Synergy: The Effect of
Working Together
John Shortt
A Tale of Two Horses
 My
father was an Irish farmer. He had two horses whose names
were Paddy and Bartley. Paddy was an old and disciplined animal
but Bartley was young and independent. When my father was
ploughing a field with them, Bartley sometimes wanted to pull
the plough in a different direction from Paddy. When this
happened, my father had to work very hard to get them to work
together and to pull in the same direction. At other times,
Paddy and Bartley worked happily together and progress with
the ploughing was so much easier then.
I thought of my father and his horses as I sat listening to
one of the speakers at the recent Hope 21 Congress in Budapest.
He said that two horses working together could pull rather
more than twice what one horse could pull alone.
The speaker was talking about the meaning of the word ‘synergy’.
Synergy is a combined effect which is greater than the sum
of individual effects.
The Greek word ‘sunergeo’ is used several times
in the New Testament. These include references to ‘fellow-workers’
and to ‘working together’ in Mark 16:20, Romans
8:28 and 16:21, I Corinthians 3:9, II Corinthians 6:1, Philippians
4:3, Colossians 4:11 and I Thessalonians 3:2.
These passages show that we may not only work together with
one another but that we may be workers together with God and
He may graciously work together with us. What a wonder!
A Synergetic Activity
In the Education Consultation at Hope 21, we had a vivid illustration
of synergy when we were working in small groups. The person
leading the session gave each group a different question to
start with. Each group discussed the assigned question, wrote
down their answer and, at a set time, passed the question
with their answer on to the next group. The next group read
the question and the first group’s answer and then discussed
and wrote down what they had to add to what was already written.
This went on until each question had been discussed by several
groups and each answer built upon the basis of what was already
written.
The effect was different from, and better than, that of the
alternative strategy of having each group discuss each question
without reference to what others had done. Synergy in action!
Synergy in the Classroom
As teachers, we easily come to see ourselves as queens
and kings in our own classrooms. We do not like to have others
observing what we are doing with our students. We may have
problems but we tend to pretend to others that everything
is all right in our classroom.
A partner relationship with another teacher can be very helpful
to both. We can commit ourselves to share the highs and the
lows, to observe one another’s lessons and expose our
own practice to the scrutiny of the other, to work together
to find new and better ways of doing things. We are not really
self-sufficient, we need one another.
We can also learn to work together with our students and encourage
them to discover the effects of synergy in working together
with one another.
Synergy in Europe?
As European Christian educators, we have different callings
and different responsibilities. God does not call us all to
do the same thing but He does call us to work together, to
share our resources and insights with one another, to pray
for one another in our many different situations.
John Shortt |
