Two Teachers

Two teachers in the same room? This is something that i have done in the past (teaching CPR) and is mainly to help a new teacher facilitate, help demonstrate, ensure skills are performed correctly, answer questions, etc. Finkel goes into more detail in his book and discusses how beneficial "collegial teaching" can be. He lists 5 criteria that separate collegial teaching from other forms of team teaching.

• Two teachers must be equal
• Two teachers must be different
• Two teachers must act before their students primarily as intellectual colleagues
• Collegial course must be inquire-centered
• Teachers must conceive of their studetns in a new way

Ultimately, there is a shift between covering curriculum to participating in an inquiry. Collegial teaching is centered around the teacher-teacher relationship and not the student.

Can this really work??

If done effectively, students become auditors (listen to the two teachers different perspectives) and then are invited to participate as a "colleague" and not a "student". If the student can get past feeling and acting like a "student" they can participate fully. Finkel mentions that getting past their role of the student can be very challenging.

So, although I have co-taught a class, it was nothing like collegial teaching. I would think, being the pessimist that I am that for me, this would be difficult. Getting students to actively participate and think like a colleague and not a student of the class would be challenging. I can see how this would increase interest if you could get the buy in.

I also think this could be disastrous.

What other downfalls might this have?
Would this work in every class, in every subject?

I often revert back to "training" (short duration and/or one time only sessions, once per year or less where you dont get to see the students but one time) and wonder if this would work at all. If the students are unfamiliar with the topic, is this worth even attempting?

Refusing to teach

Too often in my opinion we place too much emphasis on lecture and too much focus on the teacher.  In this part of the book, Finkel discusses how a teacher can teach without speaking and actually refuses. He tells of a story of a teacher who says that certain days are for his teaching (lecture, teacher led discussion, etc) but on a particular class day each week, he will say very little. The first day = silence and only after 5 minutes does he speak but only to say that he was serious about not speaking and it is up to the class to determine how to use the class time. 

"By withholding his words, by refusing to leave, by making himself a near silent observer of the group, the teacher has magnified his own importance in the class in a strange way. The less he says, the more each word counts. The more he acts in accordance with the dictum that the class belongs to students, the more the class looks like a performance staged just for him." (p.114)

This initially terrifies me when I think about it. Refusing to say a word and letting the class know ahead of time that i wouldn't be saying a word is very non-traditional and I think would shock some students, just like Finkel's story in the book. I can however see how it can be very beneficial if done correctly. 

I think as I mentioned earlier, that there can be too much talking from the teacher. If the teacher actually tries to truly facilitate that students they can learn just as much. Just because there's a teacher in the room does not mean that the teacher knows everything and that the teacher can't learn something  from the students 

Does it take practice to refuse to teach? I would gather that it takes a great deal of courage to put this into place during a class action. I wonder how effective this can be in different subjects. What are the potential downfalls of refusing to teach? If the teacher is not prepared properly could this lead to major failure?  I would have to say yes, but even with the proper preparation can it still go the wrong direction that the teacher never anticipated? A direction that the teacher tried to prepare for?