While teachers and school leaders generally attempt to model appropriate behaviours in their classrooms and schools, some published authors, such as McKinley (1996), argue that negative interaction, specifically disagreement, can be a powerful example for students, particularly when the resulting discussions are respectful between the teachers. Carpenter et al. (2007) state that ‗disagreement acts as an ―ice-breaker‖ and facilitates a learning environment that encourages students to enter into civil and rational debate with instructors and with each other‘ (p. 56). As demonstrated by the example of the students who spoke of their feelings about the artificialness of the ‗sir and miss‘ form of address between team teachers in classrooms, students appreciate honesty from their teachers and a certain degree of ‗naturalistic‘ behaviour.
The students I interviewed in the course of this study who have witnessed teacher behaviours outside normal classroom pedagogical practice mention an appreciation of seeing their teachers as possessing ‗human‘ behaviours:
Interviewer: Do teachers ever have arguments that you see?
Female 1: Not really, but I reckon that they do. Not everyone can be best friends with everyone.
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Interviewer: Yeah, does it ever make you wonder that you never see teachers arguing whether that’s real?
Female 1: Yeah. (HC6)
Interviewer: Have you ever seen teachers have fights? Female 2: Yes, it was awesome.
Interviewer: Was that here [high school] or in primary school? Female 2: Primary school, yes.
Female 1: When was that?
Female 2: Like, one teacher—like, I loved her, and then there was a mean teacher, she came along and started trying to boss her around and stuff. Like, the nice teacher, she just had enough because she’s a good person and she doesn’t deserve it, so then she, like, fought back. Then it was just like one big massive scrap, and it was Ms B and Ms H.
Female 1: Really? They’re like best friends.
Female 2: Yes, and then, like, the principal had to get involved and say, well, if you want to keep working here, you’re going to have to get along with each other, because there’s nothing …
Female 1: Is that—and then did they become friends? Female 2: Yes.
Interviewer: So, did you hear the principal say that?
Female 2: Yes, I was there, because they did it in the classroom, because they just, like, were fighting. They were in my classroom, and they were fighting.
Interviewer: What did you think about that?
Female 2: I thought, like—I was—I thought it was good, because, like, the teacher always got yelled at. Like, the nice teacher always got yelled at for, like, stupid reasons, like why, didn’t you print out my sheets, and stuff like that.
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Female 1: Well, at least, like, they ended up getting over it though. Female 2: Yes.
Female 1: Like, now they know how we feel, like, when we have fights.
Female 2: Yes, but here, it’s like, you don’t see any of that stuff. It’s more education is the number-one priority.
Interviewer: Do you think that’s real, or do you think that’s … Female 1: What do you mean?
Interviewer: Well, that younger teachers don’t argue, and don’t have fights? Female 2: They have to argue. Like, it’s natural to argue—well, I reckon. But you get so over someone, you just have to explode, like, and say what you feel.
Interviewer: So, if you’re not saying that happened here, do you think that’s real [here at high school] or do you think they’re …
Female 1: I reckon they’re just putting on a—just pretending, I reckon. Female 2: Like, faking a smile and moving on.
Interviewer: Okay. Do you think that’s a good thing for kids to see, or do you think it would be better to see the real stuff like you saw in primary school?
Female 1: The real stuff, because like … Female2: Real stuff, because you know …
Female 1: It feels like we’re, like, the only ones that have, like, problems, like between friendship groups, and they just go around with the staff members being, like, all nice and all this stuff. But in primary school, my teacher would actually tell me if she didn’t like a teacher. Like, she was, like, really nice. That was Ms B, yes.
Interviewer: How did she explain that she didn’t like someone?
Female 1: She would just be like—well, like one time, I hit this dude over the head with a tree branch because he was being mean to one of my friends. But like, she,
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like, took me up to the front office, and then she asked the principal if she could borrow his office, and then she talked to me. She was like, I don’t like some of the teachers—yes, I don’t know. She was just like, not everyone is friends with everyone and you don’t have to be, like, I don’t like some of the teachers and they don’t like me. So …
Interviewer: So, did you appreciate her honesty?
Female 1: Yes. She, like, told me that when she was, like, a kid, she smoked and everything, and that was wrong, and all this stuff. Yes, she was like …
Interviewer: So, do you like it when teachers do that, tell you … Female 1: Not many teachers do, though. They’re like …
Female 2: Very rare to find a teacher that would actually do that to you. Female 1: Yes. (HC3)
The students in the previous dialogue are referring to teachers from their primary school. In Chapter Eleven, ‗I like her—she‘s nice!‘ some differences between primary-school and high-school teachers and their pedagogy will be examined in a further effort to define what students are observing of teachers‘ classroom practices and their modelling of social skills.
This study does not contribute quantitative data about student outcomes from team teaching. What it provides are some student perspectives on observations of teacher interactions and behaviours that the young people have remembered sufficiently to remark on. Student reflection about, and comments on, teacher pedagogy are both very significant and powerful, and consistent with the notion of the importance of the student‘s experience put forth by van Manen (1999) in his essay about student experience of
teacher classroom manner or pedagogy. Educators need to seek and understand their own students‘ experiences of their classroom practices. In terms of team teaching providing an opportunity to model social skills, it would appear from some students‘ perspective that it is not what teachers are trying earnestly to model appropriately that the students are observing (or even bothering to notice). Rather, students‘ interest and respect seems to be given to teachers and other school staff who interact with them in an honest and natural manner: ‗warts and all‘. It appears that these ‗honest and natural‘ teacher behaviours build
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a feeling of empathy within the students and an appreciation of their teachers‘ functioning as human beings; which may include situations of conflict and dislike of other people. The following is a student talking about teachers having difficulties with other teachers:
It feels like we're, like, the only ones that have, like, problems, like, between friendship groups, and they just go around with the staff members being, like, all nice and all this stuff. But in primary school, my teacher would actually tell me if she didn't like a teacher. (HC3)
Research by McKinley (1996) suggests that there can be powerful learning for students in observing civil discussion between teachers and efforts made by these teachers for
resolution of disagreements. For some of the students interviewed in this study there seems to be an appreciation for and attention given to observations of honest teacher
interactions. Indeed, in referring to the findings of Crow and Smith, Carpenter et al.
(2007) state the following:
team teaching learning environments take on the spirit and example set by the instructors, so that, if the teachers are amicable, work well together, use and enjoy humour, interact, collaborate and model different perspectives on issues, the environment takes on the same spirit and students assume the same attitudes and approaches to learning. (p. 56)
This would seem to be a description of the ideal social-skills modelling environment, and as we will explore in Chapter Eleven, ‗I like her—she‘s nice!‘, students‘ explanations and opinions of ‗good teachers‘ are very much intertwined in the classroom practices and pedagogy of these ‗nice teachers‘. However, in the opinions of the students interviewed in this study, behaviours that they take note of are ‗nice-teacher behaviours‘ directly
experienced by them, and they appear to have little interest in the interaction between team-teaching educators. Further, many students interviewed reported negative
experiences of team teaching, which is surely a disappointing outcome and a lost learning opportunity.
Conclusion
This chapter has focused on team teaching as a means of modelling teacher interactions and social skills for students. As has been explained, school leadership, and indeed some teachers, believe that team teaching presents greater opportunities to ensure that students are not overlooked in classrooms, and that the team-teaching classroom environment provides an excellent setting for teachers to role model social skills for students.
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Unfortunately, from the perspective of teachers, there are problems with aspects of team teaching that have detrimental effects on such teaching, for example, shortage of
resources, lack of professional development in team-teaching pedagogy and insufficient time to prepare quality curriculum.
Students commented negatively about their experiences of team teaching, citing large class sizes and, in particular, exclusion of students due to teacher interactions within classrooms. Additionally, students believed that teacher interactions within classrooms were artificial. The findings of this research do not support the assertion that team teaching is a mechanism through which teachers model social skills. However, students did suggest that conflict and interpersonal difficulties between teachers reassured them that they were not alone in having difficulties within their own peer relationships.
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