From barriers to belonging

Building effective collaboration between teachers and education assistants

By Tiffany Drew, teacher, North Vancouver

Twenty-one students sit in rows at xylophones and glockenspiels, mallets in hand, waiting to strike. While I teach them to wait for the conductor, they anticipate a count in and ready themselves to strike the bar with relative accuracy. I begin to count, yet one eager child cannot wait, hits the bars repeatedly, twists the head of the mallet, and then tosses it across the room. The rest of the classmates cannot help but be distracted. They laugh, or play along, or get angry; I have seen all the scenarios. I continue the count while trying to figure out how to include the student that cannot yet control their movements. It is at this moment that a hero walks in, in the form of an education assistant (EA). I am both relieved and flustered. I cannot repeat the entire lesson to get the staff up to speed, yet I know I cannot do it without them. Teachers know this feeling all too well. How do we move past this to build the cohesiveness we need for students?

Throughout my career in the education system, I have advocated for students with learning differences who use additional support in the classroom. I am a parent of students with learning needs, and I have worked as both an EA and a teacher. Now that I am a learning support teacher in particular, I have become the point-person for staff, students, and parents to address their concerns that come with including students in a modern educational system.

In many countries, education support staff, also called paraprofessionals and teacher assistants, are a key support to including diverse students. However, many opposing factors make it difficult to maximize the intended outcomes of this particular support.

This led me to investigate the following question for my Master’s degree capstone project: What are the barriers to effective collaboration with EAs in schools? How can we effectively address these barriers in schools?

It is also through these experiences that I realize it is in building stronger collaborative networks as educators, that we will best serve learners. After all, to paraphrase H.E. Luccock (as cited in Pike & Krumm), no one can whistle a symphony on their own; it takes the entire orchestra to play it.¹ 

What are the barriers?

Role ambiguity

While it is commonly known that it is the teacher’s role to teach and prepare for classes, and the EA’s role is to support and carry out tasks designed by the teacher for individual or group learning, there are areas of the job descriptions that can be less clear. Reinforcing rules and discipline, altering curriculum priorities, and work titles that switch from “job coach,” to “EA,” to “lunch supervisor” can all create work-related ambiguity.

Communication constraints

Teachers and support staff are bound to different working timetables. They often have to trade off supervision of students that require the largest time investments. In some cases, support staff hours do not cover the same working hours as the teachers, and this makes meeting or communicating with each other difficult. Sharing information while students are present can also be difficult as there are often concerns that cannot be addressed openly.

Technology platforms for sharing information, while well intentioned, are not timely or accessible. Emails take time. Platforms such as Microsoft Teams require technology in the classroom that not all schools have or not all staff have access to.

Professional development inequity

Given that most schools have a larger population of teachers than support staff, professional development is often directed toward the teachers, with add-on learning opportunities for all staff members. This means EAs are sometimes left to learn new strategies, systems, and routines while in the classroom.

Disconnected sense of belonging

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs places high value on a sense of belonging. In the workplace, people also strive to fit into social groups to feel psychologically safe and meet our personal attachment needs. This could be our individual needs, or our collective needs. For instance, working in a job that aligns with our values, or working with others that share our values, helps us feels safe at work. In the school setting, with complexities of the structural systems we may feel aligned and safe with a group or individuals, but not with systems or policies. This can cause disconnection.

Some positions in our work provide a natural sense of belonging, such as shared experiences, while others are pre-stigmatized because of structural inequalities. Other themes that arise when discussing belonging include feeling valued in your ideas and trusted with the work you produce.

Breaking barriers

Now that we have discovered there is a barrier, how do we go about making change? 

Create a vision

The first step to create change is constructing your change vision. Creating a vision can help focus your goal. An example of my vision is, “I strive to build a learning community that is committed to effectively teaching students while maintaining workplace well-being and modelling core competencies for all members.” In short, teachers, EAs, and students should all feel part of the learning community.

Build bridges

Consider your position within the school system and the school structure. Are you in a position to present professional development opportunities or invite someone working with you to come with you to an opportunity? Can you be a part of a social committee that builds relationships through fun activities?

Analyze power and cultural dynamics

What collaborations in your school or program create power dynamics? Does your school have a soup club or a book club that is only offered during non-shared lunch hours? Does your district only hold professional learning opportunities that require travelling by personal vehicles? Consider any “artifacts” that your school has that may be driving wedges in your vision. For example, is there a long service award reserved for one union member or the other?

How is essential technology accessed? In my experience, teachers have access to school technology yet support staff don’t always have the same access. Could you get support for setting up an accessible workstation for itinerant staff that come through your classroom?

Communicate your desired intentions

Making your vision known is as important as creating a vision. Find allies that share your vision. Consider stakeholders in your desire to build better collaboration. Ask if you can attend an EA team meeting to discuss your classroom structure or discuss your thoughts with the person that does the EA timetabling. Maybe knowing who and when support is coming can help you shift your instructional time. Communicate your intentions to administrators, asking for planning time when appropriate. Create a communication plan with support staff you work with directly.

Keep the momentum

Continue to assess the situation to see if the changes you have implemented have worked. For example, if you flipped your lesson structure in order to give instructions while support staff were available, did it work, or do you need to revisit this idea? Did you make an inviting desk space for someone you share a classroom with? Does it need refreshing for a new season?

If you are trying to build better roles and distinctions between your positions, continually work together to build evolving definitions.

Find ways to measure your progress and celebrate! Share with others the progress and failures that you have come across to bring about trends beyond your classroom or school. Collaboration requires identified progress, shared success, and vulnerability.

Through collaboration, we can break down barriers and effectively implement learning communities that include everyone.

1 A. J. Pike & J.M. Krumm, Roadblocks to Faith, Morehouse-Gorham Co, 1954.