Team With a Theme Makes a Hit : Two second-grade teachers say joining forces has helped them give more help to individual pupils in Fullerton school.

Last year, as the lone teacher of a second-grade class with 30 children who spoke half a dozen different languages, Sue Sweeney often felt overwhelmed. So did Kathy Pitts, another second-grade teacher with a similar class size and problems.

This year, Sweeney and Pitts teach a class of 60, but you won’t hear either woman complaining. That’s because they decided to join forces.

“We thought, here we are, one teacher with one big class and no aides. Why not put them together?” Sweeney says.

Now that the two teachers are several months into their experiment at Valencia Park Elementary School in Fullerton, both say everyone is benefiting--especially the children.

“Together we can do more than we could have done on our own,” Pitts says. “We are able to work more one-on-one.”

While the concept of team-teaching is not new--it can be found in many Orange County schools--the particular way Pitts and Sweeney have combined their large, unwieldy classes is new, said Suzanne Crago-Schneider, language development specialist for the Fullerton School District.

“Every school has a situation where teaming is happening at some level,” says Crago-Schneider, who has been observing the Pitts-Sweeney partnership for the school district.

“I think it is the only way to go in our present population.

“One person can’t do everything and be everything to all children. There is no way you can. The real strength of team-teaching is that you teach to your strengths. Look at our whole culture. Even CEOs are going to the more collaborative methods.”

At Valencia Park Elementary School, the proposal to team-teach second grade was greeted with enthusiasm, and principal Marilyn Davis quickly set about finding a classroom large enough to accommodate the combined groups. Ultimately, a wall of bookcases separating two adjoining classrooms was removed, creating one large rectangular room.

Now, at the beginning of each school day, the 60 children meet together briefly. Then they break up into small groups to work on individual projects that are all related to a theme.

For example, during a recent class, the theme was hats. The children were asked to bring in hats of their own, to talk about hats, to draw hats and to write about hats. Sweeney worked with a group of 16, while 12 children worked on their own completing a writing assignment. At the other end of the double classroom, Pitts worked with the rest of the students on a related project.

The use of a theme helps create a cohesive feeling, and all 60 children know that they are involved in the same project, Sweeney says. “The group has commented to me that the classroom feels like a family,” she says. “And that’s important for some children. We had two that were homeless at the beginning of the year, and some come from broken homes.”

Another benefit, the women say, has been a decrease in discipline problems.

English is the second language of about one-third of the children, and in this year’s class at least seven different languages are represented. By team-teaching, one teacher can spend time working with the English-as-second-language pupils, devoting more time and attention to them than would be possible otherwise.

“In this class, the range of abilities is so great, all the way from kids who don’t know the alphabet to ones at fourth-grade level,” says Sweeney. “Alone, I could not have done half of what I’ve done. You just couldn’t do it on your own as a single teacher. In this neighborhood with the variety of kids you have, you are almost forced to go to team-teaching.”

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At the beginning of the school year, Pitts and Sweeney met with parents and told them about the plan to combine classes. At that time, the two teachers also asked for volunteers to help out in the classroom. A few parents have volunteered.

“Even without volunteers, this is better, having two adults and 60 kids, instead of one adult and a large class,” says Pitts.

Classroom innovations include dividing the children into squads. “We have 10 children in each squad, and we work from these squads,” Pitts says. “And we rotate leaders regardless of that child’s ability.”

The teachers also got rid of all the desks in the classroom. “At this age, children need to move,” Sweeney says. “So we removed the desks, leaving the work tables, but mostly the kids work from the floor. The first day they came in and had a shocked look on their faces, but they have adapted well.” The children use lap boards, and they have individual cubicles in which to store their school supplies and other belongings.

What makes the team-teaching effort work so well, according to district observer Ellen Ballard, is the way Pitts and Sweeney use themes to organize their curriculum.

“The way they are setting it up working within thematic, organized units, lends itself to team-teaching,” says Ballard, a language development specialist for the Fullerton School District. “Thematic teaching means that every theme you are teaching goes into math, reading, social studies. You are pulling together all the concept areas through a theme.

“To reach an audience in which you have such incredible diversity, not only in culture, but in language, this is a marvelous way to bring kids together.”