Making it known you’re a team.

So you and your co-teacher have committed to being a true teaching team.  However, for some reason the students and your peers still see the gen ed teacher as the person “in charge”.  How do you fix this?  For starters you have to look at not what you are saying in class but how you are acting towards each other.  It is one thing to say,  “Mrs. Smith and I are both in charge of this class” in front of the students.  However, if Mrs. Smith is being sent off to make copies every day and being told in front of the students to do other odd jobs, the class will see that Mrs. Smith really isn’t an equal.   Both teachers need to make sure they have some instructional time with the whole class on a regular basis.  The special education teacher is not in the class to make copies or grade tests during class time, they are in the class so that everyone can benefit from the various strategies they have to offer on learning a topic.