Co-Teaching

Reading Purposeful Co-Teaching by Greg Conderman, Val Bresnahan, and Theresa Pedersen was very interesting especially the chapter where they talked about the co-teaching stages.  I think the most important stage is the beginning stage which talks about getting to know your co-teacher and establishing a relationship with that person.  I think that this is the most important stage because if you don't start off with a good relationship with your co-teacher then everything else will go downhill.  You have to start off having a good relationship with your co-teacher so you both can have a good rapport with each other and be able to communicate about the children in your classroom and also be able to create lesson plans together.  I believe that is how my assistant and I started off.  Last year when we first started working together I did not think we would get along but as we got to know each other and saw how the other one works we established a relationship and now our class is organized and the children seem happy.

Silence speaks volumes

In the Essential Conversation by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, she talks about how silence  speaks volume.  That really grabbed my attention because I know there are times when I become silent when I don't want to hear what someone has to say.  In the book the father at the parent teacher conference was silent because he did not like what the teacher said because it was in conflict with his culture.  During a parent teacher conference I have not experienced that silence but now that I am determined do lead my parent teacher conferences differently and start "telling the truth" I may get more silences.