Learning through Partnership: Four Narratives.

The partnership between Best Elementary School and Texas Tech University's College of Education has been in place over fifteen years. During this time field based methods classes have been taught at Best, graduate and undergraduate students have been involved in tutoring programs, and activities such as field trips have been conducted in partnership between the two institutions. Best Elementary is a Title 1 school with a student population that is primarily minority (77.8% African American, 18.4% Hispanic) and economically disadvantaged (86.2%). It is also high achieving, receiving an Exemplary rating, the highest possible academic ranking for a school in the state of Texas. In this article we explore the partnership with multiple narratives: two professors, one graduate student, and one first grade teacher. We also draw on previous publications in which Best students through their writing communicate withTech students and other future teachers. Multiple narratives are important, because to understand a process as complex as teaching, it is necessary to view the phenomenon with multiple lenses. The example that comes to mind is the story of recognizing the elephant in the dark--only possible if participants have their hands on different parts of the elephant and if all are given equal opportunity to speak and be heard. The four authors of this article understand the importance of strong relationships that allow the sharing of diverse knowledge. Having known one another for years, we are comfortable communicating with one another--asking questions, offering resources and suggestions. It also helps that we share a single context (Best Elementary) about which we all care deeply. Our grounded relationships allow us to freely communicate, avoiding the consensus trap Trimbur (1997) warns of. In his words: the use of consensus. is an inherently dangerous and potentially totalitarian practice that stifles individual voice and creativity, suppresses differences, and enforces conformity. (p. 439) Trimbur's concern is with the over-emphasis of consensus in collaborative learning, but his ideas are also applicable to assumptions of consensus in educational partnerships. Such an emphasis on consensus in educational partnerships can have the effect of silencing dissent and preventing opinions and knowledge to the contrary from ever being expressed. We agree with Trimbur that "knowledge and its means of production are distributed in an unequal, exclusionary social order and embedded in hierarchical relations of power. " (p. 440) In order to reach our educational ideals we must first make such hierarchical relations overt, and then invent ways to listen across the hierarchy. In addition to learning how to listen across difference we must also distinguish between spurious and genuine consensus. Drawing from Habermas (1975), Trimbur defines genuine consensus, not as something that actually happens but instead as the counterfactual anticipation that agreement can be reached without coercion or systematic distortion. Consensus, for Habermas, is not, as it is for social constructionists like Brufee, an empirical account of how discourse communities operate but a critical and normative representation of the conditions necessary for fully realized communication to occur. (p. 451) Equality of voice and sharing of power are two components especially important to this process. We must understand that all participants have something to teach and something to learn. This is important, not only to the specific partnership, but also to the field of education as a whole. College and K-12 teachers and students each have a unique perspective that must be understood if we are going to successfully reach the goals of public schooling in democracy. Through these perspectives we gain the inspiration, insight, and knowledge necessary to prepare students to create a future we've only dreamed of. …