Collaboration requires more than giving everyone an opportunity to speak. It depends on our willingness to listen across differences, examine multiple perspectives, and commit to working together.
The first time I served on a jury, the judge announced that I would be its foreperson. I had no idea why I’d been chosen and wondered whether it was a random selection, like a ball popping out of a lottery machine, or whether it had anything to do with the details I provided on the juror questionnaire.
After two full days of hearing testimony and a third day of deliberation, we pronounced our verdict, were thanked for our service, and were dismissed from duty. Back in the jury room, our group, along with two alternate jurors who had heard all the testimony but had not participated in our deliberations, decided to head to a nearby restaurant. While we decompressed, lawyers from both sides entered the restaurant and came over to thank us for our service. I remember asking if they had any idea why I’d been selected as the foreperson. They asked about my profession. When I said I was an educator, they remarked that educators are often chosen because we are known for helping groups collaborate and for our integrity.
I recently read an article describing the “talking stick” that Senator Susan Collins used to help colleagues from both parties negotiate an end to the government shutdown. The article stated that the “talking stick” is a strategy that teachers use to support students in sharing their thoughts without interruption. While it might sound like a promising strategy to help students voice their thoughts, the news also reported that Senator Lamar Alexander threw the stick at Senator Mark Warner, chipping Collins’s glass elephant in the process. Whether it was accidental, an expression of frustration with the process, or something else, the incident underscores a larger point.
As educators, we know that giving everyone an opportunity to speak or assigning a foreperson or facilitator does not, by itself, guarantee genuine collaboration. Collaboration is a complex undertaking. In the jury experience, for example, we had to decide whether the defendant was innocent or guilty of six different charges. We first had to listen to the testimony, consider what each of us had heard, understand the context of the alleged crimes, weigh the evidence, and draw on our individual perspectives. Doing this collaboratively required a willingness to deliberate cooperatively, listen to other perspectives, set aside preconceived notions and biases, understand the laws governing the case, and work toward a shared decision. My work as a foreperson and our jury’s work depended on all the tasks and variables working and, most of all, everyone’s commitment to working together.
Different perspectives are essential to genuine collaboration. What matters is our willingness to listen to one another, examine our differences, and work together toward shared understanding. That’s what happened when I was the foreperson. People expressed their opinions in all sorts of ways. But we also agreed to work through our differences by hearing various points of view and factoring them into our decision. Our willingness to draw from different perspectives and work toward shared understanding represents democracy at its best. That commitment to collaboration strengthens our classrooms, courts, government, and communities—and the democracy we share.
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