Teachers are affected in many ways through their interactions with others teachers –
teacher networks. Teacher networks also affect the way schools respond to external changes.
Thus teacher networks directly affect the educational process and are a key element of schools as
social organizations.
Though there is a strong conception of teachers isolated in their classrooms, there is
increasing awareness that teachers learn and shape one another through professional interactions.
These interactions range from informal lunch room conversations regarding classroom
management to teachers providing formal professional development for each other. The
interactions can affect teachers’ orientations towards teaching (e.g, extent of social distance,
emphasis on progressive teaching styles etc), or subject matter knowledge or pedagogy.
Teachers interact at various depths. During the school day teachers may engage in a
causal conversation regarding non-professional matters or they may have several conversations
of longer duration during the summer or a school retreat. While the latter type of interaction
may be intuitively more substantive, it is critical to appreciate that depth of interaction occurs
along a dynamic continuum; today’s casual lunch partner may be tomorrow’s trusted colleague
in implementing the new reform.
Social networks typically refer to the full set of relationships among a set of actors. In
particular, the teacher network is more than just one-to-one teacher interaction. Thus a teacher
may be influenced not just by those with whom she engages in daily interaction, but also others
who she sees occasionally or even who are on the periphery of her daily social experience.
Teachers’ interactions often are structured by the formal divisions in a school. For
example, elementary school teachers typically interact with others who teach the same grade and
high school teachers typically interact with others who teach the same subject. But there is
considerable deviation from this trend, as teachers who share particular interests (e.g.,
technology) or who shared a common socializing experience (e.g., an awkward transition period
in the school’s history) may be extremely likely to interact, even if they teach in different grades
or departments.
Teacher networks may also span outside the school. Teachers gain important access to
new information and ideas at professional conferences, summer workshops, university based
accredited training, etc. Though some of these experiences are confined to a single event,
others, either by design or accident, lead to enduring relationships that supplement school-based
networks.
As social institutions, schools reflect their immediate community contexts, and teacher
networks are no different. For example, the most active part of the network may reflect the
greatest emphasis of the community, from academic subjects to vocational tracks to
extracurricular activities. In turn, the student network may reflect the teacher network, as
student interactions are cultivated in tracks featuring core courses or team taught courses or
linked to extracurricular activities. Thus the social structure of the community is conveyed to
the students partly through teacher networks.
Teacher networks are not always immediately manifest. That is, on many days one may
enter a school and observe little substantive interaction among teachers. But this may be
deceptive. First, as stated above, even the most casual of conversations can form the basis of
more in-depth relationships. Second, teachers can have strong enduring collegial relationships
that are manifest only in times of urgency or extreme change. Thus two trusted colleagues may
talk little in a given month but may engage in extensive conversation when considering how to
implement a new reform.
Teacher networks contribute to school culture in shaping how the school responds to
external changes. For example, consider a school that is attempting to implement technology
(technology is just one example of external changes schools face; other examples include
increased emphasis on standardized tests, constructivist pedagogy, new curricular materials,
changing student demographics and culture, etc.). An elementary school in which interactions
are highly concentrated within grades may coordinate responses within each grade. But if there is
little interaction between grades than there may be little coordination between grades, leading,
for example, to the use of Windows platform in one grade and the Macintosh in another.
Obviously, such lack of coordinate can pose challenges to some students as they transition from
one grade to the next.
Teacher networks can also be used to leverage change. Thoughtful administrators can
identify teachers capable of conveying an innovation throughout a school. Thus an
administrator may ask a central teacher in each department to take the lead on a new discipline
policy. Or the administrator might cultivate interactions between those most eager to implement
an innovation and others in a school.
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