Collaboration is to work jointly with others or working together, including combining diverse skills, perspectives, and resources to tackle complex challenges to create something for the better.
Partnership is an informal or formal arrangement by two or more parties to manage a certain activity with shared interests, objectives and responsibilities.
Engagement is the involvement and enthusiasm of people in their work and it also emphasizes the value of meaningful interactions, shared visions, and a sense of ownership in the collaborative process.
Collaboration, partnership, and engagement seemed just the same for me. But going deeply as I journey on my teaching career, I encountered different experiences. I asked myself, how do these words work together?
On my third day in my new school assignment, while going around in the school ground, reflecting on my responsibility, my tears fell down unknowingly. I asked myself what will I do, how will I start.
First challenge: How to prevent landslide at the back of the school building. I asked the parents for a special meeting, talked about what, how, and when to do it. They agreed to have the work. On the day, I am amazed seeing the almost complete attendance. Amazing, I told myself, this is a good sign. With this activity, those three words go together. In a workplace, nothing happens when only one is working hard.
Our school has only two classrooms catering to kindergarten to grade 5, borrowing a multipurpose center to cater the grade 4 and 6 classes. There is really a need to construct atleast one room to ease the crowded class. But how? Are we just going to wait for the government to provide us or can we do something for the government? Yes, we can do something for the government.
Advocating these three important words can help build better future. When parents approved the suggestion on building a classroom for their children in their own little ways is such a nice virtue observed in a certain community. Volunteering themselves to work until a project completion is a good example to their own children. Working hard and enduring the heat of the sun and overcoming weather disturbances show how much they love their children and their community.
Parents, partners, and other stakeholders working smoothly with school personnel strengthens partnership and collaboration. Boosting engagement will create a great impact on the improvement not only of the school but in building the future of the learners.
Showing such oneness in supporting the programs and activities in the school and knowing one’s responsibility and sharing of resources can produce the best leaders/servants of tomorrow and assets of the community.
After all, collaboration, partnership, and engagement represent the foundation upon which individuals and communities build meaningful connections to achieve common goals and amplify their impacts.
May 16, 2024
