I was recently talking to a colleague about a professional learning opportunity she had attended. She mentioned the presenter had noted that some of the terms we use in education can inadvertently set a less than welcoming tone in our work together on behalf of students. This presenter suggested we use the term“partner” to describe those collaborations on behalf of learners and learning. I found myself returning to the idea of partners and partnerships again and again during meetings and my own professional reflection time. What is it we could learn about being “partners” that could shift and strengthen our approaches to larger collaborative efforts? Throughout these thinking expeditions, a musical backdrop emerged: Fred Rogers singing “Won’t you be my neighbor?”

We talk a lot about collaboration as essential in education because IT IS. And in addition, as we move to embrace more “future ready” ways of thinking about education, we talk about more rapid cycles of change through co-creating and then co-curating models and approaches, rather than going through multi-year development and implementation processes, all in an effort to be more nimble in our work on behalf of our students. And it’s all really hard. Because of the complexities of change, having a partner to share meaningful work with is not only rewarding but necessary. When individuals and groups seek to partner together on behalf of improving the learning lives of students, they can make the most of their assets and resources.

In education, we are fortunate that we have multiple sources of partnerships. Schools and teachers partner with parents and families to improve learning. School communities partner with businesses and organizations at various levels. Teachers partner with teachers to address student learning needs.  Teachers partner with students to create and curate learning opportunities.  Despite the myriad of collaborations in education, not all of them are successful. Partnership is a term that implies a closeness and a personal investment in the work. The word actually comes from the Latin “partitionem” which can mean “a share or sharing.” To have a share in something implies tremendous investment. In partnership, aspiration and inspiration can join together to create that “share” and propel us forward to achieving goals that a single individual would struggle not only to move forward, but to achieve, scale up, and sustain.

One of the most critical components of collaboration is shared beliefs. In order to make an investment in a partnership, a strong belief that things can change for the better is necessary and is often how partners find each other and partnerships begin.  In his analysis of the kinds of practices that have the greatest impact on student learning, John Hattie found that “collective efficacy” has a 1.57 “effect size” on student achievement.THAT. IS. HUGE. Collective efficacy is defined as the belief that “by doing things together, you can make a difference.” Working with people who share your beliefs is so important.

So how can we develop partnerships and make the most of collaboration? The answer is deceptively simple: by learning together. What makes these alliances so strong is not coming in with answers, but sharing the questions, curiosities, and possibilities that allow us to learn and grow together.

Here are resources to help partners learn more about the information and ideas shared in this post:

• Three Ways to Model Collaboration and Partnership in Schools and Classrooms
• A Guide to Creating Key Partnerships with Parents
• School-Community Learning Partnerships: Essential to Expanded Learning Success
• How Teacher Partnerships Work
• The Power of Collective Efficacy
• 4 life lessons we learned from the Mr. Rogers movie that are especially relevant today

Linda Keating is the Director of Curriculum at FWSU. She is a regular contributor to THE FWSU STORY.

You can follow her on Twitter @Educate4ward

As we sat in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon awaiting our flight, the gate area began to fill primarily with people speaking Chinese. This was not a big surprise as we were about to embark on a 16-hour flight to begin our eight-day journey in China. At that point, I remember thinking that I probably was not going to understand much of what was said around me for a while. I did not realize how real or powerful that thought would prove to be.

We arrived in Chongqing at about 1:00 AM on Monday morning and settled in for a brief sleep before continuing our travel to Xichang early the next day. I ate breakfast and decided to talk a brief walk down the street for my first experience in China. The neighborhood was bustling as people headed to work and dropped off their young children at school. As I walked, it became very clear that I stood out among the residents of this section of the city. It was probably somewhat my imagination, but it seemed that every person on the street was staring at me. I know for a fact that I couldn’t understand a word that anyone was saying or read a single storefront sign.

For the first time in my life, I was obviously the different one. I thought about how some of our students back home might feel the same way in our relatively homogeneous school population. I thought about our students who struggle with reading. For some of them, our written words must be as confusing as the Chinese characters in store windows and on street signs that I couldn’t read. As I walked back to the hotel, the idea of empathy ran through my head.

Now don’t get me wrong. In no way am I saying that my voluntary eight days in China as an outsider in any way equate to an understanding of people with no choice regarding the ethnicity, ability, or another characteristic not in their control. I knew that I would be leaving China and returning to my world where everything is pretty comfortable. In the meantime, I got a glimpse into a world where I was different from most everyone else. It helped me to appreciate the perspective of our students who are unlike their peers. It helped me to understand that being different helps you empathize with others. It helped me to understand that our students need exposure to situations such as this to broaden their horizons and better prepare them for the world outside of Franklin County and Vermont.  And this all happened during a ten-minute walk on my first morning in China.

As we toured China during the rest of the week, we met with school officials. It turns out that they want the same thing that we do — the opportunity to interact with a different culture to develop a better understanding. School officials wanted to send their students to our school and welcomed our students to visit theirs. We had sent a group of our students to China the week before we visited and know that it was a life-changing experience for all of them. Next semester, we hope to have three Chinese students attend BFA Fairfax.

We need to figure out how to send more students abroad — not just to China, but to a variety of countries throughout the world and to other parts of the US. Over the years, we have had students travel to France, England, Costa Rica, Greece, and Puerto Rico. It’s complicated because the trips are teacher dependent (“Mr. So-and-So always takes us to…”) and relatively unpredictable (“we’re going to England in April”). It can be a burden on that teacher who always has to plan a trip (and what happens if they ever retire?)! The short lead-time for the trips makes it financially difficult for some students to participate.

In 2019, we will have a group of teachers work to develop a system that makes international travel predictable, meaningful and affordable for BFA Fairfax students. If a student knows when they enter high school that a trip to Spain will be offered during their Senior Year, they can plan accordingly. It has to be a system that is not dependent on a particular teacher. The Spanish teacher can’t be responsible for every trip to Spain. Other teachers will need to take their turn-perhaps the Spain trip can be ahistorical journey led by a Social Studies teacher. Once the system and structure for a trip is established, shifting the focus should be relatively easy. As the work of this group progresses, we will share details here.

So that’s what I learned on my trip to China. I met some great people, learned so much about Chinese culture and history, ate fantastic and exotic foods, and got to see pandas. We visited large cities(Chongqing has 35 million and Chengdu has 30 million) and small cities (Xichang has just 3 million people). We spent a lot of time in airports and also rode the “Bullet Train.”  It was an eye-opening adventure that I hope to help our students experience. 

John Tague is the High School Principal at BFA Fairfax. You can follow him @jtague252