Building Communities of Learning among Prairie Teachers: A Dialogue between Michelle Collay, Hamline University and David Leo-Nyquist, South fork High School

Abstract

Abstract The struggle for teachers to establish membership in a professional community is an old one. In earlier times, a country teacher was responsible for a roomful of children for nine months a year. She administered the entire program, taught academic, social, and health skills, fired the stove, repaired furniture, and served meals. Visited once a month or less by a circuit-riding county superintendent, she had an autonomy of practice current teachers may envy. But she also suffered isolation, had little interaction with colleagues, and was terminated upon marriage. Some things have changed in one-hundred years. Rural teachers now concentrate on curriculum rather than housekeeping, and teaching is a life-long career for many. Contemporary rural and urban teachers, however, remain isolated in single classrooms, and have gained little opportunity to build professional communities in schools. The isolation of the one-room school house haunts us still.