Reflections on Boss and Krauss

After reading Chapter 2 from Boss and Krauss about creating a professional learning community, I automatically began to reflect on my current school and grade-level learning communities. One very true point that Boss and Krauss made is that education is traditionally a very isolated profession. We teachers can sometimes have zero adult interaction throughout our entire day. Sometimes this type of interaction has to be sought out and we can be very limited in the time our very scheduled day allows. Unfortunately, sometimes making time for collaboration can be more work than it is worth. Many schools are starting to offer periods of collaboration within the school day. My elementary school is doing just that; our grade-level team enjoys two hours of collaboration a month. However, we must focus on what administration tells us to and we sometimes feel like our time can be unproductive. The fact is that we expect our students to collaborate and work cooperatively, but rarely do we embrace the same principles in our own work. Our job could be so much easier if we all worked together, but instead we all continue about our business reinventing the wheel within the closed doors of our own classrooms. It's easier that way.