A recent trip to Australia introduced me to a powerful local expression. People are described as "tall poppies" if they do something that seemingly puts them above their "mates." This can be applied in various contexts from politics to sports but always speaks to egalitarianism that is part of the Australian character. Each person is as good as the next and no one should have a position of preference.

As admirable as that egalitarianism is, I noted that it caused some teachers to feel lonely, even abandoned, as they strove to improve their practice. At a teacher conference that I attended in Melbourne, one primary teacher used the metaphor of the tall poppy as part of her presentation, describing the isolation that the tall poppy syndrome forced on her. Her presentation reminded us that the tall poppy is the one that gets mowed down.

The teachers at this conference, all innovators, all teacher-researchers, echoed this complaint so that it became insistent and strong. Teachers who wanted to improve their practice collaboratively could not freely share their work with their closest colleagues. They were always much more comfortable sharing their work with "outsiders," people they did not directly work with.

This fear of recrimination in your own backyard is not new, nor is it confined to teachers, but it is pervasive, apparently even across national boundaries. It is insidious, too, and damaging to what we, as teachers, can and should be doing more of. We should be sharing our work and growth experiences as we develop our skills and abilities.

Of course, we do achieve important and worthwhile results when we share our work with those outside of our immediate circle of colleagues. But much more powerful that sharing would be if we could channel it into schoolwide conversations about our students, our schools, our profession!

In the past I, too, have sometimes held back, sometimes kept quiet, preferring to keep a low profile rather than risk the possibility of jibes or criticism. But the confidence that I now associate with teacher research, the kind of collaborative action research being done at many schools throughout the world including my own, has changed my attitude. In the not too distant past I was stymied by conversations with teachers about alternate ways in which to teach. Responses ranged from "That's fine for others, but it would never work here," through "We tried that about 20 years ago," to "The parents would never put up with that."

After working with a cadre of teachers in collaborative action research teams for five years, I have our experiences and our data to counter those defensive measures. We have teacher-generated research at our school, with our own students and parents and our own curriculum, that tells a different story. Our research has altered our conversations and has begun affecting the culture of the school so that the whole faculty is able to move forward together.

This is a call to action. It only takes a couple of teachers, committed to improving their professional lives, to nip the tall poppy syndrome in our schools. I believe that this must be done collaboratively because it would be too difficult for a lone poppy to stand up to the blustery winds of criticism. But with at least one other person, one colleague, to form a team, teaching can begin a process of continuous improvement.

Continuous professional growth based on teacher research has tremendous potential to move entire schools and entire school organizations forward. And as each poppy grows tall, instead of fearing the scythe, we can create support for each other.

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