1. Estabrook School HSR Feb 26, 2013

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Joseph Estabrook School: Historic Structure Report Team Teaching Philosophy 11 4. To provide a program of student grouping which permits instruction to be more effectively geared to individual student ability. 5. To provide realistic treatment of individual differences to supplement the identifying and diagnosing of these differences. 6. To provide time and facilities during the school day for teachers to prepare lessons, develop imaginative materials and keep abreast of new developments.27 The people interviewed for this report would agree that the structure and objectives outlined above were not the most important component of team teaching, but rather, "The heart of the concept of team teaching lies not in details of structure and organization but more in the essential spirit of cooperative planning, constant collaboration, close unity, unrestrained communication, and sincere sharing. ,28 People who taught at Estabrook in the early years provided examples of how team teaching worked in practice and how the flexibility of the program encouraged creative teaching. Dr. Anderson placed great stress on the group process of discussion and decision making. Bill Terris, original teacher and principal for many years, said: We worked together as a team and it was very exciting. We spent hours planning. The school would close at 5:00 o'clock and we would still be trying to figure out what we were going to do tomorrow. So the team adjourned to [secretary] Ruth Oley's house. She opened her house to us. We would be there from 5:00 to 7:00 or 8:00 while we were planning. Not every night. We planned for a week . 29 With the emphasis on innovative teaching, Dick Barnes came up with the following solution after trying conventional methods of teaching the need for punctuation at the end of sentences to a class of advanced students: Finally one day I was so frustrated with them that I said, "I want you over there to close that door, and you over there to shut the blinds, and you to shut the lights off. Then all of us are going to gather down here, and they did that." I said, "I am going to tell you a secret. You know what a secret is. You don't tell anybody else. You keep it to yourself forever. Every sentence ends in some kind of punctuation!i3o The exercise worked and students remembered it years later. 27 Ibid., 27 -28. 28 Stuart E. Dean and Clinnette F. Witherspoon, "Team Teaching in the Elementary School," Educational Briefs, No. 38 (Washington Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Office of Education, January, 1962), as quoted in Bair and Woodward, Team Teaching in Action (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1964), 22. 29 Bill Terris, interview with Anne Grady, March 9, 2012. 30 Dick Barnes, interview with Anne Grady, March 16, 2012. Anne Andrus Grady June 2012