Caring and Collaborative

Another one of those teacher 1/2 days. We started with a staff meeting. Caring and collaborative is sort of the school catch-phrase for how we are to work together as a staff. the staff meeting started with sort of an enforced form of being caring and collaborative members of the school/community. A couple of the United Way folk spent the first fifteen minutes of the staff meeting encouraging us all to give more than we did last time. Admittedly this appeal does not get me feeling at all jazzed and warm and fuzzy. I prefer my giving to be directed in a way that I know that I agree with rather than some blanket organization that has its own people make that decision. This is not to say that i am against the idea of the United Way (supporting a lot of good organizations), it's just that I want more of the control....and yes I AM a bit of a control freak on the things i can control. Then the meeting moved on to Thank Yous. Our principal did this last year, so at least I knew what was going on. Various people gave a verbal thank you to someone on the staff. The principal provided candy for the recipients. Another way to show what a caring and collaborative group we are.
I sometimes question myself..."Am i being caring? Do I collaborate?" I think one of my biggest struggles is that I am used to relying on what I can do, that I don't/won't ask for help. I have a colleague who knows some of the financial struggles last year posed and has offered from time to time to float a loan. (If you didn't know, teachers here get paid once a month so sometimes payday is pretty far off). I haven't taken her up on the offer because of that self-reliance streak that say, "only from family."

So I wonder by not allowing someone else to be caring, am I being collaborative?