Collaboration and Competition

It is not uncommon for pre-service Finnish teachers to collaborate and undertake their required Master’s Thesis work as a pair.  I’ve interviewed many teachers and teacher educators who have talked about their “pair” or described the work of Masters students completing their required research as partners.  Teaching practice experiences, likewise, are often completed as a collaboration including lesson planning, reflections on lessons, and co-teaching as part of implementation.  Teacher education at the University of Jyväskylä has been reformed and beginning next year, there will be even more focus on collaboration and co-teaching in the context of phenomenon-based studies (still with a research-based organizing theme).

As I was running this morning, I was pondering the ideas of collaboration and competition.  I’ve been consumed with writing my final project these past few weeks.  I’ve been reading and rereading interview transcripts analyzing for patterns of thinking.  I’ve read and reread research articles now for the fifth or sixth time in two years and of course, as always, found new research to lead me off in new directions of thought.  But, what’s been different for me now is I have a bit of collaborator to work with.  It’s been wonderful.

After the conference in Germany in March, I had a young Fulbright Teaching Assistant from Spain get in touch with me because she was interested in education in Finland.  Through our conversations, I tried to find a way to involve her in my research.  At first, I wrestled with sharing something so important and personal to me with her, but I was compelled by even stronger, selfish impulses.  I wanted to influence her plans for what she will choose to study in graduate school; because I believe what I am studying is important.  I’ve also tried to persuade another Ph.D. student from Michigan State, but I think he may have gotten deterred due to the fact that Linda Darling-Hammond is writing policy briefs from Stanford about the same subject and he may not want to go up against her.  But here’s a hint, if Pasi Sahlberg is traveling back to Finland from Harvard to serve as the opponent on a Ph.D. defense on this topic and Linda Darling-Hammond is writing policy briefs at Stanford about this subject, it maybe important.

Back to this Teaching Assistant.  I proposed to her that we learn together the process of coding interviews as a means of sort of triangulating the results; the idea that if two or more people independently code the data and then cross-check their coding can lend validity and credibility to the results.  She was game to try.  I organized my interview transcripts in a way that she could easily access them and through our research on how to code, we’ve come up with a system that we can both use.  She’s taught me how to share files on Google drive so they are compatible to both our limited technological capabilities abroad.  I’ve been so impressed by her professionalism, her persistence and her willingness to learn.  And, it has certainly been more than worthwhile for me to have someone to share with, think out loud with and learn from.  What’s really amazing is that our collaboration has all been through technology.  Hopefully, we’ll meet again someday in person.

I contrast this to an experience of mine several months ago now.  The head of the Department of Teacher Education asked me whether the next Fulbright teachers they were hosting should come as a cohort?  She was asking because the International Institute of Education was looking for her feedback about if the university would be interested in hosting a group of teachers again.  My response was that I felt my experience with Jeannie and Crystal had been valuable because we were able to share our thinking and learning and process our ideas together.  This has been valuable for me because if left to my own devices, I’m certain to misconstrue some facts and interpret things incorrectly.  As well as, there is no way I can experience everything that is possible to experience here; there is just not enough of me to go around and certainly, not enough time.  I’ve gained so much insight through things Crystal and Jeannie have experienced and shared with me that I haven’t experienced myself.  And, I trust their understandings.  My knowledge is always stronger when processed and constructed with a friend.

When I shared my thoughts on this with Crystal and Jeannie, I pondered a response I hadn’t considered.  Crystal suggested that it had been easy for us to be here together because we all have different projects studying different topics and therefore, there is no competition.  I agreed that a feeling of competitiveness would certainly have interfered with our relationships and experiences.  It certainly has been easier resource-wise in a community of Finnish teachers and schools already inundated with researchers.  But, I wonder would it really have to be that way?  What if we were studying the same thing?  Couldn’t we gain more as a team?

I have a sense, and I could be wrong, that there is a feeling of competition in our educational culture in the U.S.  We do have trends of rating schools and teachers leading to school competition.  At times, I have felt that I was being compared to other teachers, but that could be my own perception.  But, I know I am not wrong in sensing there is a difference in Finnish and American education culture in terms of competition and collaboration.