Collegiality, Resource Sharing and Collaboration.

It was posed to me that by not insisting that staff share resources that I was not effectively leading my team.

I refuse to insist that anyone share anything other than what was mutually agreed to at the start of the year.  In this instance, staff had been allocated courses of work prior to my arrival that they were responsible for and had to provide all assessments and programmes for those courses.  Given that the distribution was initially uneven due to staff turnover, I evened it out and gained agreement that the assessment allocation method would change in 2020.

My argument was (and is) that if someone else sets the assessment for my class, it is unlikely to test what I have taught with the same emphasis. My class may have strengths based on prior learning, gender bias, teacher competency, ability composition... that would make it unfair to compare them using a test entirely constructed by another teacher (for the entire year). It diminishes the responsibility of the teacher teaching the class that is not in charge of the course.  To my mind, all teachers need to be in charge of their own classroom!

The argument against was that it was difficult to rank students if they did not do exactly the same coursework and exactly the same assessment - that courses should be kept in lockstep.  I was, and am worried that by keeping classes in lockstep through strict streaming in lower school, students that would be able to complete work by the end of the year, would become disheartened if they continued to fail by being presented with assessments that they could not do.  I understand that there are legitimate reasons why this is required in senior school.

What then happened was interesting.  Staff that did not wish to share additional resources they developed, now stopped sharing with some staff.  This is where my leadership differs from my predecessor as I refused to insist that they share resources.  Forcing someone to do something (like resource sharing) causes resentment and de-motivation to develop resources if they are forced to share.  It stifles innovation.  What I prefer to see is friendly competition, collaboration and collegiality. When I didn't insist that they share their resources it caused significant concern.  Anyone that did not make reasonable effort to establish a collegiate, collaborative relationship, would have to do the work themselves.  At the heart of every teaching contract, is the understanding that you are responsible for teaching and resourcing your classroom, I struggle with the notion that creating resources for your class is a workload issue.

Definitions of resource sharing, collaboration, collegiality and professionalism are listed below:

- Resource sharing is giving a portion of (something) to another or others.
- Collaboration is the action of working with someone to produce something.
- Collegiality by definition is companionship and cooperation between colleagues who share responsibility.
- Professionalism is the ability to learn, conscientiousness, interpersonal skills, adaptability and integrity.

If  staff members are in conflict, resource sharing could be forced (and resented thus restricting future resource development), Collaboration and Collegiality are less likely to occur (as staff are being managed rather than developing collegiate relationships) and their Professionalism may be compromised. I imagine this is why the first two levels of AITSL standards relate to personal competency and the latter two to collegiality and community involvement.

Certain actions are likely to prevent collaboration and collegiality:

1. Criticising the work of others.
2. Questioning others competency.
3. Refusing to contribute.
4. Contributing substandard resources.
5. Avoiding opportunities to contribute.
6. Being unable to keep to agreed timelines.
7. Negotiating to do less work.
8. Complaining that workload is too great to contribute.
9. Being prickly, rude or unreasonable.
10. Expecting others to do your work.
11. Resisting accountability

I think that at the heart of Collegiality and Collaboration is mutual respect and being nice - not a patsy or pushover, but following the golden rule - don't do anything that you wouldn't want done to you. At the heart of professionalism is competence and a growth mindset that says there is always something to learn (and learn from others even if you privately question their practices).  If someone is not wanting to share with you, why and how can I turn it around.  This type of thinking is freeing as it removes resentment (it's not fair that I have to work harder) and gives you back control of the situation.  There are actions you can make to develop trust and encourage others to work with you (and not have a feeling of working "for" you).

There cannot be an expectation that everyone is able to collaborate effectively and be collegial with everyone on a team all of the time (it cannot be insisted for under professionalism's interpersonal skills as people interact unreasonably regularly for many reasons outside of the other party's control, everyone is at a different stage of their learning journey).  The larger the team, the less likely a fully collegiate environment will occur.  A little bit of friendly rivalry also has the potential to drive progression in a team.  Creating an environment where challenging beliefs is ok and requires more than just saying the right things - takes time and requires modelling of the skills required.

Next steps are setting the groundwork for collaboration in 2021, creating the most even playing field that I can and hopefully, the further development of collaboration and collegiality within the team.