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Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Find the Why Every coach I have talked with has someone they feel needs to be told what to do. No matter the approach taken, this person doesn’t see the change that is needed. Working with them is the proverbial “beating the dead horse.” For example, a teacher’s classroom is unruly and bordering on unsafe. The word around the school reflects concern at every turn. The instructional coach is called in and asked to fix it. Literally, you are told to fix it (a clear indication someone doesn’t understand how coaching works). You try all methods of approach from the theories. Nothing is working. What is the holdup? All too often, we have not been curious enough. And this is a barrier on the coach’s end that often isn’t given space. As Michale Bungay Stanier states in his book The Coaching Habit: “You need to be more curious.” And it really is that: Giving less advice and asking more questions. If you engage in deep conversation with this teacher, you might find blame is placed anywhere possible except for themselves. This is a normal psychological state to be in. The issues at hand are ones of identity. There is no quick fix for that. Take your psychology lens out to take a long and hard look. When someone is trying to survive and has lost their way, the presence of grief is likely hiding somewhere. This is much different than someone who just doesn’t care. Know the Goal In order to guide people, you need to stand with them in their experience. This doesn’t mean giving excuses for their experience but empathizing and moving to find solutions with them. So first, determine the goal of your interaction with this teacher. This will help you determine what questioning style is best approach. If you don’t know this, you may fall into a trap of being a curriculum coach, a whack-a-mole problem solver can’t help make a real transformation. The path towards the goal should be clear to both you and the coachee. The coachee should have a clear understanding of what they are going to experience, and the coach clearly knows how they will support and help reflect along the way. Facilitate the Transition Now it is time to facilitate a transformation. It isn’t easy. Don’t expect transformations to ever be easy. This is not about facilitating a transformation by solving one or two problems. It is about someone changing how they think in order to see the problems in a new light. A transformation leads to proactive steps for the coachee. If they were in a stage of grief unknowingly, they will now see it. You won’t feel the pressure to tell them what to do. They already know it. Now, they have the capacity to do something about it. That is the role of a facilitator. You bring out the wisdom or knowledge that is already there. The new lens will prepare them for the journey they are now on. An Instructional Coaching Program Created Nothing is smooth in the world of an instructional coach. It takes a lot of determination, self-coaching, and humility. You will continually be communicating about what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and what people will experience working with you.
Throughout this series, we pointed out how to take actionable steps to build a program. All five steps are important. Remember: this is a journey. There is always going to be more to do. If you find yourself with more questions, then you are having a common experience. The purpose of these articles is to offer support. Our goal is to serve those that are in the same shoes we once wore. You do not have to walk alone. Feel free to message Agile Ideas Leadership for any questions or thoughts at info@agileideasleadership.com. Cheers! Ross Herdina, Co-Founder, Agile Ideas Leadership
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Build a Schedule What your day will look like could vary wildly depending on how your district defines your role. Some coaches are involved in testing students for standardized assessments, curriculum coaching, PD development, multiple committee assignments, coordinating programs, teaching classes, and being a sub. This is why we stressed in step one of building a coaching program that ample time is given to defining the position. Your definition is how you will start conversations with others when you are asked to add more to your plate. Far too many other demands will encroach on your ability to do your defined position or to get time for your own PD so that you can continue to grow. It is a balancing act, and being intentional and having clear boundaries on how to use your time is essential in providing clarity around what you do.
One thing is for certain: your schedule will change. It is no different from when you were in the classroom and changes had to be made on a weekly basis for special events. With this knowledge, know which parts of your week are most important. Is it the PD you offer, the teacher meetings you have, the committees you serve on? Ask yourself, and others, this question if you are unsure: Will this have a direct impact on teacher and student performance? The answer should be a quick yes in order for you to commit. Administrators need to know what stops you from doing your job well. Be Balanced A schedule is your framework for how you will accomplish your weekly goals–or at least attempt to. You need time for yourself, time for administrators, time for paperwork, and time for teachers. The last one is most important, but if you don’t take care of yourself, you will burn out quickly. This job can be a lonely space. You get one foot in the administrative world and one in the teacher world. Many teachers will see you differently. So will the admin. It is a high wire balancing act at times. The need to be diplomatic is paramount. No joke. Teachers will need to know you are on their side. The administration will need to know you have the chops to get things done. At the end of the day when you have had your fill, who will you go to? The self-care movement isn’t to be dismissed. It needs to get done. You can’t go to your teacher friends and talk about things the way you used to. In this day and age, you are the person teachers will seek out to unload their concerns and stresses. They are tapped out. You will be a primary support if you have built the relationships necessary to be most impactful in this position. Many coaches in smaller districts are a team of one. In larger districts, there will be a team you can go to for support. If you are a team of one, the idea of networking might be a new concept, but it will be important to build relationships with coaches in other districts and schools to help you understand your new reality. It can be as simple as sharing your common trials and tribulations. Ways you handle the balancing act, and how to navigate the stressors of this position. With so much ambiguity around how coaches do what they do, your network will become ever more important in helping you navigate your new reality. The idea of balance will help you remain on course. Once you have started to move through an established schedule, have a clear idea of what your role is, and have made your way into the practice of the theory, you are deep into being a coach. If you have made it to the point that you are starting to see the nuances of coaching, you are coaching. It may not feel like it, but that should be expected. You are deep into learning. It’s a journey, not a destination. Next Steps So you have your schedule set, you are being as balanced as possible, and you are likely seeing there is so much growth you have to do for yourself.
The next stage in starting a coaching program is focused on you. It is when you see the need to grow in how you serve. It’s a mindset shift for many and it will start you on a long road of self-discovery. You do not have to walk alone. Feel free to message Agile Ideas Leadership for any questions or thoughts at info@agileideasleadership.com. Cheers! Ross Herdina, Co-Founder, Agile Ideas Leadership. “In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” –Albert Einstein Easier Said Than Done Whatever theory of coaching you choose, it is a promise that it is easier said than done. Like most instructional coaches, you didn’t get trained in the application of the theory. It was frameworks and schools of thought. You may have gone to an institute or a workshop and gotten a crash course in theory, but most likely, you are finding the theory can only take you so far. Every conversation you have will be so nuanced you might struggle to see the theory fit. Admitting you need to refine your skills is exactly where you should be when you are starting out. This stuff takes years of practice. It’s wise to be humble with your capacity. This doesn’t mean you should tell people you don’t know what you are doing. Have questions ready to ask them, not directives to tell them. It helps you and them start to establish a relationship. And you get to save yourself from looking unprepared. You have to operate with a can-do outlook. If you don’t know the answers, you find them. No one likes a know-it-all, and there is no way as an instructional leader you can know it all. To get your feet wet, there are a few places you can jump in to start making an impression as a “can do” person. Building Relationships When an elementary teacher works at creating relationships with students, it isn’t a one-day, one-off activity. It is days and weeks of activities. This is exactly the approach many coaches find they need to use. Creating relationships with the teachers you will be working with will take weeks of intentional and planned attempts. For example, if a classroom teacher has behavior issues and an administrator or peers tells them to “create relationships,” they are not given actionable steps to take. They were given an ambiguous idea. What does building relationships look like? Is it a getting-to-know-you activity? A slide show of who you are as a teacher? These are great surface level ways to build relationships. But they don’t create change. When you come in as a coach, you need to be ready to ask the questions to help the individual teacher determine what deep and meaningful relationships look like.
From there, the right resources and strategies can be presented. This takes away the uncertainty of what building relationships looks like. This is actionable. It makes something concrete and approachable. If you approach your work as a coach in this same context, you take away half of your struggle. Teachers need to know you, in a professional manner, and you get to provide that in a structured way so each party knows how to navigate interactions with a coach. To build relationships, get them to trust you by being consistent in your actions and your words. Bring Clarity So what does it mean to be dependable? Consistent? Trustworthy? It means to do what you say and say what you do. Being dependable means holding up your end of the coaching relationship. You do this by always providing the support you say you provide. Be consistent by delivering the same coaching experience to each teacher. You can’t be a chameleon. If you provide them with quality PD experiences, you need to continue to do that. Establishing the framework for what a coaching meeting will look like is one way to provide consistency and bring clarity to what you do. Those resistant to the process you use might need a bit more clarity. Provide this by using tools such as 4MAT. This framework will reach each adult learner. It’s about letting people know what you do, why you do it, how you do it, and how they will experience working with you. Meet them where they are
It is inevitable that a few people will not want to work with you and there are a multitude of reasons why. It takes a lot of vulnerability to ask for help. Meet those who are resistant where they are. There is good reason for them to be where they are. Brush up on your knowledge of adult psychology and personality types. This will help you understand where people are coming from and where you can get your foot in the door. It’s no joke; you might need to brush off that Psychology 101 book or start a deep Google dive into how intentional change theory works. Empathy only takes you so far. You need the knowledge and emotional intelligence to navigate with powerful soft skills. If you need a place to start, give Daniel Goldman’s Book Emotional Intelligence: Why it Matters More Than IQ a try. As teachers, we were taught child development and learning theory. Now that you are working with adults, you need to step outside of your traditional lens and move into adult psychology. Adults have far more experiences than kids and those experiences have shaped who they are and how they see the world. No matter how empathic you are or how intuitive, you don’t know them until you ask them. When you start making connections with those who are more resistant, it’s a great opportunity to have a focused conversation. Consider how you will do that. What model will you choose? If you are new to this, try the ORID model. It is a great starting point for a focused conversation approach. At first, it will seem a bit scripted until you become more skilled at it. Give it time. Think of when you tried a strategy in class for the first time and how you noticed you needed to grow in your application. The same will be true here. There are many ways to implement the theories you will learn for coaching. Just know all coaches go through these moments with lots of growing pains. It sounds simple, but once again, theory to practice is a whole other experience. You do not have to walk alone. Feel free to message Agile Ideas Leadership for any questions or thoughts at info@agileideasleadership.com. Cheers! Ross Herdina, Co-Founder, Agile Ideas Leadership How To Serve Teachers are all over the place in their journeys as educators. And instructional coaches are as well. In the first part of this series, we covered why it is important to define your role as an instructional coach. Once the role is defined, it’s time to move into building trust in the program and, more importantly, you. Establishing trust may seem like a no-brainer. However, how do you do that? If you like to toss around key phrases, you might say use a lens of compassion, lead with empathy, or create relationships. And these are all correct. But at the same time, they are also a bit ambiguous. And therefore, easy to say and hard to do. This makes choosing how you will serve teachers all the more important. Here are two theorists we can quickly look at for starters. Jim Knight, in his book The Impact Cycle, addresses three types of coaching you might have to use. Each has its place, and if you are tuned into the teacher, you can figure out which one fits best. The first is facilitative coaching. This type of coaching treats the coach and teacher as equals. The coach listens and asks questions for the teacher to find their own answers. This is a great method for those who are open to being facilitated, have experience in the classroom, and are open to new ideas. Next, there is directive coaching. “Directive coaching is the opposite of facilitative coaching” according to Knight. This is where the coach has the capacity to be the expert and guide through advice-giving. Who is this good for? New teachers. They often don’t have the years of experience to integrate new knowledge or frameworks into what they do in the classroom. If you choose this model, you need to communicate directly and listen deeply. Finally, Knight speaks of dialogical coaching. This model is all about using questioning techniques and deep listening to help a teacher uncover the answers he or she already has. This takes lots of skill. Lots. You have to know a few inquiry models of questioning and practice them frequently so you can use them at a moment’s notice when the opportunity arises. Don’t think you won’t struggle with this. The most experienced coaches I know feel vulnerable here. Elena Aguilar is another thought leader in this space. She speaks of transformative coaching in her book, The Art of Coaching: Effective Strategies for School Transformation. This model goes deep in examining behaviors, beliefs, and ways of being. Vulnerability is key for success with this model. Trust isn’t a catchphrase here; you will have to be ready to live it. People have to know you have a level of confidentiality the way attorneys do with their clients. If you can’t provide that, this model doesn’t work. A questions structure that works well in this format is the seven questions from the book The Coaching Habit. Author Michael Bungay Stanier provides a coach with seven easy-to-use scaffolded questions to get at the heart of the matter. No matter the amount of time you have for a coaching session, these questions get the coachee talking. If you feel you struggle with what questions to ask, the Coaching Habit questions are a great beginners’ guide. Master these and you will be able to find moments to go deep with the work from Aguilar or Knight. The theorist you pick matters on many levels. You will get better as a coach when you see the strengths and areas of growth in each model so you can start to mesh them together to address the needs of those around you.
It is important to know what your administrator wants for evidence of your work. This is a direct conversation to have.
If a team needs to build consensus around the type of data needed, run them through a consensus workshop and find common ground. Then you will know what is needed and how to communicate it. This will set you up for how to navigate the journey to making the deepest impact with teachers. They will know what to expect because you will know exactly what you are to do. It is imperative to protect the relationships with the teachers you have developed. A teacher or administrator will approach you and ask who you are working with and what you are talking about. You will know how to answer those questions if you define your role well. More importantly, you will retain the trust of teachers if you maintain the boundaries you establish with them. If they need to be vulnerable to transform their teaching, you will need to hold sacred the conversations you have. There are ways to do this. Clear and actionable steps. The next step to take is to break through the theories above and see what it all looks like in action. This so-called boots on the ground moment. You do not have to walk alone. Feel free to message Agile Ideas Leadership for any questions or thoughts at info@agileideasleadership.com. Cheers! Ross Herdina, Co-Founder, Agile Ideas Leadership Instructional coach: What is it and what does it do? Put thirty instructional coaches in a room and ask them to define their roles based on their current duties. In all likelihood, there will be loose agreement with weak patterns of responsibilities, along with many, many differences. The only common theme might be their title, and even that is debatable. Is the position instructional coach or curriculum coach? Whether you are building a coaching program or you are part of an established one, there is good cause to nail down what an instructional coach is and what they should do to serve students and teachers. Too often administrators, board members, and committees of teachers that select the role of a coach don’t really know what a good coaching system is or looks like. It sounds great in theory but formulating the job description is difficult. Because of this, the coaching program becomes a panacea to gather up all of those loose ends that need to be tied up, and quickly as that, the role loses any potential sense of identity. So what’s a coach to do? Sadly, the answer isn’t a quick Google search away. Most coaches, unfortunately, end up serving too many needs for too many people and this lack of a clear mission can be a significant impediment to success – if success can even be defined in the absence of a clear goal. Words matter. Titles matter, and if the title of instructional coach doesn’t have meaning to you and your administration, it surely will not have meaning to the staff you seek to serve. To allow the definition of an instructional coach to be muddied is a sure way to build frustration for all parties involved, and create burnout within your coaching team. Imagine the definition of your role as the destination you type into your GPS. It keeps you on track and helps you know when you have arrived. A driver without an endpoint is doomed to wander endlessly through hill and dale, and while they might see some points of interest and even make some valuable stops, at the end of the day there was no culminating goal, no point of arrival.
To be candid, most coaches I know end up serving administrators that use them to plug holes in a system that is already fatally wounded. Spend a bit of time in the coaching trenches and you will find your name on the lips of administrators more frequently than you may have expected —“Oh, the coach can do that!” But this doesn’t have to be. Seriously, it doesn’t, and you have more power than you realize to help define your job description if you arm yourself with an understanding of what actually works: boots on the ground. So how do we change this? A simple first step: be more intentional in defining the role. Now you might be thinking, “I don’t make such decisions, shouldn’t the boss be providing the job description to me?” Well, maybe they should, but I bet they haven’t–especially if this is a budding program. You are uniquely positioned to craft the role in the way that answers the most important, essential question: Does what I am doing improve the lives, teaching skills, and engagement of teachers so that it improves the lives, learning, and engagement of students? If not, a conversation needs to be had. Spend time debating the responsibilities with the powers that be. If the tasks assigned are not student and teacher-centered, take them off the table.
Each theorist has an ideal framework of what to shoot for.
You will quickly find that there are a lot of people talking about the reasons for having a coaching program, thinking about methods of conversation that are effective, and even providing templates for documents you can use to track your work. Yet, few start with: “So it’s the first month of having coaches, here’s what you should do …” Add to your research the perspective of coaches already in the trenches and see what they have to say. And listen. Really listen. The theory doesn’t translate to practice perfectly. It never has. These people will speak truth. Biased? Yes. But you need to hear it. An effective program will triangulate with theory, clientele needs, and boots-on-the-ground-here’s-what-you-should-do-first messaging. So join the Instructional Coaching social media pages, network with coaches from neighboring districts, and seek out specialized instructional coaching training. It truly is a unique position. The next article in this five-part series will focus on what to do once you have determined who you are. “You Are the First Instructional Coach … Now What?” Recommended Articles: Elena Aguilar: Coaching Educators’ Strong Emotions You do not have to walk this alone. Feel free to message Agile Ideas Leadership for any questions or thoughts at info@agileideasleadership.com. |
Ross Herdina and Shannon Helgesonare the founders of ArchivesCategories |
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