Teacher Isolation

The idea of isolation in teaching has been a new and unexpected concept for me to grasp.  How paradoxical is it that teachers who spend the whole day surrounded by people (albeit little people) and work in schools teeming with fellow educators could feel so isolated from one another?  Our schools are environments where teachers have barely a moment to themselves all day but during that time are, for the most part, isolated from their colleagues thus severely limiting the opportunity for professional interaction.  This lack of regular interaction with peers and supervisors can have serious consequences including stress, self-doubt, burnout or even autonomy to the point of being indifferent or acting on personal “whim” or “caprice” (to quote Margret Buchmann).  It is not inconceivable that a teacher could pretty much do whatever they wanted, for at least some period of time, without being found out.  But aside from this negative (and hopefully unlikely) extreme is the more likely scenario of a teacher who would welcome feedback on his or her teaching and desires to proactively collaborate with peers, but is prevented from doing so by the structure of a typical school schedule.   

Further exacerbating the problem is the fact that the public seems to place a very low value on providing collaboration time to teachers.  The public seems to view any time not spent directly in front of students as a waste of their taxpayer (or tuition) dollars.  How do they expect teachers to discover and implement best practices if they are denied the opportunity to brainstorm, problem-solve and coordinate their teaching efforts? 

I think the technology we are learning in our teacher education program will be very helpful in combating our feelings of isolation as teachers.  Although face-to-face collaboration is probably preferred by most teachers, the ability to communicate and share ideas via blogs and wikispaces must certainly be helping teachers feel less isolated.