Adjourning A Group

The group that I found to be the hardest group to leave was a group that was comprised of 3^rd grade teachers. This was my first year teaching and these 4 veteran teachers really created an environment of trust for me to grow and share ideas during our grade level meetings. No strategy or idea I shared within the meeting was said to be not useful. We were a high performing group, our team was always recognized for creative and effective teaching. Classrooms from our grade level was always used as training grounds for visiting teachers from other schools. Unfortunately, the next year the number of students enrolled decreased for 3^rd grade and I was placed in 1^st grade to teach. It was very hard to leave this group of women, one of the things we would do to build relationship among us was to have breakfast once within the six week period prior to the beginning of the school day. We would all bring individual dishes and just talk and get to know each other better. Even after I moved to another grade level these 3^rd grade teachers continued to invite me to this annual breakfast. I’m sure leaving my colleagues here at Walden will be just as difficult. I hope that we will continue to communicate and share through our blogs. The adjourning stage is essential because it is a time to reflect on what caused success and what caused failure or obstacles.