Visiting alumni often bring the greatest pleasure to faculty when they stop by to say hello. Such visits generally bring with them the confirmation that the work we have done with these former students has been enormously valuable to them. As an English teacher, again and again, I am told by alumni that they have been well-prepared for college writing by our English department.

This preparation--this work, it is important to indicate, takes place over four years of a curriculum. That is, no one single teacher alone teaches a student to write; it takes time to develop as a writer. The vocabulary building, grammar instruction, composition skills that a teacher incorporates in a ninth grade curriculum merely begins the process that may end in a very challenging AP Literature and Composition course in the senior year, a course that enables the student to hone higher level writing skills. We work together in a vertical way to bring students along in their efforts to become competent or more than competent writers.

Because we are seen as individuals with different styles and because we tend to emphasize different elements of writing, often the process does not get perceived as a collective act or joint project. Nevertheless, it is. Moreover, a lot of time and energy goes into planning out this collective project. I know this is true in other areas as well.

My colleagues in Latin are always puzzling out creative strategies for best preparing students in first year Latin for further success in second year Latin, so they can eventually succeed in that required third year. Likewise, in the History department, a lot discussion and planning goes into the concept of vertical team teaching; each level prepares a student carefully for the next level's challenges. In fact, it informs every curriculum here at Mercersburg.

While students see us as individual teachers working independently, following independent passions, and in our own process of development itself, they may not realize the extent to which we are tied and committed to each other in vertical teams. I know the success I have with my students relies on the degree to which they have been prepared for the course by other members of my team of colleagues.

This works horizonatally between departments as well. Skills in writing that a student might develop in a history course, or critical thinking skills exercised in a physics class can find fruition in an English class only because they have been served by those other courses or vice versa; work done in an English class in the development of writing might aid a student in preparing a lab report.

What remains essential to reflect upon is the degree to which faculty are dependent on the success of one another in the classroom. The success of the student is dependent on the success of the entire program. Working in teams allows for the consummate success; alumni return satisfied because everyone has contributed to their success bit by bit.

Posted by Greg Matthews at February 2, 2007 7:00 PM

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