Collaborating or arguing?

I know it has been a while since I have put anything new out so trying to find time to put my thinking down. This year at UT Elementary, we have been working on continuing to implement our Innovation Challenge and finding solutions to the problems we face on a day to day basis.  One of our focus points this year is to work on becoming better collaborators as educators.  In order to do this though, we needed to define collaboration.

Many times when we think of collaboration, especially in schools and in elementary schools, we think about coming together, sharing ideas, everybody is smiling and happy, and I have the best team ever approach.  In reality, successful collaboration rarely works that way.  In order for us to effectively work together, we need to be able to disagree.  This can be a challenge to find ways and people that are going to challenge our thinking and push us into looking for solutions that are not easily accessible.

So how do we make this happen?  We have to push our egos to the side.  It doesn't matter who's idea it is or who gets the credit.  What matters is that we find solutions to our problems.  We are often caught in echo chambers where we surround ourselves with people only agree with us or praise us for our ideas, or in other words, feed our ego.  Look at the Dallas Cowboys for example.  Jerry Jones runs everything in this organization.  It is not ok for people to disagree with him.  As a result, there is very little growth in the organization.

At UT Elementary, we are working on creating time and culture for teachers to share ideas and give them the skills to be able collaborate, disagree and find answers so that we can help our students.