Is Anyone Out There?

Throughout my professional career, I have chased a dream: Create spaces for teachers to get together and share their successes, concerns, frustrations...and growth! While I was a teacher many moons back, I tried initiating and sustaining conversations with my colleagues about anything, but everyone was too busy to talk.

Teachers were expected to cover books from beginning to end, leaving them little time to reflect on their teaching, much less share with other colleagues. Schools could barely make time for a faculty meeting once or twice weekly. We did not know what we were missing!

In the 80s the standards movement shock us all! What? How? Where to begin understanding the new rules? So... after a complete stop, administrators decided teachers should meet to try to understand the complexity beyond the standards.

Publishing companies offered free workshops for schools buying their textbooks.

Time passed in the universe of academic standards, and we still felt like fish out of the water. Then, one day, I read an article about Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), a term first used in the 60s to bring teachers out of the isolation that characterizes the teaching profession.

I have researched and implemented PLCs for maybe 10 or 15 years. I came across authors like Shirley M. Hord and Richard DuFour, who guided me into making my dream come true. After my first year with PLCs, I started feeling I could stop chasing a dream and turn it into my vision, which I was ready to share with the world, or at least part of.

This is how my story around PLCs began!
At this point, you might be wondering... WHAT IS A PLC? WHAT BENEFITS WOULD PLCs BRING TO MY SCHOOL? Allow me to begin by saying that professional development opportunities for teachers in my side of the world are scarce and expensive. So, what if I tell you that PLCs represent a strategy to bring professional learning and development to your school for very little money? Aha! Now I caught your attention! Let’s begin.

In simple words, professional learning communities are groups of teachers with similar interests and objectives that come together to analyze challenges they are experiencing and find solutions they can implement in their classrooms.

They work collaboratively in an environment of trust, learn new strategies, and share results after implementing them. In other words, they become researchers, data analysts, and problem solvers. As teachers walk the PLC path, they develop confidence, choice, and voice, improve their teaching skills, and, of course, the result is an increase in student performance. 

School cultures that have been impacted by adopting PLCs are places where stakeholders want to be.

What about PLCs downfalls, you might be wondering. Like any other human group, PLCs might face challenges at the beginning: difficulty in developing collaboration, finding the time to meet, dealing with complex daily routines, having to listen to the know-it-alls and not knowing how to stop them, or simply trying to leave the fear of participation aside.

That is where administrators come in. Directors, principals, and coordinators have a great opportunity through PLCs to adjust their leadership style into more coaching and less supervision. With time, if organized well, PLCs can replace ineffective professional learning and development strategies you want to eliminate with 100% success.

I know! If this short story awakens your interest, do not hesitate to contact Global School Consulting Group.

At GSCG, you will find professional consultants with experience in schools worldwide who are ready to support your school’s interests and needs.