The Power of Partnership

Every school year Sonia and I  have student teachers in our room, the first bit of advice we give them is ..... as soon as you get situated into your new school, find a PARTNER! A good team partner helps you with motivation, generating ideas and is a huge time saver. Sonia and I collaborate on mostly everything in our classrooms. I know what you may be thinking, too much time in meetings. Not so! Most of our discussions occur at recess, lunch and a few minutes after school. Everything we plan for, we prep for 60 students instead of 30. Our weekly homework packets are the same and we take turns sharing photo copying duty.Another way that we partner up is when teaching different subject matter. We departmentalize for reading. We also share science and social studies. I teach Social Studies and Sonia teaches Science.This saves on both planning and prep. Mostly..... partnership benefits both teacher and student. It allows the teacher to have a sounding board and a support system. Students benefit tremendously because so much more material can be covered with less teacher exhaustion. It improves our morale and keeps our motivation level steady. It always seems when one of us is getting burned out the other one lifts us up. If you want to improve the quality of your day find a special person that you can connect with and plan together.