Rescued: Why PLCs Prevent Educator Isolation

-Beth Swindell, Hoggard HS

For my college application essay (more years ago than I would like to admit), I was asked to write a response to a quote by John Donne. He writes, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….” I would bet some of you have even used this for a journal response at one point or another. I’m pretty sure I have. For whatever reason, those words are what popped into my head when I sat down to write this post. And in that reminiscing, I realized that maybe I understood more about that quote as a teenager than I have in my adult life, and especially more than I have in my career up until recently.

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main….” - John Donne

 No man is an island. Comforting words. No one wants to be alone in life in general really. We all seek solace from being part of a whole in some way. So why do we as teachers often seek to separate ourselves from the whole? Why do we often become our own island? I don’t think we do this because we don’t like other people, or even because we believe we can do it better on our own. I think it just happens. We shut our doors and get our jobs done. But in that process, we put it all on ourselves. Our instruction, our students' grades and often their lives, our responsibilities… everything is carried on our backs. We maroon ourselves on our own island, and though we do get the job done, that solitary existence can be quite toiling on our growth as educators. Even more importantly, it can be toiling on our sense of why we chose this path in the first place.

So what is the answer then?How do we get off the island? How do we stop ourselves from teaching in silos so to speak? Well, for us at Hoggard our answer became our new PLC cycle. Sound like something I’m supposed to say? It probably does. But in this case, it is really true. With the advent of our cross-curricular learning communities, we changed the culture of our school. We got our teachers off of those islands, or we at least got them to invite some others to their own. And it has been the biggest change in my career. Suddenly we are not boxed in by the habits of old or by the confines of what we do in our own departments. Suddenly ideas are fresh again. Growth is not only possible but welcomed. We’re not alone. We are connected. Our purpose and instruction are linked, and our students see that. We don’t have to carry it all ourselves, and we shouldn’t.

"With the advent of our cross-curricular learning communities, we changed the culture of our school. We got our teachers off of those islands, or we at least got them to invite some others to their own."

We found a way with this new format to change a task we usually see as an interruption- or a waste of time- into something that has changed the face of our school, hopefully forever. We are inspired. We are meeting and learning from colleagues in other departments that we may have never really said more than “hello” to in the past. We are discovering our curriculums and lessons again in new ways. For maybe the first time in my career, I see that we all share the same base philosophy of why we’re here and what we aim to do. And that makes me want to open my door. That makes me want to be “a part of the main.” We have enough weight to bear in this field. Why should we do it alone? 

- by Beth Swindell

Have you ever felt like you were "alone on an island?" Has your PLC helped you connect? Please share in the comment section below.