The Power of Collegial Support

Friday is a great time to look back on a week and really reflect both on your professional practice and personal life. Today, I'm looking back on a mixture of both.

My school is not the toughest school in the world, but it is far from the easiest. We have kids from a range of cultural backgrounds, a range of socio-economic backgrounds and a range of educational backgrounds. We have kids that want for nothing, and kids that have nothing. 

But some days, it is not the kids that keep me coming back to work.

It is my amazing, supportive, hilarious and caring colleagues.

The people I work with are like our kids - we come from a whole range of places, have a whole range of life experiences and have a whole lot of different teaching philosophies. 
But, unlike our kids, our staff get on like a house on fire.

There is not a day where laughter cannot be heard from the staffroom, whether it be at the expense of ourselves or our kids. There is not a day where you cannot find a shoulder to cry on, or someone to give you a hug when you feel you're at your wit's end.

The power of collegiality is very evident at our school. We are a team, a force to be reckoned with, an army, if you will - armed with formative assessment tools up the wahzoo, and a wicked sense of humour that whizzes straight over our kids heads, but will have each other laughing so hard we need to do a wiggly wee dance.

Maybe its the emotional nature of our profession - one in which we are so involved in the lives of our students that their pain is our own -  and it is this shared experience which brings our staff together so closely. 

Perhaps its our pedagogical standpoint - that we all share similar goals and views on current educational theory - that allows us to team up so easily and work collaboratively.

Possibly, its our Exec team - our experienced teacher mentors who are ready to share knowledge, support our crazy ideas and help us develop professionally and personally. (A special thank you execs for supporting me in this blogtastic venture).

Or perhaps its just that we're really really ridiculously good looking.

If you don't get the reference, then get out of my office, like right now!

Either way - as teachers, its absolutely vital that we recognise the power of collegial support in our professional lives. 

Think about it - have you recognised the incredible influence of the support of your colleagues this week?

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit brain dead with on a Monday morning,  simultaneously trying to finish off that Notebook file while stopping each other from drowning in our coffee - that help us keep it together.

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit with around the staffroom table on a Friday afternoon sharing war stories from the week - that help keep us sane.

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit on the couch with on the weekend eating scones and drinking copious amounts of tea - that keep us doing what we do best: educating little monsters wonderful children.

So colleagues - I raise my tea mug very full wine glass to you. Thank you for being the ones who keep me, me.