metrics, and a field trip. The category of non-team concerns includes discussion of school-related items and discussion of personal items. Presentation of items from all these categories will describe and illustrate what the team talked about, what they did, and how they carried out their activities. Students In discussing students, the team of teachers would have a mix- ture of observations, reflecting concern, interest, frustration, and occasionally, humor. Sometimes a particular student would be discus- sed for several days. Always, the name would be put on the agenda and usually it was because some kind of problem was perceived. In this way, the organization of the team structured the conversation by the fact that the name was placed on the agenda. Talking about students also met the institutional expectations of student-oriented teachers. At the same time, talking about students allowed each of the four team teachers to meet his own individual needs for sharing what was occur- ring in his classroom, but only in the prescribed context of agenda items which, in this case, were student names. Rarely were joint de- cisions reached on any type of action to be taken regarding a student; this was left to the individual discretion of the teachers. If some type of action was required, the support staff, in the form of either the principal or the assistant principal, was invited in to help solve the problem. 123 One very good example which illustrates how problems were pre- sented and resolved involved a student named Mike who had been absent for two weeks. Rumors were circulating among the rest of the students that he was adopted, was up for readoption because his parents didn't want him, was in a foster home in another city, and was in a hospital in another city. The teachers talked about how to squelch the rumors, and Carol suggested that they check to see what the story actually was. The principal came into the meeting at that point and said that he had heard all kinds of rumors and that either he or the assistant principal would check them out with the family. He said that Mike was adapted. Rick contributed his latest information, that the boy's father had called him on Sunday to ask for work for Mike who had a serious ear infection. Apparently the infection had gone into the lungs since that because that was what Mike was in the hospital for. While they were talking, Mike appeared at the door asking for work over the weekend and said he would return to school on Monday. His father was talking to the assis- tant principal at that very moment. The teachers expressed relief that he was okay and that they had missed him. After Mike left, they ex- pressed concern about the way rumors and nasty remarks circulate about different kids. At the meeting on Monday, Henry and Faith commented that Mike was back in school and all kinds of kids were clustering around to ask how he was. About five weeks later on a Friday, the principal came into the team meeting and mentioned to Faith that he had received a phone call from Mike's mother. Henry came in, followed by Rick. Terry asked Henry, "I guess you called Mrs. Costair this morning? Henry said, 124 Yes, Mike kept mouthing Off, so I sent him to the office and went right to the phone. I told Mrs. Costair that Mike must stop bringing that duffle bag of candy to the class and that he was boorish, insolent, and mouthy. Terry said, Well, she called me afterward and was terribly upset because you had told her that Mike was crazy and that all four of you felt that way. She was worried that there was no hope for him.for the rest of the year. The only thing she could fig- ure out with the candy was that after his illness and being out for so long, he was trying to buy friendship. She won- dered why this was the first she had heard of this. Rick said, "I think Carol has some input." Carol came in at that point, and Terry started to explain to Carol what had transpired when Henry remembered where Mrs. Costair might have gotten the idea that Mike was crazy. He said, "Oh, now I remember. Carol, you were standing right next to me when I was on the phone." Carol nodded, and Henry continued, looking pleased for having remembered: I told her that Mike was boorish and that he was disrupting the class with the duffle bag. I told her that he was not to bring it to school and that he was offering kids a piece of candy if they would let him hit them. I said "that's crazy" so she probably just heard that. While he was talking, Carol demonstrated Mike's handing out candy and said: Yes, he was doing that in my class, but I can't prove it. He steals the candy, too, when I'm not in the room. Faith got up at that point and demonstrated how he threw the duffle bag around in the hall, hitting kids. She related how she had seen Mike and his father in the hall after school. Mr. Costair had peeked in and said "Hi" but neither he nor Mike had "crossed the threshold" between her door and the desk. They had gone to Mike's locker and she heard the father say, "You didn't want to see it," and Mike mumbled something and they had left. Terry broke into the various 125 anecdotes to comment, "Maybe we need a conference since her main concern is that all of you feel there is no hOpe." Henry said, It's because we do think there's hope that I called. I also said that Mike was using bad words in Faith's class. Terry got PP t0 leave,and Faith asked if the conference could be set up for today before four o'clock since she still had her income tax to do. Rick asked why they couldn't have it at one O'clock during their plan- ning period. As Tony went out the door, Faith said, When you call her, can you convey the message that we are concerned and that we don't think he's crazy. Terry said,"I hear that," and left. 0n the following Monday, Henry reported during the meeting that he had run into Mike on the way into school and that they had chatted briefly. He said, "Mike was carrying two skate boards and a stack of books tied together with a belt." Rick remarked, You know, I always forget how the mind of a middle school kid works. They really do forget things. One minute they're angry as hell at you, and then half an hour later it's blown over and they've totally forgotten about it. Henry said, Yes, I think you're right. It seems so important at the time. It was interesting to hear from Mike that he really did not remember things that had occurred. As an adult, I guess I remember them. Carol shook her head negatively and said, "No, I think that Mike didn't remember things because it was convenient for him.not to remember." Faith asked if there was anything else about Friday's conference and no one responded, so they went on to the next item on the agenda. Two weeks later when one of the counselors came in for her re- gular alternate Tuesday time with the teachers, she said she wanted to check on Mike. Henry said, "Mike is doing just fine for me. How about 126 the rest of you?" Linda nodded and said that he seemed to be changed person and that he was particularly happy with communication arts. She looked at Faith who merely smiled. Linda said that she had seen him this morning and that he felt like he was accomplishing a lot and getting his work done in communication arts. Faith said, "He worked just beautifully this morning. Well, not just this morning; he's been doing just fine." Rick said that he had noticed the same thing for'Mike in math. In this example teachers were allowed to express their indivi- dual Opinions and no pressure was exerted for consensus. The principal entered when the circulating rumors reached him.and kept the team in- formed of action that was being taken. The team, as a team, however, did not take any action, other than to meet with the parents. As a followbup, the counselor checked to see how things were going. Initia- ting action and evaluation were the responsibility of the administration who worked through the team while the team could spend their time rela- ting anecdotes and sharing information about the problem. Other problems with students did not require administrative help. An example Of this is the case of James. Carol put his name on the agenda because she had a problem and wasn't sure what to do. She said, "I have a problem with James and I'm not sure what to do about it." As she spoke, she looked slightly embarrassed. She got up to close the door and repeated the same thing as Rick said, "He's in love with you." She just continued: Well, I said to the kids who were behind in their work that they would have to come in every night after school to get caught up so they could get satisfactories. James looked like he was ready to cry and said he couldn't make it last night, so I told him to come in tonight and he said he could. This morning he turned in his paper on the insect, and it was perfect. I mean the writing was neat and everything was Rick said, 127 correct. I said "okey" and "mmmm" but didn't think too much of it. As I walked over to my desk, I noticed that there was a kid's folder there all laid out and like he was working so I thought, "Oh, jeez, I'll have to straighten it up." I looked and it was Bill's papers in James' file. He had been copying them. I'm tempted to go ahead and not say anything and just give James credit. I mean, he's got to be learning something from just copying, doesn't he? The writing was even well done. I just don't know. The Others all had a response. Henry started, That boy is really something else. This morning he was work- ing on something that looked like it was from another class, and I walked over and asked him what he was working on. He said, "Out of class." I said, "That's just where it's sup- posed to be done, out of class." Actually, it's rather sad. I told him to get out his contract and work on that. said, "I see James as someone who will never quite make it." Faith That raises the whole issue of standards. Who set them, ac- cording to what definitions. I'm sorry, Carol, I don't have an answer for you. But I think this is a very important issue. Henry added, "It certainly is," and went on to talk about accountability and standards and that: Rick ...the Objectives here in this system are a good example. They are actually self-defeating. I mean, we teach to the test and not what is really important. said, "Of course, it's easy in math. You just take someone like James from.where he is." Faith said, "And he graduates with knowing only that two plus two equals four?" Rick said, No, he can do fractions if he wants to. But in math it's clear cut. But I do see what you mean about stating abili- ties. Maybe have diplomas stating what reading level or something. Henry asked, "But do you think if we had a tutorial program for James that he would move along any differently?" There was no response. Carol finally said, 128 Well, in my class it's fairly clear cut, too, but I still have to keep on him. I think I will probably just go ahead and ignore the copying, but it doesn't seem right. In this case, there was a problem, but Carol resolved it for herself. She did not really expect a team decision. Rather, they gave her input and gave her a chance to talk about the problem. She made the final decision and the matter was dropped. An incident which was not resolved quite so easily but which began in a similar way involves Faith. A part of the difference between the two problems lies in Faith's personality and part of the difference is in the fact that the student caused a school-wide problem. What is significant is that the illustration had a great impact on Faith. Faith had added Don's name to the agenda, and when the item was announced, she started by saying, Well, let's see. I'm trying to remember exactly what hap- pened and the sequence of things. On Friday in class the kids were reading,and Don called out to someone in the hall and another student said, "Oh, Don, be quiet." And then he made some remarks to kids during the hour. On his way out I said to him that I wanted him to please behave himself in class, and he said, "Ha, that'll be the day. I'm going to make your life miserable for you," in a very surly voice. Well, I thought about it and decided something had to be done, so I went down to tell Terry who called him in and talked to him and was very displeased. Then he called him in again later and Don was better. After school Don came to me and said, "I guess we'll be talking on Monday." I said I didn't know anything about it, and he said, "I guess you will." He was very polite. He always is on a one-to— one basis. NO, that's not true; we were alone in the room on Friday when he was so belligerent. Anyway, I guess I will be hearing. Carol already knows some of this. I don't think you do, Rick. I was on my way down to see Terry and I heard him yell to a girl as she was going into the john, "How much do you charge?" Well, I went down to Terry and added those two pieces of information. Carol said, On Friday, I picked up a note from a girl to whoever sits behind her. It said, "Don keeps calling me a whore, and 129 I'm really upset and don't know what to do." I looked at it and said, "Please don't say anything to anyone." She looked like she was about to cry. Carol shrugged and Rick said, "Don thinks he's Joe Cool," and looked disgusted. Faith said, "Well, I'll let you know what happens when we talk," and the meeting was over. The next day Faith reported to the team, "We talked last night and I don't think I'll have any trouble until the end of the year." Rick said, "And then you'll kill him?" Faith smiled, and said seriously, "No, I think it will be all right." Carol asked, "How was he in class today?" Faith answered, "Fine, very polite." Carol said, "I wondered because I noticed you had a kind of free activity going on." Faith said, Oh, no, what's going on in class doesn't make a difference. That's not the kind of trouble I have with Don. There was a moment of silence, and then Henry asked a question about a different item. The following week, the assistant principal came in to report on the student's behavior on a class trip and report on the action he would be taking. What began as aproblem between a student and Faith became a problem between the school and the student. Because Faith took her problems with students so seriously and presented them so dramatically, the other team.members reacted to her presentation Of the problem. Henry, in an interview, commented on the problem and Faith talked about this incident at the end of the year: It is baffling to me that Carol told me, "Faith, you have to be strict with Don. You have to. You have to tell him what's what." I think once over the year I had been strict with him; and if I think about it, I have been strict with him. "Don, go over and sit down." "Don, where's your book?" "Don, you are going to stay after school." "Don, go to the 130 Office," all Of these things. I have talked to him and tried so many routes. I didn't say anything, but I thought, "Carol, you don't understand what it is. It's like if you're strict with him, you won't have any problems"..well, she is strict with him, and she doesn't have any problems, I'm sure of that. But it's more than that. I don't know what it is, so I can't answer it. If I speculate about it, I can't answer it. So that's working with kids. Like I heard Rick talking about Don - "Don is beginning to cause problems in my class- room," stuff like that. Well, do they overlook things or what is it. I don't understand. Or one time, Henry was up in the library and the wall was open and Don was sitting on a table and he was shooting at people and he was hitting them and stuff like that and messing around and when Henry came down from the library, he said, "Don, well, there were some other kids, too," but you know, it's like I don't know if they don't notice those things or what? If my standards are dif- ferent, that's about kids, you know? That's why I really value team planning. Being able to talk kids. I ended up thinking in my mind, "Carol, I have been strict." It's like when she looked at it and said, "Faith, you just have to be strict with him," then she told me last week that baffled me, too; she said, "Boy, the girls on the bus were talking about how Don and other students talk to you and what they say to you," and all that kind Of thing. I don't understand that. I don't understand it. She must think I am just easy going with him or something. I don't really know, but at this point I decided just not to say anything. So, I didn't. Except it's a mystery to me. I do feel that I have been strict. Since I feel that I have been strict with him, I can't understand. The fact that others misunderstood or did not fully understand the problem or her behavior was of concern to Faith. Once again it was the administration that took action on the problem. Faith ap- proached the principal for help and not the team. Support Staff One other major discussion item regarding students involved a group of seventeen girls that met periodically with one of the counse- lors, Barbara. The teachers commented on the disruption this caused to their classes and also among students in the team. The counselor re- quested a meeting with the team teachers and then requested a meeting 131 among four of the girls in the group and the team teachers. The pro- duct of this meeting of students and teachers resulted in the sugges- tion of conducting classroom meetings which will be discussed at a later point. What is most interesting about histJustrationis the way the team teachers dealt with the situation. During team meetings, each could comment that the situation had gone too far and that perhaps the counselor would terminate the meetings. No direct action was taken, however. After the meeting with the four students, when the counselor requested that all seventeen leave class, the teachers refused, saying that their classes were important and suggesting she pull them out of special areas. At the end of the year, when questioned about what had happened, Henry responded: The big problem with our Sweet Seventeen caused us to sort of shy away from any other interruptions. Because that was rather disturbing to the group process...having them taken out Of the team and making them identify separate from the team. We talked about it as a team, and then we said we were going to prevent that group from leaving the team. And things sort of started to close down then...But to march in there and tell her (Barbara), "Cut it out." Then we would go through a whole new process -— of meeting with the princi- pal and with her. And that would take twice as much of our time. Once again, conflict was avoided because to have conflict meant a slow- down in the process of getting on with the business of the team. They develOped their own methods of avoiding conflict and, at the same time, of not losing time. The meeting with the students and the suggestion for classroom meetings as a form of action was initiated by the stu- dents with help fram a member of the support staff. The teachers went along and fit both the problem discussion and the remedy into their existing organiztional framework. 132 When the regular counselor assigned to the team, Linda, came in, it was usually to talk about specific students or to ask for names of students the team teachers thought needed counseling. On one occasion, Rick suggested she talk with one boy, "just because he's doing so well. I see some real development." Henry added, "I know, maybe you can call down a whole group." He named several more boys and commented: It might be interesting. These boys were all very quiet and out of it, and now they're just beginning to come alive and make some noise. Linda wrote down the names and said,"That would be interesting. I haven't done something like that in a while; I'd like to." Rick said, "I know they're aware, or maybe they aren't." The teachers gave her a few more names and some background, and then she thanked them and left. In addition to the counselors' coming in to talk with the team, the reading teacher and, on one occasion, the physical education teacher came to team meetings to talk about concerns. The physical education teacher was concerned about some of the girls in the team and the disci- pline problems they presented, primarily the general lack of respect and the friendship cliques. The principal was there, but, because time was short, nothing was resolved. Rick asked what they had a right to expect from twelve and thirteen year olds in terms of energy release. From time to time, the teachers would.comment on the behavior of stu- dents, in general. On some days, they felt the team was well-behaved; on other days, they would bemoan their noisiness. One day Rick and Carol had given the kids a lecture, during the auditorium, about their maturity. 133 The special educationteacher came in to ask about specific stu- dents with whom she worked. One day she came in to ask about Judy whom she had been testing; she was interested in finding out how'much of the student's problem was social and how much was academic. The assistant principal came in and sat down for part of that conference. At various times, all of the teachers talked at once, although they generally moved around in turn and each had his say. Henry started.by saying, "Judy seems much more outgoing, happy, and buoyant." Faith said, "I don't concur with that," as Carol added, "But that's because she likes com- munication arts." Faith responded, I don't mean about that, though I didn't know that. I meant that some of the outgoingness has a negative quality to it. She has a new'friend who has problems in the team, and I am concerned about that. Carol said, Let me explain; in my room, when I went over the parts of the microscope alone with her, I named them and she pointed them out and wrote them down, and then I started to go back over them and she couldn't remember a thing. I just don't know where she is. Faith said, "She does well on her writing." Carol added, "Yes, she does fine for me on written work." Rick said, Sometimes she seems to know exactly what's going on and other times, nothing. I think she's trying out some new roles. Henry agreed that her seat and independent work was good. The special education teacher said that she had found Judy direct and aggressive in some things, and asked Faith about her oral work. Faith said, "She seems timid and shy, and talks in a very soft voice." Carol added, She can be very aggressive. She and her friends have come to visit me at home, and she doesn't care what she says, whether I'm listening or not. 134 The special education teacher summarized their comments and said that this was helpful to her as she finished her testing. Near the end of the term, the reading teacher came in with a batch of reading scores. She explained that no matter how carefully they explained what the reading scores meant to the kids, they all went around saying that they could read like tenth graders or whatever. She had developed a new reporting system for this time. It was a form.where she had checked, for each student, whether his reading was average or above or below; whether he had stayed the same or improved or dropped from the September test; and a section for other comments, some of which were included such as, "You are holding your own," "Keep working to improve," "The drop is very slight and possibly insignificant." She gave each teacher one of the cards to look at along with a list for the team of students' stanines and reading levels. She said that she felt that the team.was to be congratulated for their work because most of the kids had jumped scores. She wasn't sure of the significance, so she had checked withTerry who had checked with the central administra- tion. She felt this was a clever way of letting the central administra— tion know how well they were doing. She felt it was very significant, and that it had to do with the practice the team had given the kids. Henry asked, "Can this be put into my record?" She laughed and said she wanted to write down all thethings the team had done -- the fifteen-twenty minutes reading periods three-four times each week and the six-week reading unit. Rick added: I think the way we handled it helped contribute to the im- provement. We had kids record their readings and chart their progress. Henry said, "Oh, and we had them.write summaries of what they had read 135 during one six-week period." The reading teacher emphasized again how important the practice was. Then she said that she had about ten kids who had drOpped significantly and wanted to know why: "If you could give me some input on how you see these kids, I can write in comments on the bottom of the card." She suggested they might want to hand the cards out to the kids and then collect them and send them home at the end of the year with the report cards. Rick commented, Oh, we can't let them run around with the cards. would look at the low ones and say, "What's the matter with you? You're so dumb!" One of these days, someone's going to come down hard on him. The reading teacher went through the list of names, one at a time, to solicit the teachers' views on who should be retested; then she re- thanked them and left. In summarizing discussions about students to this point, it is interesting to note that the principal and assistant principal were the only support staff who were invited in by the team and that they were in charge of discipline and taking action to resolve problems. The counselors, physical education teacher, special education teacher, and reading teacher asked to come to the meetings. And when they came, they structured the discussion by informing the team of why they were coming and what they wanted from them. In one sense, these self-invited guests represented the needs and expectations Of the administration and not necessarily the needs Of the team teachers. Only when the teachers' needs involved a request for action did they invite support staff in, and then only the staff who could act on resolving a problem. Communication with parents illustrates a different type of meshing of institutional expectations with individual teacher needs. 136 Team.discussion reflected teacher needs and team behavior, as in send- ing assignments home,and meeting with parents for conferences met the requirements of the school. Parents One day Henry held up a telephone message and said, is still out with the chicken pox and his mother wants his assignments by noon." Carol said, "Boy, is his brother ever negative." Henry added, "Well, then, he should do well with my unit on integers!" and laughed. When no one else did, he explained, "You know, negative numbers!" He started to write on the back of the message and commented, "He should be back on Monday, shouldn't he? I mean, the chicken pox!" He handed the message to Carol who looked at it and said, "What's this?" Henry replied, "His assignments: China, contract, and project." Carol said, Well, I can't just write down phrases like that. I have to pull worksheets and stuff to give him and check to see what he has to do. Henry passed the message the other way to Faith, and then announced the next item on the agenda. Parent conferences were held during the end of April. The team teachers had sent forms home to the parents telling them the time they were assigned to come. Three blocks Of time were available: Friday afternoon, Monday morning, and Wednesday evening. On the Monday before the first set of conferences, Henry brought in a note from a parent re- questing a time other than the one she was assigned to on the basis of last name. Henry said that the woman was in school new full time. Carol said, "Sure, why not? It's such a factory production, I don't care when she comes." Faith took out a copy of all the times and the 137 parents assigned to them. Carol said, "When did you have time to do all that?" Faith said, "Last Friday, after school." Henry commented, "Half the parents won't show up, so it doesn't mean much." Faith said, "I marked the parents who showed up last time." They all looked impressed, but a little incredulous that she would put so much time into it. Henry said, "So, should I tell her that Wednesday evening is okay?" They all said "Yes" and nodded. By Friday morning, Faithbroughc in one of the forms and said, You probably saw this, but let me bring your attention to it. It's from , and she has added a note on the bottom. "I don't like eight a.m., and the report cards tell me nothing. Henry said, came in and asked if the time could be changed because his mother likes to sleep in, but I said we had so many parents that it would be difficult to change. He said "okay" and that he'd tell his mom. Rick added a comment about how his parents were in the last conference. Faith said, Terry told us to take a break. Hah! Can you see yourself getting up and saying to parents, "Excuse me; I'm going to take a break!" Carol said, No, it's really hard with them all waiting for you. I re- member last year; I sat still for almost four hours straight. Rick said, Well, it won't run over in the morning. Terry comes around and picks up papers and that gets people out. But at night is when they can go on forever. I guess that's because it's the last chance. Carol said, "I just hate being pushed for time; they aren't real con- ferences. The parents get shortchanged." Faith said, 138 You know that's not true. You take the time you need with each one and if it's important, they won't let you rush through. Carol said, "Yah, last year we finished one-half hour after the time was over." On Tuesday, at the beginning of the meeting, Faith asked Henry how many peOple he had seen at the conferences the day before and to- tally. He said a number that was three higher than hers, and she said, "I want to know who they were, who I didn't see." She asked Carol the same thing several times, and Carol finally got up and went to her room to get the list. When she came back, she reached over and took Faith's list and checked names off. It was important to Faith to see exactly who had not seen her. Faith asked Carol about the s, and Carol just said, "Oooooooh, no" and made a face. Faith said, "But I really want to hear about them." Henry asked if the air had been cleared, and she shook her head "no." She said that they had hpped their son hadn't had his interest in science dampened and that he felt Carol didn't like him. She said she would talk with him. He was doing fine and seemed as enthusiastic as ever. They reminded her that they were both teachers and that he was a scientist. Carol said, "I thought of saying 'shove it,‘ but I didn't." She finished relating the story and all they had laid on her. Faith said, Oh, I'm sorry I asked you to talk about it. Now I can see why you didn't want to. What an ordeal for you, Carol. Carol said, Well, I know that next time I won't try to defend myself. I will just sit and listen to what parents like that have to say, and when they finish I'll say, "Now, in science..." 139 Henry asked about , a student whose parents live in a dif- ferent state and who lives with an aunt. Faith related her experiences with the aunt who came to the conferences: I was the last teacher in the library and she came in to introduce herself. She apologized for not having recog- nized me. She said that she didn't have her glasses and that it was after she left that she realized I was one of '3 teachers. I said that I didn't have any- thing of a serious nature to discuss with her, and she said, "Oh, that's all right. I just wanted to introduce myself." New I thought that was very polite of her. Carol said, "Did you see that ring?" Henry added a comment, and then Faith said, "No, I just never notice things like that." They talked about other parents briefly. Faith concentrated hard when others spoke, as if to absorb every detail that might be important about friendships, social patterns, and other sorts of information. At the end of the term, in looking back over the entire school year, Henry commented that this year, in addition to the regularly scheduled parent-teacher conferences, the team had only four or five additional conferences with parents in contrast to about eight the year before. There were few requests for assignments for students who were absent. Most of the discussion related to problem students, and the teachers made individual decisions on how to best deal with the problem. Grouping The one other context in which the team teachers discussed stu- dents was in their grouping of them. They change the groupings four times during the school year, at the beginning of each nine-week marking period. The switch took place at the students' return from spring break in April. The teachers made up the groups the week before they 140 left for break. One day on the agenda, Henry announced groups and asked if anyone had any stacks of kids' cards left. He went to his room to get a stack. At the beginning of the school year, the teachers have the kids take old computer cards and write their names on the back of the cards at the top when the cards are laid lengthwise. The team used these cards for their grouping and could sort them like a deck of cards. Henry asked how they should go about this, and Rick said he hoped he could remember what kids he did not want together. Faith said that Carol had said she didn't care, and had not submitted any lists. Faith said that there was no particular way she wanted to have the kids grouped for the last marking period. Henry said that he didn't care either. Faith suggested that they sort the piles into a boys' pile and a girls' pile. Henry gave Faith half the cards, and they each sorted a pile for boys and one for girls. Then Henry took both the piles, first the boys', and started making four groups. Faith suggested he lay the first four down left to right and then the second four down on top right to left for a variety. She did similarly for the girls, and said they could match across to get a different group than in the fall. Henry said that since the fall, they had had more kids added and that the group wouldn't come out all the same at all. Faith said, "Okay, since I wasn't here to watch you do it before." When the piles, girls and boys, were put together, Henry started to lay them out, right side up, to see what the groups looked like. Rick moved over to sit between Henry and Faith so he could see. While the cards were being laid out, each of the three commented on various kids - the changes he or she had made, what a neat kid that was, etc. When the groups were visible, each of the three pulled various cards 141 with comments like, "I don't want the two of them together; he needs him for support." Faith asked a couple of times if a particular kid had any other kids in the group that he could relate to. Rick put po- tential problems at the bottom of the deck so they could be seen more easily. They took about fifteen minutes to do this. The main basis of sorting was social - which kids got along with others, which kids to keep separate, how the total group looked. They decided to meet again the next day to finish. Faith asked why, since the lists could be typed then. Rick said, "Just to look one more time; also to check out boy-girl problems, after we've had a chance to think on it." The following day, Henry asked, "Where are the grouping cards?" Faith got them, and Henry passed them out. Carol was still absent, and the substitute was a regular one so she helped. She asked, "What do you want us to look for, problems?" Henry said, "Yes, just see if you see any big problems." They each laid out their cards. Faith said, "Now, what?" Rick said, "DO you want us to pass them around?" Henry said, "I thought we could lay them out and just walk around the table and look." Faith had taken a seat on the same side of the table as the substitute. She got up and wrote some notes at her desk. Rick and Henry continued a conversation about philosOphy from the day before while they examined their cards. Faith came back to stand at the table and was closely examining the different stacks. Henry asked, "What are you doing?" She said, "I'm checking them for spelling for the typist." She ckecked all the cards while Rick and Henry talked, and then Henry said, "Make sure they are alphabetized and let's count to see how many are in each pile." They each checked a pile and called out their 142 figures, which were equal. Faith took them down to the aide for the lists to be typed. In discussing how they had done grouping in the past, Henry ex- plained, "Last time, Rick needed to pull out an algebra class, so we had only that one class arranged and fifteen left to go,‘ referring to the fact that there are four classes in each of four subjects. He further explained that when the kids reported to the auditorium at the beginning of that new marking period, they handed out preference cards, first come had first chance to sign up for the classes they wanted. It had worked like the arena scheduling at college. He said it had gone well from an administrative standpoint. Rick added, Yeah, we got a lot of friendship groups, but the one thing that was surprising was that kids signed up for the times they wanted the classes. Henry said that when the schedule was rotated each week (week one had class one, then two, then three, then four; week two had class two, then three, then four, and then one), "You know, kids in the afternoon are different than in the morning, and we want to give them all a chance to be at their best," the kids all complained because they were not really having the times they wanted. Rick said, "We were really surprised by that. I guess they do know what they want and what they're doing." One the second day back after spring break, Rick asked how the groups were going. Henry said, "Fine." Rick commented, "I just won- dered; I have two girls who are whispering a lot." There was some dis- cussion about the different classes, and they finally decided it was class two. At the end of the week, group two was on the agenda again. Henry asked who was in that group. Rick started remembering names, and 143 Faith gave Henry a list of the class. Henry read the good names off and then the bad ones. Rick reminded him, Remember we had three classes that all looked good and then that fourth one. That must have been the last one we grouped. Do you want to change them? Henry said emphatically, No. We have to work with things as they are. I told them that a few kids were giving the whole class a bad person- ality. They went on to the next agenda item. Earlier in the week, Carol asked, "What are we going to do about names for the group?" as she brought out the suggestions she had writ- ten down from kids during the previous day's auditorium time. Carol added, "I really like NBC." Henry said, "Yes, I think that's a neat suggestion - NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS." Rick asked, "Who suggested it?" Carol said, "It was someone near the front." Rick named a name, and Carol said, "No, but someone near him. I just can't remember." Henry asked, "How do we assign names to which group?" Rick said, Why don't we go alphabetically? Group one, ABC; group two, CBS, group three, NBC; group four, PBS. That way we won't show favorites and it will also help us to remember which group is which. Henry said, "That's good," and they moved on to the next item on the agenda. Grouping of students was an institutional expectation; how and when and for what purposes were decisions made by the team. In a way that is similar to how the team teachers discussed students, the way students were grouped during the school year was not toward any pre- determined goal. None of the individual teachers had a preference, other than the one time they pre-selected an algebra group in math; so 144 the grouping provided another opportunity to talk about students. The shuffling ofcards also provided an opportunity to talk of other topics while they were working on the announced agenda item. This method of grouping, while not done for a stated goal related to instruction, was, however, goal—directed behavior. The goal toward which it was directed was twofold: grouping students met the school expectation that stu- dents be grouped, and it met the unstated group need of sharing and communicating with each other. Checking the newly formed groups for potential problems insured that things would continue to run smoothly, without conflict. In summarizing Team 71's focus on students, they discussed in-v dividual students and groups of students in whichever context was ap- propriate for the kind of problem they were having or noticing about students. Frequently, they would involve the principal and assistant principal, counselors, reading teacher, special education teacher, and other teachers who might have input. Equally as often, other members of the school faculty would come to the team teachers for information about students. During this school year, discussion with parents, either in person or by telephone, was infrequent. Their perceptions on their roles and the helpfulness of discussion about students were simi- lar as they stated them in individual interviews. Each, however, re- flected some degree of frustration with some aspect of the process and this frustration, in turn, was a reflection of differences among the four of them as individuals. Henry commented: I think of Team 71 as a unit. That's one of my problems with the team. I see a group of 118 kids and I do not see them as ABC, etc. Ever since I've started teaming, this 145 has been a problem for me, because of the constant change. Before I had English and social studies, and I was with those kids, and they developed personalities. With this, it never developed. The whole team has a huge personality. I see individuals, and I see this big mass. And that's a long dis- tance to go after so many years of looking at people in a group and a constant behavior pattern for a year. I know from my own experiences, I can take the kids from those teams five or six years ago and find it difficult to know who they were, what year they were. There was a much more close relationship (with kids before teaming). In spite of the lack of personality which might have developed in work- ing with a smaller group of students, Henry felt that the team during this school year was unusual because they only regrouped students four times during the year. His values and rationale on the purpose of grouping can be discerned in his response to a question relating to the frequency of grouping students: (the team usually does it) more frequently although there are some teams that are static all year, and the kids never know anything about that group as that group within the team. Whereas, we have had different labels each term and change. Now that's time wise. We plan for, sometimes we plan for in- dividual.differences on that homogenous grouping we did, basically for math. We plan for separating students in dif- ferent groups. We juggle personality with kids, so we can pick some of the sore spots and spread them out so the fric- tion won't be so great on some things. Faith had some different perceptions of the grouping process, also in response to ways in which this particular team may have done things differently than other teams. She said that this time was: ...cut and dried as compared to other teams I'd been in. The way of scheduling -- they had IBM cards and they just flip, flip, flip...I've used many different ways of sched- uling, and I've shifted kids, too, as we've needed to shift kids in the past in other teams. we didn't do much of that this year compared to what I've done in the past. On the time spent in discussing students, she said: It's very, very important to hear how other teachers see kids; that's very, very important to me. It always has 146 been. I feel like I get a lot of insight about kids and how they are. That's why I really value team planning. Being able to talk kids. It's very important to me; I would talk kids every day. Carol probably was most clear and direct in stating the role of the team in discussing students when she said: Well, I think the most valuable part is when I'm having problems with a kid, to know whether or not in all the classes, or if it really is my problem. Whether it's a problem.between the kid and the team or if it is a problem that is with all the teachers it is probably not stemming from.school. It's probably stemming from a home or social situation. I think that's a lot easier to handle in your class when you know whether or not the problem is really out of your hands and you're going to treat it as something entire different. I think that's a lot easier to handle in your class, when you know whether or not the problem is on a one-to-one basis, or whether the problem is really out of your hands and , therefore, you're going to treat it as something different. I would say that one might be the fore- most, along with that association when you have a parent come in and walk all over you for something that has gone wrong. You have the support because obviously if that has happened, the child has been talked about already. The rest of your team members know exactly what's going on and you have the support of your team members to back you up. Because other- wise it's a case where it's you or the child. So last year I found that to be very good. That was a valuable experience, to say, well, look, she is not the only one. This is occur- ring time and time again with the rest of us, not just her. Otherwise you are likely to be the scapegoat for a problem. Rick felt that he got: ...some information about kids, maybe something I didn't know about. I also get a sort of an understanding of where the other teachers are coming from. He was not clear on exactly how the team contributed to further under- standing, but he was clear that such understanding was difficult in a four-man team: One area I think the peOple talk together as a team and are looking at when we ask the principal or assistant principal to come in. We were talking.about the personality of many of the kids, and,therefore, the groups that form on the teams. 147 We should be working on that. Our goal I guess would be to get these kids to be less petty about "You didn't say 'Hi' right" or get these kids to think about others' feelings when they put them down or when they say something about them. In other words, there was, I guess, a team affective goal, for the kids' sake to help their maturity in the area of interpersonal relationships. I don't think it's been stressed. It was a little too late, I think. I don't know if we could have done anything. Again, the four-man team makes it awfully hard for that. You can never sit down as a family and say these things are happening; it's hard for 118 people to do that. ' His commitment to students came through in his classroom interaction with them and in his comments at team meetings. On the other hand, Faith was better able to verbalize her attitudes and knowledge about students in an interview than in team meetings. She commented: I think matters of sexuality at this age, human sexuality, the relationship with your peer group,is terribly, terribly important as to how you feel later on in your life and if you can make that adolescent time more smooth I think it's really important. SO things like that, I think, at this age, it all ties in with how they treat each other, who they're going with, and I don't know...I think we have a responsibility to help them smooth out their adolescent relationships as much as we can. When asked if there was general support for that kind of understanding in the team. she replied: No, I don't. I think, well, see my perception could be wrong. I think they are more tolerant of those things or they feel that they are not that big of a problem. I feel I'm the only one about sexuality and adolescence. Each of the team teachers felt, individually, that discussion with students was important, although they each felt this way for their own individual reasons. Their behavior in team meetings reflected their concern by the amount of discussion. However, each was dissatisfied in some way, and this was not discussed in a group. Henry would have liked his own classes with personalities; Faith would have liked more concern for the problems of adolescence; Rick would have liked some work on 148 interpersonal relationships, yet felt this was impossible within such a large team. Carol was satisfied with the time and concern the team gave to students, primarily because it helped her decide how to deal with students and prevented her from being taken advantage of by parents. 1 The team.spent half of their time discussing students in one context or another. This type of discussion allowed them some sociali- zation and time to state personal views and relate anecdotes. It was enjoyable and, at the same time, they were following the agenda and performing what both they and the administration considered an impor- tant task for middle school teams of teachers -- they were discussing students. Instructional Activities In this section, the activities that the four team teachers jointly planned, shared responsibility for, and executed will be pre— sented. The activities will be described, the discussion and schedul— ing of them presented, and the teaching of them described. As mentioned earlier, the team was responsible for planning for use of team.time; some of the time scheduled was for individual classes rather than team activities and some of the usage of the auditorium was more for these individual classes than for team.activities so these will be described first before examining team activities. The team activities during the 1976-77 school year included the year-long activities of.team governs ment, team corporation, homeroom reading, and the special activities of a team unit on reading, class meetings, and a team unit on metrics. Most of these activities were planned and took place over a several weeks' period of time; some received more attention than Others. 149 What is interesting to note about the illustrations presented relating to each of these activities is the effect of the team.organiza- tion on the structuring and implementation of each of the activities. In all phases of the planning and the teaching of these activities, the team operated as four separate individuals, which is consistent with their feelings of shared leadership. All of the unit or activities were divided into four parts so that each teacher had his part. When one plan was formulated, each had the freedom to interpret his part of the whole as he saw appropriate. Year-long Activities - Schedule Frequently, "the schedule" would be an item on the agenda and usually referred to use of auditorium time, length of the following day's classes, or need for an Open lab. Decisions about these items were reached by the teacher who had a preference stating it and the others nodding, and the person in charge of the board writing it down. Sometimes they would call the office to check on times for assemblies and that would determine what to do. "How about an open lab?" asked Carol one day when they had an extra hour of time. Henry said that was okay with him, but asked how they wanted it designated. Rick said, "Yeah, I have specific kids to pull out." Carol said, "I do, too, the ones with no points." Henry said, "I can go with that. I'll take the leftovers." Rick asked, "Is that okay with you, Faith?" who nodded her head. When asked about how the decison had been made about which kids went where, Rick said later, Oh, it was decided at lunch. I just submitted a list of which kids I wanted, and then Carol did the same. I picked those kids that I knew needed help before the test tomorrow. 150 Carol took some of my kids, so that's why I'll be here after school. He didn't know on what basis Faith had made up her list of kids. Henry often had quizzes to give and movies to show, especially during his China unit. He also invited a speaker in who had toured China and who had slides on the country. Whoever was in charge of the board would write down speaker or quiz or the name of the movie. On another day, Henry announced that there were two assemblies on Thursday and asked how the others thought the time should be split up. No one said anything, so Henry continued with his preference, "Two shorter classes in the morning and two forty-five minute ones in the afternoon." When Rick asked about Friday in the auditorium, Henry said that he had a speaker on Chinese writing for that period who "is also a ping pong instructor, so I thought mebbe we could have a little demonstration." Rick asked, "Which one of our kids is good?" Carol suggested one of the students, and Henry said, "well, I thought mebbe (another faculty member). He's the best ping pong player I know, and he's free that hour." That ended the discussion. The stating of individual preferences was an important component of determining the schedule. In one instance, such a stating of pre- ference by Faith caused the team to reevaluate a particular use of time which was unusual. During an interview, Faith commented: I think that Martha, the communication arts teacher whose place I took, did a lot more auditorium work which is some- thing I dislike very much. And they all looked to me to do auditorium work in the beginning of the year. They would say, "Well, aren't you going to do your spelling?" She did it every Monday or something like that. I would say "No, I'm not really an auditorium person." I don't really like to talk to large groups. I can talk more to one-thirty or to the classroom or whatever; and I did the spelling in the auditorium grudgingly. I did finally do it. 151 By the end of the school year, however, Faith was becoming more adamant on the subject of spelling tests. On a Thursday, Carol said, "What are we going to do in the auditorium on Friday? Do you have a spelling test, Faith?" Faith said, I have one but I really don't want to give it in the audi- torium unless we have nothing else to do. Carol said, "Oh, well, I guess we can wait to decide." On the next day, Friday, when Henry asked, "What are we going to do in the audi- torium today?" Faith said, I;am not giving a spelling test. I don't think the audi- is the place for that and we've gotten in the habit of always doing it. I would like to vary the whole thing. Rick asked Henry if he had any movies, and Henry said he didn't. Carol suggested, "We could have class." Rick responded, "Yeah, but Friday afternoons are not a good time for anything. I was thinking of another Open lab." Faith said, "NO!" emphatically, and the others made faces and grumbled. Henry said, "I think that's a good point; just what do we use the auditorium for?" Rick said, "I know; let's givem.them a break after lunch during the regular homeroom period, then use the audi- torium time for homeroom." Carol said, "Do they have to go outside?" Henry said, "Yes, they can't be in the halls. We could do that as an experiment, to see how they use their freedom." Rick said, "But they should come back from lunch for attendance." Henry frowned and said, "No, just give them a long lunch and see if they get to special areas on time.". Carol said, "When do we tell them? During here?" pointing to the last class before lunch on the board. Rick said, "NO, that's not fair; we should structure it a little and take attendance and tell them during homeroom." Henry said, "Yes, you're right, and call them 152 in since it's our responsibility to get them out of our rooms to special areas." Rick said, "Yeah, we'll just take them out to the big field and let them loose. How do you feel about that, Faith?" She looked thoughtful and said, "As an experiment, it's okay," and smiled. It was one of the rare times each was thinking and offering ideas in order to arrive at a joint decision. They were listening to each other and think- ing aloud together. The Auditorium Auditorium time was usually on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Carol commented on their planning for auditorium.time: Finding things to do in the auditorium, it almost seemed like no one really had the energy nor the willingness to put forth anything in the auditorium. It became a hassle, I think, finding things to shove into a slot became a hassle. A typical example of what auditorium time looked like including Rick's holding open the doors for the kids. Henry and Faith were in the front of the auditorium. Henry was talking to a few of the students, and Faith was standing with her arms crossed, watching them come in. Rick said something to almost every student as he walked in. Carol would come in from the side door if she had stopped in her room first. The kids were seated from the third row on back, so the teachers might be standing in front or in the first or second row of empty seats. To begin, on this particular day, Carol held up a yellow slip of paper to show the students something and, at the same time, to try to quiet them down. As she started talking, Henry moved around the auditorium, talk- ing to individual kids. Carol explained a new office procedure to be used in making appointments with the counselors. Instead of signing in a book, the students were to fill in a form that asked for their names, 153 then they were to check whether the problem was school, personal, or other; and finally they were to check whether they needed to be seen as soon as possible, within the week, or at the counselor's convenience. Carol explained that the office was swamped with things to do and that the form.would, hopefully, save time. When she finished talking, Faith read an announcement about a walkea-thon for the March of Dimes. She read in a loud and clear voice. When she had finished, Henry had joined the two women in front and asked how many kids had participated before. A large number raised their hands. Henry then briefly introduced the movie about China. He said that they had not yet begun that unit, but that this was the only time they could get the movie. The students were quiet during the movie which lasted twenty- five minutes. They all had assigned seats. Rick came and sat down near the back of the auditorium so he could open doors for late kids -- there were about fifteen of them who all came in a group and sat in back until the movie was over. After the movie, Henry explained in an extremely clear and concise manner about the reading groups which will be described later. There were a few other announcements during which time the students sat quietly. All four of the teachers were in the front of the auditorium. Rick then asked for suggestions for names for the new classroom groups, and Carol wrote down their ideas. Faith went over to look through her notebook on the stage, and while Carol took the suggestions, Rick and Henry were talking to individuals as they walked around. From time to time, the three teachers would joke around in response to something a student said. There were two or three more 154 announcements, and the public address system came on with school an- nouncements. When they were over, the kids got up and left. The planning for and actual use of auditorium time was a coor— dination of the needs of four individuals. They each stated how much of the auditorium time they wanted for their own use, usually to do ac- tivities that saved time by doing them with a large group rather than with four different classes. The common "team" time was divided up among the four teachers, both in their planning for the time and in the actual use of the time. Behavior patterns in the auditorium reflected the needs of four individual teachers more so than needs commonly agreed upon by all four of them working together as a team. Each teacher had his own role to perform in the auditorium in terms of set- tling down students, giving announcements, taking attendance, and what- ever else needed to be done on a particular day. Team Government and Corporation Team 71 traditionally has a team government and a corporation. The corporation is formed at the beginning of the year and elected Of- ficers. They then sell stock at ten cents per share and no one can buy more than ten shares. The students are not allowed to sell their stock to any other students, and the stockholders remain in the team. The corporation then sponsors activities to make money, like showing films and selling stationary before Christmas. The students get to keep a percentage of the profits from this particular sale - if then sell ten boxes, they get five percent, and if they sell more than ten, they get ten percent. There is also a bonus for the three highest sellers. This year one girl made ninety-five dollars including the bonus. The kids 155 get their money before Christmas so they can use it for gifts. In order to buy the stationary, the corporation must take out a loan. Rick usually goes with them to the bank, and Henry does all the paper work. At the end of the previous year, the stockholders got a seven hundred percent return on the original investment. The government sponsors team activities, like sock hops and activity nights. The team government is separate from the school's stu- dent council. The team government elects its own officers. Carol said that they had borrowed money from.the corporation and commented, It's good practice for the kids to see how organizations run. They don't have to participate. It's up to them. She had acted as advisor to the government although there are no set meeting times, only when the students feel they need to meet. Once again, duties associated with the government and corporation were di- vided up and provided by each of the teachers. Timed Reading One activity that the team had decided upon earlier in the year because they had done it the previous year was reading practice during homeroom. This was mentioned earlier in conjunction with the reading teacher's congratulating them on their kids' improvement. The team teachers set aside three homeroom periods each week for students to bring books with them and to have fifteen minutes worth of silent read- ing. On occasion, they would use the auditorium time for this same kind of reading. In early March, Carol mentioned that her kids did not like the summaries. Henry remarked that was probably because it was work, and they didn't like to do work. Rick said he thought they needed to keep doing the summaries for practice. 156 adding an opinion factor in the summaries. At the moment students were writing three factual paragraphs, and he would like them to make some kind of judgment about what they had read. Carol commented that her kids really liked the charts. (They had students keep track of how many pages they read each time.) They decided Henry would set up new charts and redo the instructions for including something effective in the summaries. During another meeting, Rick commented that his kids had read longer than usual this morning -- twenty-five minutes. He mentioned that some of his kids were using picture books, and one student read Ben and Me which he guessed had a second grade reading level. Carol said that it was an interesting book that allowed kids to use their imagination a lot. She also said that she had outlawed magazines and books with pictures,and maybe Rick would have to do the same to get two boys in particular Off sports' books. Henry said that he was trying to diversify the kind of things kids read. Carol seemed concerned about their progress and had taken time this morning to give her students hints at interpreting their charts: they should look for the lines moving upwards, see if the lines changed when kids changed books. Faith asked if they would put the scores on the charts. Henry said, "Yes," but questioned if the kids had a right to privacy. They decided to use pencil, and then students could erase their scores if they wanted. At one team meeting in mid-April, Faith held up a list of kids' names who had not brought their books to the auditorium. Carol said, "I think it's too late. We've been lax on this too long, and it's no use to clamp down now." Rick said, 157 I guess it's partly my fault because I told kids that they wouldn't need their books when I knew there wouldn't be enough time for them to read. Henry said that he thought the whole team needed to clamp down. Faith said, "Now, that's a totally different view from Carol's." Carol said, "No, I'm not disagreeing with Henry." Rick said that maybe they needed to decide what to do and, if they all agreed, then enforce it. Carol said that sounded okay with her. They moved on to the next agenda item, but a few days later started writing "Bring your books" on the schedule board for the auditorium times. Each teacher conducted homeroom reading in his own way. In Henry's room during homeroom period, when there was enough time, he would have students take turns reading out loud in front of the class something they had selected. One day it was a student reading the poem "The Owl and the Pussycat." It took a while for the class to quiet down, and then,when he finished,they had fifteen minutes for quiet read— ing. When time was up, Henry announced that it was time for them to mark their charts. He commented that one of the purposes of the read- ing in the homeroom period after lunch was to calm them down. In Faith's room, by contrast, her homeroom reading periods were so quiet it felt like a testing situation. Students would enter quietly and would read until she said, Stop. Fifteen minutes is up. Please count the number of pages you have read and write it on your chart and then continue reading. Those of you who came in late, keep reading until fifteen minutes are up for you. About five minutes later, she said, "There are two more minutes left in homeroom. You may stOp reading and talk quietly." 158 These activities -- schedule, auditorium time, government and corporation, and homeroom reading - were the year-long activities undertaken by each of the team teachers. The team.teachers acted in- dependently from each other in these activities,and what they did jointly was merely to coordinate individual preferences. Each sug- gested what he wanted auditorium time for, each had his own responsi- bility for a part of the government and corporation, and each conducted homeroom reading periods in his own way. This same pattern can also be found in the special activities the team.undertook for the year. Special Activities The Team 71 teachers started talking about the special reading program at the beginning of March. It was a program they had done the year before and was mentioned earlier in this chapter as one of the factors, along with homeroom reading, that contributed to an increase in the students' reading scores during the year. While the teachers were suggesting ideas of what could be done this year, Rick reminded them of Henry's idea to work on writing. Rick said that they were brainstorming and got a piece of paper to record the ideas of things to read - novels, short stories, poems, kits for basic skills, writing. Henry talked about another team's reading aloud to students and comp mented on how well it worked. He said he remembered doing that in sixth grade and in eleventh grade and what a neat thing it was. They all nodded their heads, so Rick wrote it down. Carol made a comment and Rick pointed out that they were to be only brainstorming and not judging. They moved into ideas on parents and other faculty members who might help. 159 Later in the week, they talked about the reading program again. Rick asked where they go from here, and Henry said they had to decide what to offer and how many groups of each and suggested four or five novel groups, one writing group, two basic skills groups, and one group of poetry, drama, and radio plays. The following Monday they divided the kids into groups based on stanine scores on the reading tests and their own personal experience with students. Then they would decide topics and assign personnel for the groups, and finally they would pick out reading materials. They decided to have an orientation for the parents who would be helping. They wanted to get it all planned so they could send the materials home on Friday so parents could look them over during spring break. They had two low groups to work with the SRA kits. Carol said she would take one because she wanted to work with the kit for experience, and one of the parents who had experience with remedial reading could take the other. Henry sorted the three middle stanine groups on the basis of interest. One group would be novels and the other two would be autobiography or biography. Henry decided to take one of the groups and do Of Mice and Men because he thought he could really get them into it. It was a group of boys in- terested in sports. Three of the boys in the lower group would be pulled out by the reading teacher. Next day when "reading groups" was announced from the agenda, Rick got the cards with students' names from the team box and started sorting them. Carol asked what rooms were available and mentioned some she knew of. Henry said, "Why don't you write them down?" and got her a piece of paper from the box. She wrote down the ones she mentioned and then each of the other teachers suggested some. She made a note to 160 check with other teams on rooms not being used. Henry left to get books from his room. When he returned, they checked the groups Rick had sorted and made notations on them regarding room assignment, parent or teacher assignment, and which books they would be using. Henry also checked through volunteer help slips from parents for possible discus- sion leaders. On Thursday, Henry remade a list of teachers and materials for each group, and Faith wrote a note to a teacher on another team asking to borrow a set of books. On Friday much of the meeting time was spent with one or another of the teachers jumping up to get materials from his room or looking for last year's dittoed instruction sheets to parents on how to lead a discussion. On Tuesday they made a master list of who would be in which room. They traded around a few kids and Henry reminded them of the parent orientation on Thursday before the groups started. Henry handled the orientation meeting. So far, in the planning, much of the time was spent on logistics after they had brainstormed the list of books and each team member had chosen one. Henry had mentioned the goals as being to offer an enrichment experience beyond what could be offered in the classroom. In the four individual teachers' rooms, they were free to implement their particular reading group in their own ways. Henry began to move some desks into a circle near the front of his room and then sat down at one of the desks. He was writing some things down as the students came in. When he was ready to begin he looked up and said, 161 Okay, let's get started. You have been placed in these groups because you all have the same skill level on a given reading test. We'll be doing Of Mice and Men, and I'd like to tell you a little something about it and about the author, John Steinbeck. Mr. Steinbeck was born at the turn of the century and died a few years ago. He was equally at home in a suit or in coveralls behind a plow. He went on to give a short lecture on the part of California that Stein- beck wrote about and said that the book was set in the Depression. He then asked, "What does the Depression mean to you?" and called on several different boys. When they commented, he would rephrase or re- peat what they had said and add, "Okay," "Un huh," "That's right," or "Good." He then went on to sketch the background of the novel and to describe the two main characters. He always spoke in careful and pre- cise sentences. He passed out copies of the books to the boys. There were not enough so he said that some would have to share until he got more copies "since no one had responded to my plea to check your own personal libraries during auditorium yesterday." He asked the boys to write down where the book was from on their name cards and hand them back to him. He added, Guard these books with your life. If there is a fire in your house, make sure you are holding the book when you run out of the house. He then read aloud to them for about ten minutes, and they finished up the fortydminute period reading silently. In Faith's room, six students were seated around two tables — shaped like a hexagon and four other students seated at two other rec- tangular tables. Faith was standing Off to one side of the two sets of kids. They were doing drama. She had students reading parts of a play that had been written from the short story "The Monkey's Paw." All the students seemed interested although there were only four parts. 162 Faith read all of the stage directions and would occasionally stop to explain a word or to ask if they understood what was going on. Faith was quite animated and on two occasions stOpped the student who was reading demonstrating how he should read with more feeling in his voice. As time drew to an end, she said, We don't have time to read all of this today. Why don't you take the books home and finish the play on your own? Can "Feathertop" for next time and finish this instead. If you're scared by horror stories, maybe you can read this with a friend since this is one of the great horror stories of all time. The next day, during the team meeting, Henry asked Rick how the plays went. Rick said, Well, the kids offered suggestions. I played the Lone Ranger record and parts of the sound effects record, and we talked about how they would have to use their voices since nothing could be seen on the radio. Their suggestions ranged from writing their own play to reading one already written. They decided they wanted to write their own. Henry said, "Didn't you have them read out loud? I thought that was the purpose of this." Rick said, "Oh, they will, after they write one. They will be reading their own writing." The following week, in Rick's room, one of the boys had brought in a Superman album with a radio show on.it. Rick said he would play part of it and then they could write their own. He stOpped the record after about ten minutes and said, We can hear more later. Right now, let me make a few com- ments. Remember, you can't see anything on the radio, so you have to use words to create a mood and let the audience know what's happening. Remember how Superman talked to him- self when he was flying over the train? He outlined a rough plot and the scenes on the board and then said, "Okay, let's use this and see what you can write." The kids divided themselves into groups - two groups of two boys each, two groups of 163 two girls each, and a group of three girls. Rick moved around the room working with each group. Whe he came to the group of three girls, he asked what scene they were doing and they said the introduction. One of the girls put her name on the board next to their scene. Then she organized the rest of the class while Rick was working with a group of boys. She checked with each group and if they didn't know which scene to do, she assigned them one. In Henry's room he was reading out loud to his group. He used a lot of facial expressions and changed his voice when something one of the characters was saying. When he had finished, he said, There, that should give you an idea of the basic conflict be- tween the three main characters. For next week, read Chap- ter Three and finish Chapter Two if you haven't. Pick out a scene that you especially enjoy to read aloud. They read silently for the rest of the time. During the team meeting the next day, Rick asked, "Hey, you guys, how'd your reading groups go yesterday?" He looked at Henry and said, "Did you discuss the book and have them read aloud?" Henry said, "Yes, we talked about the mood and what was going on, and then I read to them." Rick said, "I bet they're really getting into it. Are any of the kids into his other books, like Grapes of Wrath?" Henry nodded. Rick said, as he leaned back in his chair and smiled with pride, "Well, my kids finished writing the whole thing." He went on to describe a scene that a particular girl had written. He asked Faith if she did good work for her. Faith said, "When she's in the mood." Rick added, "Boy, she's really something!" Faith then announced the first item on the agenda. 164 Another week Carol announced, I gave my kids a ditto of the vocabulary builders with every fifth word missing and at first they complained, but then they really got into it. They had to look and think about verb tense and parts of speech. It really made them work and was good. They want it again next week. Henry smiled and announced the next agenda item. At the planning meeting before the last reading group, Henry remained with the others to collect the kids' books. Nothing more was said about the reading groups. The item simply did not appear on the agenda. In the implementation of the program, Faith enjoyed the dramatics she could do with her group on plays, Rick took great pleasure from encouraging the kids to write their own play, Henry could intro- duce some culture and reading aloud into his group, and Carol could get the information about reading problems by working with the problem stu- dents and learning how the SRA kits were used. The unit on reading was planned because it had been done the year before, each teacher contri- buted his ideas which they all coordinated, and each teacher could do his own individual thing in his reading group that there was not time for during classes. The same pattern was found in the classroom meetings, suggested when four of the seventeen girls meeting with Barbara talked with the team teachers. This time, however, the results were not as pleasant as they were with the reading unit. Faith had trouble understanding what they were doing and,even though she went outside the team.for help when she continued to have trouble, she did not directly ask for help and it was not offered. They let her continue floundering. 165 On the day following the meeting with the students, the teachers talked about the presentation of the class meetings. Henry and Carol commented that their kids were not very articulate -- the ones explain- ing the meeting procedure. Rick said, "I can't complain; I have Josie." They talked about another student, and then the meeting was over. The following week, at the end of a planning meeting, Henry mentioned as he was doing the board that Thursday was the first class meeting. Faith said, "What is a class meeting; we don't even know." Henry suggested that she check with one of the counselors or the assistant principal. The following day Faith commented individually about the class meeting: I'm really concerned. I talked with another teacher last night, and she gave me these (referring to two books) and said to read these three chapters for sure. It's really very complicated. She suggested we start out with the magic box idea. There is something inthere for our mother or father. What might it be? I remember that it's okay to let people pass and that we have to sit in a circle. People may pass because they're too upset or they're bored or they weren't listening or they really didn't have any—. thing to say. Oh, we haven't had a team meeting on this. I guess the others all know what they're doing. I'll ask Henry, but, oh, he isn't even here today and it's first thing in the morning. I guess I'd better read and study this for tomorrow. I don't know if the kids know or even if we'll all be doing the same thing. Team should be interest- ing. ' When asked about Observing, she replied, "Yes, but maybe you want to sit in on Rick's or Carol's. They probably know’what to do." Rick said that Josie was in his class and the kids respected her because she knew what she was talking about, so he thought his class would be able to take it from there. He also had read a lot of Glasser. In the lounge the next morning before school started, Henry, Rick, and Carol were talking about the class meetings. They all agreed 166 that the topic would be about the team. Henry said something about making sure they all participated, and Carol said, "Oh, no, I think that would be too threatening." They got up to leave and Carol and Rick compared notes on the way to their rooms on how to do it and what to have the kids do. In Faith's room, the chairs were in a circle and instructions on the board: Homeroom - 8:15 - 8:52 Sit in every other chair, boy, girl, etc. Take attendance Class meeting to talk about concerns She commented, I hope this is all right. The rules say that even visitors should sit in the circle. The group might wonder why you; were sitting outside. Then she laughed nervously and added, "But you do what you want. I'm sure the rules aren't so hard and fast." She took attendance and then the class quieted down when she came and sat in the circle. She started by saying, The instructions on the board.are a little vague. The class meeting was requested by four girls: , , , and . They came to our team plan- ning meeting and asked if we could have this kind of meeting to help deal with the concerns they had in the team, namely, putdowns by students to each other. They were chosen as spokespeople for a larger group that is meeting with where they use this technique and thought it would be helpful if every homeroom tried to have class meetings. So, we de- cided to do it and all of the Team 71 homerooms are trying this right now. I talked with Mrs. in the sixth grade team, and she talked about class meetings and gave me' some books to read about how they operate. I read them and there are some rules to follow. She went on to explain the seating arrangement of boys in every other seat and how people are allowed to pass. 167 Faith continued, Mrs. suggested we start with the magic box. That's what their team did and they have been meeting since September in this kind of class meeting format. You can talk about anything as the tOpic. Why I think they even talked about what to name Mrs. '3 baby. The magic box is magic and we each put something in there for our parents. The box can expand. Now is there anyone who wants to start? The girl she has asked for confirmation of the purpose said, "You're supposed to start, Mrs. ." Faith looked a little surprised and pleased, and said, Who? Me? Oh, dear, I haven't thought about this. Well, my father is dead, so I guess it would be a gift for my mother. I guess I would give my mother a new compact car. Now should I say why? No, I think we can go around again for that. Remember, no asking why. And you can pass and then we'll come back to see if you want to say anything. Maybe you just want to hear what other people are giving and that's all right, but you can pass again if you want. And she called on the student on her right. It continued around the circle the first time with a few side comments. When the circle had been completed, Faith asked for anyone who had passed the first time, and all but one or two had something to give to their parents. Faith summarized by saying, Did you notice that a few people gave intangibles? I wonder what would have happened if that had been the topic. I think we all would have had.different answers. Well, now let's go around and tell why... and she began. The kids were noisier this time and she had to say "ssssshhhh" several times and ask students not to comment and to remind them that someone was trying to talk. There was some teasing. Faith summarized by asking, Did you notice that many of you gave things that would also benefit you and some just gave a gift to their parents? We have one minute left. If you have any comments about this, please let us know so we can use them to help us have a better class meeting next week. 168 When the students had left, Faith said, Oh, I felt so shaky and unsure of myself (if you couldn't tell)...that's my professional facade. I do it well, but inside I just didn't know how it would go. It was very scary for me. Two girls came in and she asked them how their meetings had gone and what they had talked about and what homeroom they were from. One was from.Henry's and the other from Carol's, and they each said they had talked about Team 71 problems. Faith said, "Oh, dear, they all talked about the team and we didn't." In the hall, Henry said that his was a "cautious beginning." In the team.meeting, in response to the item class meetings, Faith asked Rick what they had talked about and he said, Team 71. After we finished, a student from.another home- room came up and said, "Ha, ha, our homeroom had a really good meeting, " and asked what we had talked about and I said "that" and she asked what and I said that was what we talked about, putdowns. Josie and I got off to a slow start, but lots of people were talking by the end. Carol said, Oh, that's the way it should go. Mine went slow the whole time. was the only one in the group who finally said anything but the boy from Australia hit the nail on the head. He said there seemed to be three classes, the upper class of kids, the middle class, I couldn't believe his terminology, and the...uhm, what's the word he used? Henry interjected, "The untouchables?" She said, "That's it." Henry smiled and said, "That's from my class, the Hindu caste system." Carol continued, ...and he said that when you saw one of these kids from the upper class alone, they would be friendly; but when they were with their friends, they wouldn't speak to you, and she indicated an upturned nose and head. Then she shook her head with satisfaction and pursed lips and said, 169 That's it, all right. And then one of them said, "As my mother always tells me, they may act friendly and you may try to change things, but people know what they are and what you are and they won't change." That's it, too. And I said, "You know, you haven't mentioned the word person- ality once!" Rick said, "But that's the point of these, not to talk about kids' per- sonally." Henry said, Well, I took my kids to the cafeteria because there isn't room.for a circle in my room.with all their projects all around, they talked about the teachers in the team. Carol asked Henry, "Do you think it's fair that we were discussed with- out being there?" Henry responded, "Not really. It was innocuous, just mild complaining." Henry gave a few examples, naming each of the teach- ers for too much homework or something. 'Rick said, "You mean they were just griping to get it out of their systems?" Henry nodded and said, "Yeah, and if that's what they wanted to use the meeting for, that's okay." Rick asked Faith, "How did yours go, Faith?" She said that she had talked to another teacher and had read three chapters in a book and that she had done something different, using the magic box idea. She also said that she had enforced the rule of boy, girl, boy, girl. Both Carol and Rick nodded and Rick said, "That's a good idea." Carol commented, "That's probably what I should have done so the boys weren't all on one side and the girls on the other." Henry said, "Oh, I wasn't aware of the rules." Faith explained.about passing and said that there were too many side comments, especially by one girl in particular. Henry said, "Oh, put her name on the agenda for tomorrow." Carol said, "That's what I reverted to, moving around the circle. It worked well. I should have 170 started out like that." Henry said, "Mebbe we should look at these rules before next week." There was noise in the hall, and the kids were waiting to get into the room for class so the meeting ended. The following week, during Tuesday's team meeting, Rick asked, "So, we're going to continue with the class meeting on Thursday?" Henry said, "Oh, right, mebbe we should pick a topic." Rick said, So we can all be the same. My kids wanted something less threatening. But I know Carol's wanted to continue with the same thing. Henry said, We can bring all the kids in the group together tomorrow in the auditorium and let them decide. Do you think we should all go around in a circle during the meetings so homeroom will be uniform? Rick said, No, that really depends on how yours goes. I mean, if raising hands seems to work, then use that. You've just got to decide what is working best for you at that time. Okay, we'll ask the girls tomorrow. In Carol's room on Thursday, kids started pulling chairs from the tables to form a circle. Carol commented, "I don't sit in the cir- cle. I stay here and moderate things (referring to the stool at her desk). Today's topic is parents." Where the topic came from is un- clear since the steering committee of four girls was not talked with during auditorium. Carol said to the kids, a few of whom were seated at tables: Come on and bring a chair to the circle. We are having a class meeting today. Some of you will have to move closer together so everyone can have a seat. The kids responded and stretched the circle. The girls were all to- gether on one side and the boys on the other. 171 She said, Today's topic is parents, but first let's go over some of the ground rules. There will be no commenting on what people say, you do not have to talk if you don't want to, and there will be no snickers or laughing. You will raise your hands to talk and then, after things get going, maybe we can just move around the circle if enough people have something to say. She looked at two girls who were reading books and said, "Come on, girls, put the books away or people might not think you are listening to what they have to say. Okay, who wants to start?" When no hands went up, she commented, "Well!" and then two hands went up, and she called on one of the girls. After about ten minutes of comments, she said, I've noticed many of you have commented on feeling that your parents are not fair. Is it possible that sometimes you are not fair to your parents? More hands went up and about five minutes later, she said, "There are enough hands up now that I think we can just move around the circles" As she called on each person by name, they either spoke or said "No." It was difficult for a few students to talk and to share things about their families, but they all seemed attentive to each other, and it progres- sed in a very quiet and orderly way. Carol listened to each student and tried not to respond. Muctiof the time she averted her eyes. Once she said, "Please don't look at me when you talk. Talk to each other." Carol looked at the clock near the end and commented, "Time's almost up; we'll take two more comments from and and then that's it." When the students left, two girls stayed after to talk. As she came into the lounge for her coffee, after having stop- ped to talk briefly with a group of girls in the hall, she said, I wouldn't have been quiet if the topic had been child abuse. Humpf, did you hear that? I asked those girls why they didn't have anything to say in the group when they were out there 172 just now talking away, and they said they weren't interested in the topic. A girl from.another homeroom said the topic was to have been child abuse. She didn't know what she was talking about, but I'm glad we didn't talk about child abuse. That really galls me, that they were quiet in the group and then have a lot to say in the hall. On the way to the team planning meeting, she continued, "I'm just as glad I didn't know what the topic was supposed to be or we never would have discussed it." Henry looked up surprised and said, "What?" re- flecting a surprised look from both Faith and Rick. Rick said, "What's this now? The topic the girls selected was child abuse." Henry said, "Let's get an agenda first." Carol briefly explained what she had heard in the hall, A student told me the topic was parents and that's what we discussed. How could you ever discuss child abuse? I think that's inappropriate. When the topic of groups was announced, Carol explained what they had done in her class meeting. She mentioned that she had gone over the ground rules and that she was angry with some of the girls for not speaking in class. Rick said that his discussion had gone very well. They had raised hands and people had commented on their opinions on child abuse. He made mention of the fact that kids were stating their opinions. He gave an illustration: Someone started to say "the facts are" and then stopped and rephrased to say "from.what I've read, I understand." I think that's really neat that they are getting the purpose, at least what I see as the purpose of this, to state their own Opinions. Everyone listened to everyone else's opinion. Faith said, Well, I have to tell you first an anecdote about ' . She was reading in the group, and I asked her twice to put the book down and she didn't, and then I sent her to the office. My morning was awful. The tone of the things was bad, very bad. 173 She put her head in her hand and looked very sad as she continued, The kids were laughing and talking and not listening to each other. We couldn't get focused. I had picked out a topic, but had not used it, of course. Two students talked the whole time and didn't know what was going on, and, of course, I didn't know either. It was just not good. Henry said he went down to the cafeteria and continued with a descrip- tion of his group. When he finished, they trailed off into a discussion of the girl Faith had to send out of the room. In the lounge after the meeting, Carol was still muttering about the topic selected. The following week, again during Tuesday's team planning meet- ing, Rick said, I had a little time today in homeroom, so I asked the kids to think of ideas to discuss in the class meeting on Thursday; and two separate tables came up with the same idea which I thought was really neat -- coed education. One group men- tioned Title IX and some kids didn't know what it was so one of the other students explained it. You know her mom works downtown and writes up all those grants. Henry said, "You mean the boys knew what it was and the girls didn't?" Rick said, "NO, some boys and girls knew what it was and some didn't." They went on to the next agenda item. On Thursday, Henry was absent, so his substitute took the stue dents down to the cafeteria. In the team meeting afterward, the counse- lor was there and started the meeting with, I just want to make it brief today. I know you have other things to do, but I knew that you were talking about Title IX in your meetings today. Another teacher and I are in charge of this for next year, and I was wondering if any- thing came out in the meetings that we should know about or that might help us do a better job next year. Rick responded immediately, really blew it in my group. He said that boys were superior and then when a girl asked him about it, he said that's not what he meant, that boys were usually seen as superior and it would make it difficult to be with girls and 174 that they weren't used to it. I told him that he would have to choose his words better and he really got mad. I think he was still mad when he left. But another girl was really neat. She became a boy and tried to explain and defend his position to the girls. Carol said, My group went well this morning. I don't enter in. I just referee. I left them while I went down to ask Terry some- thing. Actually I left and talked to someone in the hall and checked back in and they were still going around the circle nicely and listening to each other. I left the room again to talk to Terry; when I returned, they were still going around the circle and listening to each other. I don't know. How did your group go, Faith? Faith replied, Not too well. Oh, not because of the topic. I don't know what's wrong. They just won't listen to each other and I don't know what to do. It's frustrating. Rick said, well, the girls feel awkward and the boys feel that they don't know how to play the games right. I wonder when the boys will realize that maybe the girls can outshine them. The counselor thanked the team for their comments and left. They went on to the next agenda item. On the next Thursday, when announcements were over, Rick moved to the side of his room and told the kids to get settled on the floor. He began by saying, We mentioned in the auditorium, and I think I talked with you on Tuesday in homeroom about the topic for today. Someone suggested if you had a certain amount of money for your education, how would you spend it. The other thing that got a big response was vandalism, which he went on to explain in more detail. Then he asked who wanted to discuss money for education and one student half way raised his hand. Everyone else wanted vandalism, so he posed the question, 175 If you went in to one of the big store chains, would it be all right to take a two cent piece of gum, if you knew you wouldn't get caught? First, let's go over the rules; we are not trying to make judgments, but to state our own thoughts and Opinions and we listen to other people. Okay, let's start by going around the circle, and he called on students by name. After a few people had spoken,a girl came in from Faith's room and asked what the topic was. Rick said, It's up to your group to decide. We're doing vandalism here, and so is Mrs. . But you can decide yourselves. Then they continued. After each round, Rick posed another question, trying to lead them into really considering different value aspects of the question. He commented later, I had been trying to get them to look at why people would steal, and then get them to consider the conscience part of it and what feeling guilty is anyway. I don't think I should have talked so much because they weren't ready to look at that part of it. In the team meeting, Henry started the discussion on classroom meetings by clearing his throat and saying, "Well, Faith here said to me that her meeting did not go well." He looked at her as he spoke and then she added, It went poorly, disheartenly discouraging. I wasn't sure what the topic was, so I sent someone to find out that it was vandalism and that was okay. The kids wouldn't listen to each other, most of them passed; they had nothing to say, and whenever spoke, whether seriously or not, they told her "Get back in your cage!" It was just awful. Carol said, Oh, Faith, my kids don't all talk on the first round either, but then it gets going. Mine went really well, today. Even spoke for the first time and said that there was something positive about vandalism.because it destroys pro- perty not people. Faith said, "That is a good point. But I thought we were doing vandal- ism; you're talking more about stealing. Rick said, 176 Yeah, you're right, but it's a kind of vandalism. My kids knew what it was from the start. I probably led them too much. I really couldn't get fired up about how much money to spend or how to spend it for an education, but I told them we'd that next week. I wanted to get the rules straight first, like how much money and from what age. At any rate, I kept trying to get them to look at why they might feel guilty, es- pecially if no one would report them. we went around the first time, and then I just let them raise their hands. I think it went well. I tried to ask them if they would feel guilty if they didn't steal, and someone died, and then we ran out of time. Henry said, Mine went well. I had them sit boy, girl, boy, girl. I think that's important to do that. It helps them think of things seriously. You know, Faith, you could remove from the room for these meetings, if he seems to be the instigator and supporter of such behavior toward that girl. Faith was listening intently to the others as they shared their under- standings of students and of the classroom meeting process. There was no sense of judgment on any of the teachers' parts as to what consti- tutes a good meeting as far as each other is concerned. They refrain from telling each other what to do, and there is a great deal of indi- vidual respect in that. It was for Faith, ultimately, to hassle out what her classroom meetings were to be like. But it was not questioned that they would continue. A secretary from the office came to the door at that point, and when she left they went to the next agenda item. There were no more class meetings that term because of an assembly the following week and by the end of May the team was well into their unit on metrics. The topic was not discussed further in team meetings or in individual interviews. This example was a lengthy one, but demonstrated how Faith was uncertain about what the others were doing throughout and received no clarification or help. There were several instances of lack of 177 communication among the team members and each went his own way. They did borrow rules from each other, but other than that the main focus of communication within the team meetings was to share anecdotes about various students and to make their own point about what was important. The original intent was to improve relationships among students, but this purpose was never mentioned or even alluded to and the unit was not evaluated. The topic did not appear on the agenda anymore. Even though a reason for having the classroom meetings was not stated, the meetings did provide an opportunity fOr individual needs of social communication. It ostensibly met an.administrative expectation since one of the counse- lors had pushed for the idea; however, there was no followbup on her part. In fact, as the classroom meetings continued in time, there ap- peared to be more devisiveness among student cliques and between teach- ers and students. Metrics The third special unit the team did was the metric unit. This unit also exemplified a method of working together characterized by dividing the work into four parts so that each member could go his own way and do his own thing. It also illustrates how the team relies on what it did the previous year, and how Faith must catch up to the other three. The unit had been done the year before, and they assumed they would repeat it during this year. In early March, Rick mentioned dur- ing a team.meeting that May or even June was the time to do it because it would be warm outside then. Carol put it on the agenda for later in the month. Several weeks later and after many transfers of "metrics" 178 to future agendas, they had finished the items on the agenda before the hour was over, Henry said, "Then the only thing remaining is the metric unit." Rick said, "Yes, I have my book here," as he held up a brown folder with several pages of ditto sheets and thermofax copies in it. Primarily for Faith's sake,he outlined the things they had done last year. Then Henry and Carol added some of the specific projects that kids had done, the track meet Henry's homeroom.had sponsored which received newspaper coverage. Rick said, "I think the most important thing was the brainstorming projects different kids could do." He said that maybe Faith could look over his copy of the booklet, and they could make firm plans after she and the others had had a chance to re- fresh themselves on the metric unit. Finally, at the beginning of May, Henry looked at a calendar and suggested that they start the metric unit the week of May 16 and continue for three weeks. They all agreed. Rick said, That's how much time we had last year, and it worked out fine. That first week is set up in fifteen-minute time periods, not a whole hour. And we each did a little presentation. Faith asked what he meant, and Rick said that Henry had done linear measurement, Carol had done volume, he had done weight, and the fourth teacher had presented a short history of metric measurement and temrw perature. He flipped through the booklet with the plans, and they spent a few minutes discussing Henry's neat project Of having kids find distances to scale on a map of the city. Faith just listened and then asked Rick to repeat what they had done last year and who had done what. She wrote it down. Henry asked about assemblies and the other inter- ruptions they might have, and Rick wrote those down to check on. Rick 179 said, "I guess that's as far as we can go today until I get this infor- mation." They went to the next item. Later in the week, metrics was on the agenda, and Rick said, "Okay, we need to divide them into groups the first day - four or was it more?" Carol said, "Oh, we had a lot more, nine or ten." Rick asked, "How did we get them in groups, just number them off?" Carol said, That's a good idea, but I don't remember. Maybe we could give them slips with a number on them when they enter the auditorium. Henry said, "Yes, that's good." Rick repeated, "Yeah, we'll give them slips numbered from one to ten and then one to ten again, and then we'll tell them to get in groups." Henry suggested, "They can meet in differ- ent places around the auditorium." Faith was looking very frustrated and on the verge Of disgust as she asked, "Why were they in groups? To~ do what?" Meanwhile Rick was flipping through the booklet to the de- scription of the first day's activities. He read aloud, "Put students in groups to discuss vocabulary." Carol and Henry kept chiming in with their mixed-up remembrances of what was done last year. Rick said, Well, I think.we all ought to look at the booklet to refresh ourselves. I looked at it last night, so who wants to look at this copy? Carol took it, saying that she had one of her own, but didn't know where it was. Henry said, "Well, I looked at it, but we don't have time to finish this now. Why don't we meet tomorrow before the auditorium to do this?" They all nodded and went on to the next agenda item. On the next day, Friday afternoon, Henry and Faith were giggly. Rick rustled the metric notebook and said, "Come on, guys, let's get down to business. The metric unit." Sometime between the previous plan- ning meetings, and this one he had done some thinking about the unit, or 180 at least this time he was prepared to provide some leadership. The team outlined the entire unit with much laughter during the planning, and they were all excited about the unit and their ideas. They felt that the list of projects was a good one and that there were some very creative ideas on what to do. Henry said at the end of the meeting, "It felt like we accomplished a lot. Besides, laughter is good for the soul." Rick added, "Yes, there's a place for this in team. It's build— ing support." On Monday the team planning ended early, and Faith said, "What did we decide about metrics?" Rick said, "Oh, Henry, you were really tired and said something about a fanfare." Henry nodded seriously and said, Yes, I talked to on Friday and he didn't see any pro- blem getting one or writing one. He said that he had a lot of our kids, and I told him to keep it under wraps. Rick laughed, and said, "Oh, I guess you weren't really tired and babbling after all." Rick got the booklet out of the team box, and they filled in the calendar. The following Monday at 8:18 in the auditorium, the metric unit started. The students arrived and sat in their seats. Suddenly, the stage curtain opened and about ten boys blew their horns - French horns, cornets, and other kinds —- in what was supposed to be the fan- fare. It sounded like a warm up, with each boy playing or trying to play random notes. They finished in about five seconds and went off stage. Henry walked to the front of the auditorium and said, "Well, that was our introduction to the metric unit." All the kids laughed and Faith whispered, "That was awful!" at the back of the auditorium. 181 Henry continued, "We are beginning a team unit today, and here is Mr. to explain it." As Rick walked to the front, Henry moved off to the side and Carol was in front by the overhead projector. Rick said, You have probably noticed by now that some things go well - like the curtains have opened and closed and the screen came down...the student in charge of audiovisuals did a nice job. And some things don't go as planned. Henry added, "But you'll have another chance to hear on wednesday." Rick explained that they were starting a new team unit on metrics. He said, This is something new to you. we've met in the auditorium before for movies and quizzes; this time we are meeting to do a whole unit. We will be reviewing some concepts that Mrs. and I have taught you before, and then we'll be doing some fun things, too. Like last year we had a track meet and, well, I don't want to give you too many ideas because all of you, the whole team, will be doing a lot of the planning. First we're going to refresh our memories on the terms in metrics. Carol wrote "metric terms" across the top of the plastic in the overhead as Rick continued. Let me review the rules on brainstorming. It's when we don't make judgments; we just let the ideas come. You will raise your hands, and I will call on you, and Mrs. will write down the words. Okay, who knows some of the words we use in metrics? The kids were attentive and raised their hands and Rick called on them. When Rick had finished, each of the teachers made a comment to the students and then the period was over. On the way to room.105 for planning, they asked Henry what had happened to the fanfare. When they got to the room, they went directly to the agenda items, and Rick inter- rupted to say, You know, the kids were really good today. Even when we were finished and they could talk, they didn't go crazy. 182 Maybe we should do the metric unit in the morning first thing? Henry asked him to check on getting the auditorium.for Wednesday and Friday. When Rick returned from the office saying they could have it, Faith asked about the time limit on explaining the metric review. Henry said his would be fifteen-twenty minutes. Carol suggested, "We could just put the last class on Wednesday at the end of the day." Rick said, "That would break up the monotony of having four classes in a row." Carol said, "I'll do that tomorrow," since she was in charge of the board. In planning meetings, the teachers continued scheduling time and exchanging anecdotes and perceptions about how the auditorium time was going. Each of the teachers made their presentation, preceded by the fanfare which improved. A week later, the students had brainstormed a list of projects and were to make their choices. Before they did so, several students came in to Rick in the lounge. He said, "WOw, they've got a game show all planned. He reported that it was three girls who wanted one of the foreign students to be the master of ceremonies be- cause of his accent. It would be like "The Price Is Right" where con- testants come on stage and try to guess the weight of something. Rick and Carol talked about how excited the kids were about their projects. After the kids made their choices, Rick was already sorting his pile of papers into stacks when the other teachers came into the lounge. He commented, "I'm just sorting for the film group and the track meet. Those seem to be large piles, and I want to do them so I'm curious." Henry, Carol, and Faith joined him, and Henry suggested, "Let's put them in groups according to first preference and see how they come out." As 183 the sorting was finished, Rick picked up a pile with a devilish look in his eyes and held them close to his chest so no one would take them. He said, "Ha, ha, this is my group. These are quiet, nice kids!" Everyone started picking up different piles and looking through them. . Henry announced, "Well, I'd like to take all the stage produc- tion kids. I have the slips and it's twenty—seven kids total, so I have my share." Rick said, Boy, you really like the stage, huh, Henry. Well, I worked with the track last year, so I'll take it this year. And I'll take and the roads. It looks like I've got the outdoor stuff, so you might as well give me the baseball group. Carol was sorting through them and taking the small groups that were relatively quiet activities. She was handing some to Faith. In this way, the groups were divided. Rick, Henry, and Carol took the projects and/or kids they wanted, and Faith got the rest. After they had a chance to meet with their groups, they decided how much time they would need and made up the schedule accordingly. The following week, Henry asked, Okay, metrics. How's everyone's groups going? Let me tell you about mine. The stage productions are ready for next Wednesday, and when I announced that no seemed to chafe under the announcement, so we'll start on Wednesday. Faith said, "Who's going next? I want to tell about mine." The rest motioned for her to tell. She said: The debate group is in a state of total anarchy. They sat on the window sill forawhile and watched the track meet, and then they started yelling at each other. Carol said, "Take out of there." Faith said, "and , too." Rick said, "and and (the two remaining students in that group) should do all right." Faith said, "Even they were 184 disagreeing. Oh, yes, started yelling at ." This led into taking a whole group of students to the office for some counseling because there were other problems involved. Faith finally said, when she had finished that anecdote, "Oh, let me finish on my groups." She gave a brief report on the elementary people and that she had called and made the initial contact. The kids divided themselves into two's and three's for the purpose of visitations, and had planned on forty-five minutes for three days next week. Henry and Rick both said that that was a bit long. Henry said, "Well, I think that two meetings is enough; one to plan with the teacher and another time to do it." Faith said, "I'll tell them." Carol said that her groups were doing fine, and Rick said that his were almost done. Rick said that his kids had marked off the field for the school track meet that afternoon, but thought that maybe the metric track meet group should do a funny track meet since two track meets might be too much. Henry said, "Well, remenber the time limitation." Rick said, "Okay, I'll check with the group to see what they think." Carol asked about the scavenger hunt, and Rick suggested that could be done at the same time as the baseball games. Faith commented on the school track meet and they went to the next agenda item. The stage productions were given on Wednesday and with that, the metric unit was climaxed. The kids had homeroom time on Thursday to work on projects, but the whole school was hectic, with only three days the following week in the school year. On the following Monday, during team planning Rick went over the plans for the track meet several times, and it was held in the afternoon during auditorium time on Monday. Nothing more was said during team meetings about the metric unit other 185 than comments of "It was fun," "The kids seemed to like it," "They seemed to learn a lot," and "It went well." Each of the four teachers was more concerned with his own classes and ending the school year. Much time was spent in the planning of the unit and in sharing anecdotes of how the various groups were doing along the way, and very little time was spent in evaluating the unit or in commenting on the final projects, themselves. A short dittoed statement was included with the report cards which merely indicated whether the students had done well in the unit or not. This was the one unit that Rick commented on in an interview be- cause it brought together his expectations for the team: Some of the things we did in metrics I saw a real enjoyment for everyone, and a learning experience for the kids and a learning experience for the teachers, and getting the objec- tives taken care of - that being exposure to the metric sys- tem. And that really, I think, is a neat thing, when that happens. What is interesting is that this was the one place where Rick assumed some leadership for what was done. The unit was planned when he started talking about his ideas about scheduling activities. He also enjoyed the unit because he felt the others, especially Henry had loosened up somewhat and cited specifically the idea for the fanfare. For Rick, this unit had the potential for what teaming should be all about. For Henry, this unit provided him the opportunity to do the stage produc- tions and he grabbed that project for himself. For Faith and Carol, it was another unit and one that Faith had trouble getting together because of problems with students, yet the team offered few suggestions nor did they reconsider the student groupings to make things easier for her. The primary reason for the unit was because they had done it the year 186 before and because Rick was able to generate some enthusiasm and provide leadership, even though the leadership came only after Henry pushed him by announcing the best times for the unit. Other Tgpics During the team planning times, there were other topics that the four teachers discussed. These other topics are in a separate section because they were not directly related to the functioning of the team and because their inclusion on the agenda or in discussion was random. In a sense they are extra. However, while they are not directly perti- nent to a description and explanation of the process of planning within the teaching team, they are relevant to a description and understanding of the total framework and functioning of this particular team of teach- ers. These other topics fell into one of two categories: school build- ing related items and personal items that effected one of the four teachers. School Building Related Items Just before spring break, Henry commented on the number of teacher absences and early and extended vacations some of the teachers were taking. He said that it was really the administration's problem, but he couldn't understand their neglecting their responsibilities to students and to parents. When one of the team teachers knew in advance that he would be absent or late, he would usually put himself in as an item on the agenda and then formally mention his absence to the rest of the team teachers. Carol mentioned when she was accompanying one of the other teachers to camp. The camping program had been an integral part of the curriculum for each team, but with budget cuts, only the sixth 187 and eighth grade teams were allowed to take several days off from school to take the entire team to camp. When Carol announced her absence, Henry asked Rick if he were going again this year. Rick said, No, I don't think so. Another teacher and I probably screwed up last year. We were supposed to be doing something on path- finding, and we were out singing in the woods. Henry asked, "Didn't you do anything on pathfinding?" Rick shrugged and said, "Yeah, but not what they wanted. we weren't serious enough." A month later, the week after Rick did accompany one of the teams on a field trip, Henry said, "You should let us know when you won't be here, Rick." Rick said, "well, I didn't know until the day before at four o'clock and no one was here. It was really fun." Faith asked, "What did you do out there?" Rick said, we went to the Ledges and the kids were supposed to find five rock formations and draw them and describe them and then they come back and figure out why they were that way. I told Carol the next morning, and I thought she would deliver the message." Carol said, "They take it one step farther than I do. It's neat. But your point is well taken, Henry." They went on to the next agenda item. In an interview at the end of the year, Henry commented on this situa- tion: There was only one time that I really was ticked off. And that was when Rick took a day off. I couldn't have cared ' less because we all take days off and we all have responsi- bilities. But he didn't tell us and he could have. we were there the night before. That's the only time that there was any, I felt, any communication problem. Not much time was spent on this issue in the team meeting, but Henry did make his feelings felt at the end and, at least, Carol heard his mes- sage. It was important enough for Henry to remember and comment on a month later. Henry's feelings were still strong when, two days later, 188 Carol announced that she would be out later in the week, again for camp. Henry looked at her blankly for a minute and said, "Oh, camp," in a flat tone of voice. He went on, I'd like you to know that I really disapprove of that, pull- ing out team teachers for camp for someone else's team. Carol said, "Well, that comes off my sick time." Henry said, "That's not the point. It's the principle. It disrupts the team." Carol just studied the board in front of her, and Rick started talking about some- thing that had just happened in the school. Another topic discussed during the last three months of school with increasing frequency was union business and the state of the teams for the following school year. Much of this was curiosity and much was probably due to Henry's position in the union. In mid-April, Henry asked the others if they had received a form to fill out from the Pro- fessional Development committee. He said it was a survey asking what they had done on professional development days,which of these had im- proved their teaching,which days had not been helpful (Henry commented, "That one was easy to fill out"){and if they were in charge of profes- sional development, what would be their number one priority. Faith said she had not gotten one and made a note to herself to ask for one. At the end of one team planning meeting, they talked about the school faculty meeting which was to be held after school that evening. Henry said that the purpose would be to look at reorganizing teams. Carol said, How come you know all Of this, Henry? Or am I the only one around here who doesn't know what's going on? Faith said, "I didn't know anything about it." Rick just shook his head and asked how they could do that at a faculty meeting. They discussed 189 other faculty members in the school and what they had heard about who would be teaming with whom. A few comments were made about people they felt were impossible to work with. Carol said, "But the point of a team is to work together and to share," and Henry said, "Have you ever thought that maybe it's a personality characteristic?" and went on to say that maybe they were just going to open things up for discussion. Faith added, "Oh, not to get everything settled." Carol said that somehow doing it this way indicated weakness, and Rick responded, "But did you ever consider that it might indicate a great deal of strength?" As they talked about one teacher who always had some sort of crisis, Rick said, "Yes, but we all have some kind of crisis. Look at Faith, and she has certainly gone on and never backed off." Faith looked a little sad for a moment and the discussion went to the next agenda item. The next day, when asked about the faculty meeting, Henry said it got heated and they discussed several different possibilities for teaming, but that the principal still needed to get teachers' prefer- ences for teaming. A few weeks later, Henry said that there was a pos- sibility of abolishing the assistant principal position altogether, at least some of the faculty had been discussing a petition to this effect. Faith said, "You mean petition the Board?" Henry nodded, and said that if Terry could have all his other outside-the-building duties taken away then the building wouldn't need an assistant principal although there were people interested in the position. As the others all asked, "Who?" Henry just smiled knowingly. The other three all tried guessing, and he finally said, "Mrs. ." (Faith) Faith put her head down on the table and laughed. She looked up and said, "Now you know what it is that I've worked so hard for all these years,‘ and she continued .190 laughing. Carol said, "Really, Faith?" Faith started laughing harder and said, "No, no, I'm just kidding. Can you see me, chief disciplinar- ian?" Henry chimed in, "She doesn't like that kind of stuff." Carol laughed and said, "Oh, I thought you were serious." Rick asked Henry who again said, "No, I really can't say; it's just hearsay." Rick said, "That's all right; we understand it's your hearsay." Toward the middle of May, Henry announced one day during the team meeting, "The ratification meeting is set for next Wednesday," re- ferring to negotiations for next year's contract. They all commented on various parts and tried to worm things out of Henry who just sat smiling smugly. Carol asked about professional hours and said, "I know we got them because of that light on your face." Faith said, wait a minute; there's some problem about them, but I can't remember what...if we have them it would destroy, oh, yes, team teaching?" Henry remained adamant, not giving away anything although he did explain the advantages and disadvantages of professional hours to the other three. Near the end of May Carol had put "me" on the agenda. When Henry announced it, Carol hesitated for a minute so Rick said, "Oh, right, you got the axe." Carol then said, I saw the personnel director after the thing on Friday and said that I had tried to call him.but he was busy. I told him that I had wanted to let him.know that I was qualified for that environmental education opening at the high school in case I was not to be back here and he said, "You'd better go over and see..." she fumbled for a name. Faith added the name and then said, "Yes, it's very important to see the principal." Carol continued, ...because I didn't want them to go ahead and hire someone else in case I was bumped out of here. I guess I wouldn't have known if I hadn't stOpped him. 191 Rick said sarcastically, What a nice way to find out. well, you'll enjoy it at the high school; not as much as you would here, of course, but it's better than babysitting with elementary kids. They talked a little longer about moving teachers from.the other middle school over to Harrison and what the problems might be. At other meetings Henry presented a plan for the assistant princi- pal position and Carol would bring the team up to date on the status of her application at the high school and seniority within the school sys- tem. At one meeting, Henry said to her, You need to write the personnel director a letter immediately about your seniority status. I told you to do that last week. It is very serious that you do that today. Rick brought in a seniority list to check it and commented, "It's pro- bably hard for all of you to talk about this, but I'm interested because I'm so far removed from it." They continued to talk about next year's team up through the last day of school. At their last team.meeting, Rick said that his new principal was nice, but Rick had made it clear that "I will be up for and excited about my assignment in the fall. Right now it is difficult for me be- cause I miss Henry so muchf' Carol said that she had said the same thing at the high school, and that both the principal and department chair asked her why she had requested the transfer! She and the rest of the team were horrified with the thought that anyone could have perceived the switch as a self-initiated request. There were other minor topics of discussion, most of them not formally listed on the agenda but spinoffs of items that were listed. Rick and Henry talked for a few minutes about the showing of the movie 1776, and the reactions of their students and those in other grades. On 192 another day, Henry commented on a parent's not understanding why the team didn't have recess every day like a school in another state: She doesn't understand - the sixth and eighth grade teams do it because they have solid classes all morning or after- noon long. Our schedule is all chopped up. One day, while waiting for the counselor to come in, Henry commented: I was really upset this morning when came in with sign-up sheets for the kids. They can take two choral classes next year. It angers me because it seems like we're going against our philosophy. At other times Faith commented about seeing eight boys skateboarding on the roof as she returned from lunch, all of them complained about the delay in an assembly and how they had kept students occupied, and Rick related his observations about kids during activity night and other extra-curricular events held in the evenings. Actual time spent in these conversations was minimal, and they usually occurred when there was a small agenda and they felt they had the time to chat. Personal Topics There were several conversations about topics which were person- al, or which reflected something that was of interest to one of the team teachers, individually. They usually occurred on Mondays and served to bring the others up to date on their weekends. On a Monday during team meeting, Faith said, Oh, I have to tell you what I did yesterday. I went out to the Mall. I love bookstores, and I hadn't been in one in a long time and our house is not air conditioned. I was there until they closed and you'll never guess who I ran into - Terry. He said he likes bookstores, too. When asked about purchases, she replied, "Oh, yes, I can't just browse. It's just like the library when I leave with a whole stack of books." Rick had come in and said, 193 You know, I really need to make more reading time for myself. I do a lot in the summer, but not so much now. I find I'm really in too much of a routine. I'm even making routines out of the weekends - mowing the lawn and stuff. Faith said, "It's important and you'll have to make the time." Rick sakd, "Well, during the year, I need more of a release than reading gives me." There were several meetings when the other three would comment on Carol's sore throat and swollen vocal chords. They would each give advice or tell her to whisper or not to whisper, to stay home, to see a doctor, to chide her for whispering so much during the meeting. Rick put himself on the agenda one day so he could relate his nosebleed of the previous night. As they did for Carol, the others all had explana- tions and remedies for him and then they went to the next agenda item. After the weather got warm, Carol and Henry would talk about gardens after the formal agenda was finished. On another Monday, Henry came in and described a weekend package deal at a tourist spot in a nearby city. He took special delight in reiterating the menu and the meals they had eaten. Another time, also on a Monday after a nice week- end, Henry commented on a television program he had watched the evening before, commenting on how different the stars looked in real life than they did on the program. He also informed the rest of the team as to how his conference with his daughter's teacher had been. Another day, when the schedule had been discussed and the team noted that there was an assembly for a preview of the musical being put on at the high school, Carol said, "Oh, I wish I could see ____. I get so tired of seeing only bits and pieces and never the whole production." Henry said, "Go." Carol said, "I can't; my husband works." Henry 194 suggested she call some of the other teachers or Faith. Faith said, "I really understand how difficult it is, Carol. I don't go places since my husband died." Carol said, "It's hard to get a sitter. I can't leave the baby and go pick her up." She looked glum. Henry said, melo-' dramatically, "Oh, the woes of student marriages..." A comment was made about Henry's way with words and.Carol said, "But he gets his message across." She later commented about the social life of school: You know, it's really funny how the school changes. You know when I first came here, every Friday we all used to go out to a restaurant, the whole faculty used to. And then it became cliquish. It is there and there's nothing wrong with it. People of similarities share those similarities...and you're just sorta left out. I think many times with me, there's not much I can say or even do this year, because I've been very limited in what I can do...I guess I never really felt or have been asked. Of course, I've never asked either. These illustrations are included because they add something in the way of describing each of the four teachers as individuals and by describing additional ways in which these four teachers interact together. Summary The purpose of this section was to present data on Team 71 bed tween March and June, 1977, by describing the individuals on the team, the organization of the team, and the activities undertaken by the team. The results of this lengthy description point out the importance of team organization as a reflector of the aims of the school in combination with the purposes of the four individuals on the team and as a framework which determines the activities the team undertakes. These activities, in turn, reflect both the institutional expectations and the needs of the individual team members. 195 The organization of Team 71 between March and June, 1977, can be characterized as a highly structured team with well-defined roles and a format, the agenda, which structures both the content and the procedure of team.meetings. Leadership is shared in order to minimize conflict. Such an organization precludes interpersonal communication, but allows each of the four members to maintain their individuality and creativity within their own classrooms. The individual needs for interpersonal communication are met outside of the team or within the team by putting acceptable topics on the agenda and then sharing personal beliefs about these items. Given the middle schools' objective of a team approach, these four individuals met that objective in a way that was comfortable for them and reflected a combination of their individual needs. For Henry, the purpose of the team was to insure the smooth functioning of one hundred, twenty students and four teachers without conflict. For Faith, the purpose was to share information about stu- dents and to promote creativity. Rick saw the team as a place to plan for exciting methods of teaching and to create interdisciplinary units that were student-oriented. Carol wanted the team to provide support for her in handling problem.atudents and parents. All of them silently concurred with the separation of individual classroom concerns and team concerns. As a consequence, the team activities can be described as the summation of four individual points of view. They each contributed to the year-long and special units and they each had their own part to play when all the students were assembled together. When in their own rooms, each teacher did his own thing with the activity in a way that allowed him his individuality and creativity. 196 The four teachers spent half of their time talking about stu— dents. The purpose this discussion served was primarily social. They could each share anecdotes, for the sake of sharing them and communi- cating rather than to solve problems, make decisions, or take action. Other items that were talked about were first placed on the agenda and were mentioned briefly. As a group, Team 71 acted for the purpose of moving along with the business at hand. They took on the institutional aims of providing education for students, maintaining an atmosphere where this could be done, and allowing individual creativity within a team framework while, at the same time, meeting their own needs for separateness and sharing. As a consequence, all were not one hundred percent pleased because each of them had needs that had to be dropped, as far as taking place within the team, during the year. Each would have liked more teaming on academics, Faith would have liked to talk about her husband more, Rick would have liked more enthusiasm, and Carol would have liked even more structure. Henry probably summed up the team’s operation best when he commented that things had gone plea- santly. This section of the chapter has been an extremely lengthy one. The detail has served to illustrate thoroughly the patterns of inter- action among the team and to demonstrate the relationship among the school's aims, the individuals' needs and purposes, the team organiza- tion, and the team activities. The relationship of these components will be used as a basis for examining the same team during the begin- ning of the following school year, September through December, 1977. 197 Description of the Team Between W217 Introduction In this section data collected September and December, 1977, will be presented as a means of describing the process of planning which occurs in a seventh grade middle school teaching team. This sec- tion will be divided into four parts paralleling the four components of work groups. In the first section, the environment of Harrison Middle School will be described as it changed since the previous school year. In the second section, the team members and their classes will be briefly described. In section three, the organization of Team.7l will be presented. Section four will present a description of team activities. School Environment While the physical layout of the school remained the same during the 1977-78 school year, there were changes in school personnel, in the daily school schedule, in membership of the six teams, and in the teachers' contracts which contributed to changes in the environment. Changes in school personnel included a new assistant principal, a new part-time counselor, a new reading teacher, and new teachers in some of the special areas. The new assistant principal was the part- time counselor from the previous year, and her duties included Director of Minority Affairs in the schools in addition to acting as assistant principal. The new part-time counselor was also a graduate student working on a degree in a nearby university. The reading teacher had been a team.teacher in the other middle school before she received a 198 degree in reading. One of the reasons for changes in the special area teachers was failure of millage increases which were on the ballot over the summer. Consequently, special area offerings were reduced and teachers were shared among the schools in the city. As a result of this sharing of teachers, especially those who traveled between the two middle schools, the daily school schedule was as follows: A T—l B 'r-2 c LUNCH D ’f-3 E 8:25— 9:23- 9:36- 10:34- 10:47— 11:45- 12:16- 12:44- 1:14- 1:55 9:20 9:33 10:31 10:44 11:42 12:10 12:41 1:39 1:51 2:50 The letters refer to different modules and have meaning for the special area teachers. The ten minute time periods labeled T-l, T-Z, and T-3 refer to travel times between buildings for these teachers,and for most teams these served as homeroom periods where the teams were required to keep the students until they could be released to a special area. At times these became a source of frustration to team teachers. Similar to the 1976-77 school year, the 1977-78 school year at Harrison Middle School had six teaching teams. The number of teachers on some of the teams was different as were the actual teachers.- There were three sixth grade teams, each with two teachers per team; one seventh grade team with four teachers; and two eighth grade teams, a two-man and a three-man team. .As he had predicted near the end of the school year, Rick was back at the middle school: one of the pregnant teachers had decided to remain home during the year, so Rick was on a sixth grade team. Carol was teaching environmental education at the high school. Unlike the previous year, there was no combination sixth and seventh grade team. 199 The major change in the teachers' contract which affected the school environment was the specification of professional hours. Having professional hours meant that teachers were only required to be in the building during the time they were teaching and fifteen minutes before their classes start. The building principal was prohibited from demanding a teacher to be in the building for more than thirty-one hours per week. Thus, planning time was a matter of professional discretion and was to be arranged by teachers on their own time, outside of class- room teaching; they did not even need to meet in the building. Team 71 commented that they were all usually in the building by eight o'clock in the morning anyway. When one teacher was bemoaning the fact that there were three assemblies during one week and they all fell during her planning time, another teacher said, "What personal planning time? We don't have any - you know, professional hours!" The other teacher just "harumphed." The other difference in the environment of Harrison Middle School was in the lounge. There were more teachers in it at lunchtime, the noise level was greater, and the conversation was faster—paced. Teachers, especially those from.Team.71,discussed more team.business informally in the lounge, and there were frequently several conversa- tions going on at once. At lunchtimes, there would be a flurry of ac- tivity, with some teachers talking about a restaurant, others talking about the classes they were teaching, some polishing their nails, and some just having coffee and a cigarette. Midway into the fall semester, a sign was posted that there would be no smoking in the lounge between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Before that announcement and at other times, the smoking area unofficially became the conversational area at the 200 south end of the room. In that conversational area, faculty were more likely to be talking about children, sicknesses, and clothes; at the tables, the conversation tended to be about school business and politics and school gossip. In general, before and after school and during lunch- time, the lounge was active, sometimes almost frantically so. The rules and policies and philosOphy of Harrison Middle School remained constant, but there were some changes in the school environment. These included personnel, schedule, contracts, and a different feeling in the teachers' lounge. Team.7l, also, was different. Description of Team 71 and its Members Team.7l still consisted of four members. They were, however, a different four. Henry and Faith were still there; the new members were Martha, a teacher returning from sabattical, and Jackie, a teacher returning from a year's leave of absence from the other middle, now at Harrison. There were also differences in subject assignments. Henry was now teaching science, Faith was teaching social studies, Martha returned to her same position teaching communication arts, and Jackie was teaching math which she had taught at the other middle school. Since both Henry and Faith were teaching different subjects and since a summer had elapsed, there were subtle changes in each of them. Thus, it will be worthwhile to briefly describe these four teachers as in- dividuals. Hengy This year Henry was teaching science:and was located in room 108, the science room. The room.was arranged differently. The lab table with faucets and sink had become his desk and was the front of 201 the room. The students' tables were lined up in horizontal rows. When asked how science was going, Henry responded, It's moving right along, or at least trying to. We're working on the stars and they're doing some astrology. I'm trying to personalize the stuff. He had carts at the back of the room.with library books on them about stars and astrology. At the beginning of class, he reviewed what the assignment was and then the students got into groups and a few came to look at the library books for information. The room was noisy, and Henry kept moving around trying to get to students who needed help; it was difficult because of the table arrangement. He dismissed the stu- dents early, and they went screaming out into the hall. On the day the reports were to be given, he spent half of the period arranging students in order by their astrological sign. Then they started on the reports which were of varying quality and difficult to hear. Students were inattentive and he asked them to take notes on the reports. Later in the week, when the reports were finished, he gave them a day to study for a test and explained what they needed to know. He walked around the room and then held up an example of good notes, commenting, "Some of your notes are all over the place, and your thinking has got to be confused, too." After he finished the astrology unit, he went on to a plant unit, having students bring in plants from home and note information about them on a worksheet. He also used a textbook. His class periods were a combination of question and answer, individual work, and group work. Compared to the previous year, Henry's room seemed confused and noisy and, as he admitted, he was not quite sure what exactly he would be doing academically throughout the year. In the months that followed, 202 however, Henry felt that his classes were a stimulant to him. He found he enjoyed teaching science. He channeled most of his attention to his own classes and to union business since he was president during this year. The purpose of the team was to aid in the smooth running of things. one This year Faith was still in room 105 but she was teaching social studies. She commented on her summer by explaining that she had finally gotten around to sorting out the boxes in her room: At first I would spend a few hours, then when I realized that I wasn't getting any place, I started bringing my lunch and then I brought my lunch and dinner and stayed until ele- ven at night. But finally the boxes have diminished. She had gone to visit her husband's family and "It was a catharsis. I still have grief, but it feels like the pain that went with it is over. I can handle it." Her room looked almost bare. The boxes were indeed gone, and so were the projects that students had done the previous year. The other major difference was that there were desks in rows instead of tables as she had last year. The desk were in rows and faced the black- boards, and her desk was still at the side of the room, backed by the windows and facing toward the door. Her classes were very quiet and attentive, and she was well or- ganized. Whan she spoke, there was absolute silence as she explained: Get out your assignment sheets. This is the first panel of the blackboard with the schedule on it. This is the second panel. Please copy everything on it into your assignment page, and I will explain it all later. She then had students give reports on news stories. The class remained 203 attentive until near the end of the period when two boys acted up. She ended class by summarizing what they would be doing the following day. For the next several weeks, students were working on United States' maps - coloring them and labeling the states. She had assigned students to pass out the materials - books, maps, colored pencils -- and to collect them at the end of the hour. During these work periods, she would be coloring a map of her own at the podium in front of the desks and making comments as she worked: Don't forget your spelling has to be accurate and bee-u-tiful. See how mine looks; now you have an excellent example. I'm doing this so I'll know what problems you run into. Do any of you know we may get a fifty-first state? Puerto Rico -- possibly, possibly. Oh, I forgot to look to see if everyone did their current events. With that she checked her book and said to the whole class, "Freeze!" and explained that was her way to get immediate attention if she needed it. She practiced it with them at their request. When class was over and the room had been cleaned up, Faith had them sit quietly in their seats and dismissed them by category. First all of the red-haired kids could leave, then those with jeans on, then those with brown eyes, etc. Later in the term she announced a book report that was to be written on a book that took place in the United States. When questioned about the curriculum, she said, "I feel kind of misplaced this year, more than ever before other years." She did mention that she had taught social studies two years ago, so she had some idea of what she was doing. She guessed that she would keep on working on the United States' geography until things got straightened out for the year. In many ways, Faith felt herself to be a victim of circum- stances. While she still wanted the team to do more in terms of 204 adolescent development and evaluation, she believed that her three years of teaching in Japan, combined with her own upbringing, had conditioned her to be "discrete, conservative, and cautious," because "you never know how a remark you are going to make is going to come back and be used against you." She saw her placement on this team and other teams through the years was because, ...there was no other way to blend the team or combine it because other peOple had formed their teams and...they thought I could get along better with somebody else. She expressed some concern because of the return of the communication arts' teacher against whom several teachers had filed grievances. As a result, she felt misplaced on the team this year. Martha Martha had been at Harrison Middle School for years and had taken a sabattical during the 1976-77 school year to study student writing skills. This year she returned and was once again teaching communication arts. She is of average height, has white hair, and is in her fifties. She is always fashionably dressed and very nest in her appearance. Occasionally, during team meetings, she would talk about her family, including her three grown sons of whom she was very proud. Her classes were held in room 103, and it was arranged differ— ently than it had been when Henry taught in it. The desks had been re- placed by tables, arranged in rows, and there was a round table in the back of the room. The teacher's desk was near the rear of the room on the window side, and it was facing the door. On the bulletin board be- tween the two doors was a sign: 205 WANTED Read and Alive TEAM 71 For a Reward reading Personal challenge Enjoyment ' Hanging on the.partitionwhich separated her room from Faith's were four large charts on poster paper which had all of the students' names listed in alphabetical order. Following the names was a grid of squares which were colored in with various colors indicating which students had passed the weekly and the termrlong spelling tests. The first few weeks in her classes were spent on basic skills; and she explained that after these were mastered, she put students in groups so that by the end of the year they would be in the front of the room, teaching each other, and that was the fun part for her. At the beginning, she worked with them on dictionary skills and the card catalogue system. She would thoroughly explain a worksheet and give instructions, and then students would have the rest of the period to finish the worksheet and she was free to move around and answer indi- vidual questions. Her instructions were clear and precise,and before students left her class she would have them repeat the next day's as- signment. One day when she was walking around, she had to ask a group of students to quiet down several times. She finally looked at them and said, Stop playing those games, taking other peoples' books and passing them around and hiding them. That may have been okay for sixth grade, but you're in seventh grade now and you have work to do. You will not play those games in my class! She said this clearly and emphatically, and they settled down. 206 She commented the next day, I decided last night, in the middle of the night, that I was spending too much time on discipline problems. I need to move them along faster. I am part of the problem. This morning has been great, all my classes so far. During the next few weeks, she did more question and answer exercises with them. Frequently, she would comment on a particular student and ask what other teachers thought the problem might be. She was well aware of seating arrangements in her class and would move students when necessary. She was also available to students and their questions be- tween classes and after school. She had definite views on the purpose of team teaching: Philosophically, it should be because it helps kids to under- stand that there should be a basic body of "learning" and that it is applicable to all subject areas and to reinforce each other in what we are teaching, to make it easier for kids to see that there are relationships between disciplines and general learning. Part of her clarity stemmed from the fact that she had co-authored a book on team teaching and had given the subject much thought. She did not feel the team was doing this, however, because it was taking too long to do mechanical management and "we never get to the real reasons for team teaching." She would have liked for the team to challenge her in the development of exciting innovations, to hear the exciting things the other teachers were doing. She attributed this failure to the big- ness and the personality of the team. She questioned her own role in this saying, "I have never felt the personality of the team to be a problem before, so it must be me," but was not sure of the exact nature of the problem. 207 Jackie Jackie was new to both the team and to the school this year. She~had taught at the other middle school and had taken the previous year off to have a second child. She is of average height and weight with shoulder length dark brown hair. She blinks a lot, but that is due to contact lenses which give her trouble from time to time. She is happy with teaching, although she expressed a desire to go back to school at some point and maybe become an accountant. Her math classes were in room 107, and she explained that she was doing the basics with all the students until she could determine their skill levels and group them accordingly. In the room, her desk was just to the left of the door, facing the windows. The students' desks were arranged in long rows sideways to her desk and facing the blackboard at the end of the room.by the door. She had kids working on a circle worksheet and announced that they would go over the right answers later in the class. She walked around and helped them with the worksheet. When several students would not settle down, she quietly said, "If you don't want to pay attention, you can sit in the office." That settled them down. At the end of class, she went over the work— sheet and then recorded scores in her gradebook. For the most part, during the year students worked individually on worksheets and took tests. On some occasions she worked with a group at the board and commented one day, The class I finished was really neat. I was trying to get them to discover the area of a trapezoid on their own, and there were thirty pairs of hands eagerly raised. She felt no problem at all in the teaching of math since she had taught it at this grade level for eight years. 208 What she liked about the team was the help it gave her. It served as orientation to the new school, and she felt they provided her with information on rules and exciting things to do in class. It was good to hear what other people were doing. For Jackie, this was her third year of teaming, and she was enthusiastic about the sharing; there was more of it on this team than she had experienced on other teams: I think we get common feelings about kids, for one thing, like when we talk about them; sometimes I will be worried about a student and I will notice the difference, and I will think it is just a personal thing perhaps, but when I talk to others they may be seeing similar patterns. She liked talking about students and the ability of the team to change the grouping of kids so that personality problems could be ironed out. For her the value of teaming was in the orientation process and in the sharing of experiences, especially those about students. She was Open to whatever the team did, because they were so helpful to her and because this type of team was a new experience for her. Her past team- ing experience included only showing movies together. Summagy These then are the four individuals who comprised Team 71 at the beginning of the 1977-78 school year. In his own way, each was eager to see what the year would hold." Henry and Faith had their own expectations for the team, although Henry was slightly confused about the science classes, and Faith was not sure how to proceed in social studies; but she was pleased with her own emotional state. Martha had great expectationshin terms of academic teaming and the sharing of exciting things and was puzzled by the fact that the mechanical elements 209 were taking an inordinate amount of time. Jackie was enthused about the possibility of real teaming and the help the other team teachers were giving her. The way in which the team organized for the year reflected the varying expectations and resulted in disappointment, in part because of the school's demands, in terms of number of students, upon the team. This is reflected in the team's organization. Team Organization Introduction This section of the chapter describes the organization of Team 71 between September and December, 1977. The organization Of the team both reflects the combination of the individual members and the expec- tations of the school and impacts upon the activities undertaken by the team. During the 1977-78 school year, there were some specific environmental factors which affected Team 71 and its organization pat- tern; these will be described first, followed by descriptions of the team's time and place of meeting, formal and informal member roles, leadership, topics of discussion, and interactions of the team. Qgganizational Pattern At the beginning of the school year, Team 71 had 138 students and four teachers. Consequently, they had been assigned an aide be- cause the number of students exceeded the thirty to one ratio. The aide assigned to the team.was elementary certified and had requested an assignment in an elementary school. During the second week of school in the middle of September, Terry, the principal, came into the 210 team.meeting with a pile of teacher aide applications and asked what qualifications the team wanted. Martha replied, "Teaching certificates." Terry spent ten minutes with them clarifying that he had not yet looked at the applications, nor did he know what the aide contract was. Henry commented that they were paid less than substitutes and Faith raised the point that she objected to "using" fully trained teachers for sub- standard pay. Martha asked what the cutoff was between getting a full time aide and hiring a teacher. Terry said he would begin to push the personnel director for another teacher if the enrollment went to one hundred forty. Faith asked if Carol could be brought back from the high school, and he said that it was a possibility. After Terry left, they continued talking about their frustration with the situation and what could be done. On the following day, Terry came to the team with the director of personnel to explain the aide situation. The personnel director asked if they felt they needed another teacher and mentioned moving an elementary counselor into the position. After a tense silence, Martha asked about sides. The teachers decided to check with the students about plans for moving out of the district, and the personnel director said he would return on Monday of the next week. When Faith asked about Carol, he said that he wanted to keep the high school situation stable. After he left, Martha commented "and I thought things couldn't get worse" as they talked about the elementary counselor and his different philosophy. Faith kept mentioning Carol, and Henry suggested they try to get three aides. The next day Martha asked how peOple felt about yesterday's meeting, and Faith said she felt depressed. Martha said she had 211 checked with another teacher who had worked with the elementary coun- selor and related the opinions. They weighed the advantages of sides to an additional teacher and discussed how things would work out with a teacher. Martha suggested, "We could divide the class into five sec-. tions and we each teach four." Henry commented that then someone would have four preparations, and Martha said, "Well, why don't we just think about it over the weekend." At the meeting on Monday, the teachers stressed the importance of getting an elementary certified person who could teach science. The personnel director said he would check with the principals at the admin- istrators' meeting later in the week. At that time the teachers began talking about a three-man team and a two-man team.or a five-man team. Martha commented that she would not be on.a three-man team; "The others didn't say much, so I think it will be a five-man team." On Tuesday, during lunch in the teachers' lounge, someone come mented to Henry, "I hear you're going to get another teacher." Henry replied that Terry and the personnel director had come to the team, "I think we will have a five-man team.instead of a two-man and a three- man team." The team continued talking about the situation after school, and Martha and Jackie stated their preferences for a five-man team with Faith saying it might depend on who the fifth person was. They then tried to work out the mathematics of dividing the number of students by five and teaching four classes. On the following day Martha and Henry told the team of the ru- mors that Carol would be coming back as the fifth teacher. She finally arrived a week later, at the end of September. They had met in the morning and talked about the possibilities of splitting the team, doing 212 a five-man team or having a team within a team, and they had written down the advantages and disadvantages of each. Carol had raised the question of whether the five of them were a team. In the afternoon at the planning meeting, Martha asked Faith what she thought about the meeting, and Faith replied, Well, I thought it was all self-evident. I mean.that our philosophy, that we are committed to the social, emotional, intellectual, and physical growth of kids. I mean I am, in my classes. Martha responded, Well, I am in my classes, too; but are we as a team? I mean, I don't know if that is self-evident to all of us. Aren't there any other thoughts on this morning's ses- sion? Henry said, "Well, I know what I want. I want a five-man team." Martha asked why and he said because it was new and he wanted to try it. Martha said, "I would like a five-man team, also —-it's a challenge and we're breaking new ground." Carol said, I want a five-man team because it's new and should be fun to try. There are all kinds of possibilities and it's a challenge. Everyone assumes it won't work. The teachers have all said to me, "You will‘break up into a three-man and a two-man, won't you?" I just said that we haven't decided yet. Jackie said, "I don't care. I think it would be fun." Faith told of her previous experiences, and Martha interrupted with, "Then, we can announce to humanity that we are a team?" They nodded, and then talked of comments by other teachers that it wouldn't work. At the end of the meeting, Henry put on the board the possible combinations he had worked out for subject matter assignments. Carol commented while Jackie was out of the room that she had taught math without a minor, so Jackie could certainly teach science with a minor. 213 Two problems appeared at this juncture. One was the problem of an additional room and the other was the problem of coordinating what was taught in each subject. There was the more immediate problem of how to represent what they were doing, to themselves and to the students and this took many hours of discussion. They finally called in Terry, and Martha started by saying, "We want to tell you what we decided, and then ask for your help, advice, and blessing." She described the set- up, and then Henry put the schedule on the board: Henry Faith Martha Jackie Carol S 88 CA M M S SS CA M S SS SS CA M S SS CA. CA M S They talked with Terry about a room, and he said he would check with the French teacher who was in room 104, the language lab which was directly across the hall from room 107. The team asked him all kinds of questions, generally involving permission. Finally Martha said, "When you say it's up to us, you really mean it, don't you?" He nodded. On the following week, the day before the new arrangement was to go into effect, they spent much time drawing the new schedule on the board and coming up with names for the different classes and deciding how and who-would explain all this to the students. While Carol was working in the lounge, she commented that Henry didn't want to give up the science room to her during the second period when they would each be teaching a scienee class. The "discussion" over the use of room 108 during the second period continued the next day at the team meetings when Carol commented that Henry was "hanging on" to the room. There were problems 214 with the use of room 104 also, and several notes went back and forth between the team and the French teacher. By mid-October, however, things were straightened out. When the team was in the midst of agreeing to support Jackie in her stand against the French teacher, Carol asked, "But is this any different than Henry and I arguing over room 108?" Jackie replied, "Of course, we're on the same team.and we get along." But the issue of room 108 was still not resolved by early November when Carol announced, The only other thing on the agenda is Mr. . (Henry) Henry, we are going to have to get the room thing straight- ened out. If the front desk is yours, stay on it. She talked firmly, but with a smile.Henry said,"That's between you and me, and we can straighten it out on our own." Whatever they decided was not totally to Carol's satisfaction since she commented in January: I feel very unorganized because I am based in a room that I can't work in...I can't be in the science room setting up for things that I need to be done...I don't have a room of my own, which is the first time this has ever happened to me, so I feel that I am very disorganized. The other problem represented by the five-man team was that of coordinating what was taught in each subject area, since for each sub- ject there were two different people teaching it. After the decision was made for a five-man team, and Henry's schedule accepted, Martha commented: The others have all decided to do exactly the same things - Jackie will give Carol the math plans and tests so that we can keep the kids together for tests and objectives, and we will know what the other is doing. Faith and I haven't talked yet, but I hope we can do the same thing in communica- tion arts. Later that day when the meeting was over, she asked Faith, "Have you planned for communication arts tomorrow?" When Faith said "no," 215 Martha continued, Well, I was going to give a test tomorrow and then their book reviews are due on Wednesday, so do you just want to follow that? Faith just nodded. A week later Martha asked Faith when they would have time to sit and talk about what they were doing. when Faith suggested Monday after school, Martha: replied, "Oh, no, I just drag myself home on Mondays. I'm exhausted." Nothing was decided. A week later Martha commented: She won't talk. We've had meetings when I have suggested them and she just listens to my ideas and says "fine" but won't contribute any of her own. She says she feels funny using my lesson plans. I think we've decided that we'll work on writing skills next, but each do it in our own way. This arrangement continued throughout the year for the two of them. This area of academic teaming also had an impact on both Henry and Carol. For Henry, teaching both science and social studies was stimulating;and he liked sharing the science with Carol because when. he was absent, he did not have to write out extensive lesson plans; he could tell the substitute to talk with Carol. He enjoyed sharing the social studies with Faith, and commented that he had done more teaming on subject matter than he had before. Carol, however, felt that she was not well organized in science and that they should have been given more personal time to meet on the combined subject areas. In science. she gave her plans to Henry and in math she accepted Jackie's plans because it allowed her to put more into the science units. Carol did not really like taking the math class because she did not feel strong enough in the subject. Jackie was not affected since she was teaching all math classes and welcomed the opportunity to be of help to another teacher. For her 216 it opened one additional avenue of communication and gave her an oppor- tunity to talk about what she was doing in class. For Faith, it created more problems than ever before because, I have to meet with two different teachers for subject matter meetings and I was my own independent person every other year I have taught. She saw the academic teaming as limiting her freedom in the classroom; in the past this was one area that no one intruded upon. Although all five of the teachers had enthusiastically entered into a decision for a five-man team, by the middle of the year Henry doubted that he would do it again because of the time it took, Carol felt disorganized throughout the year, Faith commented that the reason she teamed was because of administrative edict, and Martha commented that she was having to reexamine her beliefs that team size did not make a difference to its functioning. The decision to add a fifth teacher was not made until the third week of school, and some of the organizational problems it caused continued throughout the semester. The addition of a fifth member is only one example of the confusion exhibited by the team and is repeated in other facets of their organi- zation. Meeting_Place and Time Neither the time of the planning meetings nor their location were stable in the way that they were the previous year. The time of the meetings was discussed several times during the fall; the teachers were often late or left early, and during the first month, they usually met twice during the day. One of the reasons for this was due to the professional hours in the contract. When asked at the beginning of 217 the school year about planning time, Henry just laughed and said they had not yet decided. Initially, they met on a day-to-day basis. By the end of September, they had decided on the following as team plan- ning times: Mondays from;8:25-9:20; Tuesdays and Fridays from 12:45- l:42; and on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 2:00-2:50. The teamis schedule is shown below. At the end of the third week of school, Martha informed the team that they would need to end their meetings by 1:15 on Fridays be- cause she had signed up for dulcimer lessons. After the second Friday of lessons, she announced that she had changed her lesson to Tuesdays at 2:00 so as not to interfere with Fridays. Since their planning time frequently spilled over into after school and Martha missed a Tuesday lesson, she left early the following Friday to make it up. After she left, the team.oontinued their meeting, and she was sur- prised to return after the lesson to find them still talking. She continued going on Tuesdays after that. One day in early NOvember when they had the large items still left to discuss, Martha announced she was leaving for her lesson. Jackie said that they would have to stop then because they needed Martha there. She replied, "No, you don't." She left only to return a moment later because "they were taking a test." Martha continued to show evidences of frustration with the meet- ing times. In mid-October she put team meeting times on the agenda and commented on the problems of meeting with support staff and parents taking up planning time. Henry said, Well, I don't think we should meet on Friday morning be- cause I want and need that time for myself, for personal planning. Martha said, "Well, I want to meet on Friday mornings, so there...now » < same a mass z