My Team

by Iteach

Shhhhhhh, listen....do you hear it? Listen again..........It is the faint sound of the school bell going off to start a new school year. Now is the countdown for back to school which is Aug. 24th. Last May I was so excited for a summer break and now I'm excited to go back. I am very lucky that I have a job that makes me jump out of bed every morning with a smile on my face. There was only one summer that I was not looking forward to going back to school and that was five years ago. I still tremble when I think about it.

Five years ago our school district was in a big financial mess. Unfortunately the school board had to make some hard decisions. They decided to close down one of the schools. The teachers and students from that school were moved to our building. Let me tell you something, that did not go well at all. It was a nightmare. The teachers were very upset about moving to our school and they had a very hard time adjusting to the transition. So now there were four teachers teaching second grade and I was so nervous about working with them. They had a terrible reputation of being negative. I kept telling myself, no big deal, just stay in your room and worry about yourself. Well, that would have worked until my principal shot that idea out of the water.

My principal decided each grade level needs to work like a team. He set up grade level meetings each week and always had an agenda for us to work on together. It started off all on the wrong foot. It was so hard for all of us to agree and to work together comfortably. At that time I was on my 12th year of teaching and they were all on their 28th. I basically just sat at those meetings and nodded my head. Teaching 30 children was easier then trying to work my three co-workers. I honestly didn't think we were ever going to gel, but eventually we did.

I can't even tell you when it happened, but somewhere down the road we learned to work together as a team. It was a lot of hard work and it also took time. I'm so glad I didn't give up and stuck with it. We are certainly not "best buds", but there is not all that anxiety at the meetings. I'm very proud of the accomplishments that we made together as a team. In fact one of my team members will be retiring this year and I think I will miss her. lol

I have often heard that getting along with co-workers is a common theme everywhere. Is that true? How were/are you with your co-workers?