Collaboration among school educators

[Rachel]

I would love to hear your views about consulting personnel in school, collaboration among school educators, and teamwork among educators. You can define the terms or use your own perceptions of the terms.

I am completing a project on collaborating partnerships among school educators for a class I am taking in order to obtain my special education endorsement. ANY ideas, suggestions, input or feedback would be MUCH appreciated!

I will be teaching Preschool Special Needs next Fall in Iowa and I thought hearing different views from around the country on this topic would be fascinating!

Thank you for your input! :)

[SAM]

Rachel,
I began my first year of teaching last fall. I work with a teacher who has been teaching for over 25 years. She is wonderful! She was a wonderful support system and always had a shoulder when I needed someone to listen. She volunteered wonderful information that I used and shared all of her stuff with me when I needed it. She also copied things she downloaded from the Internet. But, she also let me grow and allowed me to plan my classroom the way I wanted. She offered suggestions but was never offended if I didn't use them. She has said that she loves working with me too because I am willing to try anything and love to do lots of messy hands on projects. So, I think it is beneficial to new teachers as well as teachers who have been in the work force for a while to collaborate with other teachers. In my experience, it surely has been a great thing!