Conceiving the school as a “hive”, made up of separate classrooms and coordinated by an administrative apparatus no longer makes sense. We can no longer consider teachers as mere transmitters of the curriculum, locked in their classrooms and without any relationship or involvement in the life of the center. It is therefore essential to develop a collaborative culture that allows progress in considering the educational center as an organization of professionals, where their task is not limited to teaching in isolation but also includes maximum involvement in collective tasks and in institutional functioning.
The first part of this work sets out the meaning and scope of the term collaboration and the implications for teachers and schools. The analysis allows us to discover the advantages that it brings to both. Participation in decisions, personal satisfaction, commitment to the institution, increased information and points of view regarding the situations of students and the school, the need for teamwork, improved educational quality, institutional cohesion, coherence in the training of children and young people, and increased effectiveness of educational action are some of the points mentioned. It also indicates the possible resistance to collaboration, resulting from habitual ways of acting and conceiving education. However, it highlights the essential existence of a culture of collaboration if we want to move forward in restructuring the objectives and activities of the educational center, especially in the face of rapid and profound changes in our social environment.
The first chapter is intended, in short, to offer a framework for framing the experiences and assessing the contributions of each one, rather than attempting to present exhaustive information. The content adequately fulfils this purpose.
The experiences, which constitute the most extensive part, represent a varied set of proposals. Each of them provides data on the specific approach taken and on the activities and processes carried out in the respective centres. The same people responsible for the experiences, professionals with theoretical and practical knowledge of the subject and oriented towards innovation, present them, providing the reader with all the data that allows them to understand the overall conception of the experiences and the strategies used.
The third part places the experiences within the set of characteristics that the coordinator considers essential for collaboration and teamwork in educational centers. The characteristics and notes outlined are a complement to the initial reflections and a guide to advance in a broad and well-founded collaboration.