ABSTRACT
This chapter takes up the issue of giving the prominent place team teaching, which occupies in early childhood education (ECE) and the importance of effective teaming to program quality. Teaming is common in early childhood education. Head Start relies on teams of teachers, organized hierarchically, with a lead (LT) and at least one assistant teacher (AT) and sometimes aides to deliver its educational services to 3- and 4-year-olds. Teaming quickly emerged in the observational phase of data gathering as a significant issue and grew in importance over the course of the observations. Thus, to reveal aspects of how ECE teachers experience teaming, effective and ineffective teams, two parallel case studies of two Head Start teacher teams in a single center were conducted. The cases open for consideration some of the challenges and opportunities associated with teaming and for building and strengthening successful teams. In the interviews, the teachers had difficulty generating metaphors for themselves as teachers.
