Teachers and Community: Partners or Enemies An Essay

American teachers tend to regard the communities they serve with suspicion and sometimes downright antagonism, and these attitudes, more often than not, are reciprocated by the communities. Yet both groups, teachers and community, want to improve the quality of education. Teachers want conditions which encourage good teaching, while communities want schools in which children learn. Teaching and learning are two parts of the same process, but still the alienation between teachers and community persists. Why? Can the two groups be made to understand their true interdependence? Can they enter into a partnership from which each can benefit?