Many discussions around instructional coaching focus on the strategies coaches use to develop their teachers as practitioners in order improve student data and outcomes. When I tell educators that I am an instructional coach they ask me structural questions about the systems I have set up in school rather than value questions around why instructional coaching matters. It seems that everyone wants to know how to create a system and not about what makes the system operate. Questions arise such as: How does the master schedule support coaching? What does an effective coaching cycle look like for teachers? Should a coach spend their time consulting or crafting questions to elicit a response rather than give answers? All of these question matter and are certainly the foundation of a strong coaching system but none of them will translate to a create culture of coaching or sustained teacher growth if there is not a deep willingness for both the coach and the teacher to be vulnerable with one another in regards to both their craft and the emotional toll that teaching takes on an educator on a daily basis. Like an engine without gas, the coach and coachee relationship will never fully ignite without vulnerability acting to make the relationship run safely and effectively.
Model Vulnerability before Expecting Growth.
One of the most significant insecurities coaches face is having to “know it all”. Coaches often wonder how they can guide teachers to be better when they themselves are struggling in the classroom. The reality is that there is no such thing as a master teacher and teaching in itself is a remarkably difficult and ever changing challenge filled with missteps, difficult days and challenging students. Coaches do not have to achieve some heightened sense of skill or awareness to coach they must simply be vulnerable about the challenges they face and be openly and candidly reflective about their craft in order to give space for their coachees to do the same. Only when a coach opens up about problems they are working on in their own classrooms will coachees be willing to open up about their own challenges. If a teacher feels like their coach will not understand their struggle then they will not fully open up to coaching. A coach must take the lead and openly reflect on and share their challenges before they ask their teachers to do the same.
Aim for Reciprocity not Recreation
One of the common pitfalls of coaches is that they work to make their coachee a version of themselves in the classroom. The coach has a mental picture of what strong instruction looks like based on their own values and successes and instead of cultivating the teacher’s innate strengths the coach simply works to remodel them into versions of themselves. A coach must ask the question “what strengths does my teacher have and how can I build and grow those while also adding new skills”? By taking a strengths-based approach to coaching serves the dual purpose of having the coachee build on their strengths and also helps the coach identify places in their own practice that they can develop when using their coachee as a model. Reciprocity drives great relationships (Noddings, 1984) and when the coach and coachee are engaged in learning together the amount of growth and quality of instruction between both instructors grows significantly.
In this Work There is no True Master
Much of my own journey as an educator was trying to become the mythic “master teacher” and I realized late in my teaching tenure that there is indeed no such thing. For so long I wanted to be called a master teacher or reach some apocryphal status in which the profession and the craft becomes second nature. In my last year as a classroom teacher I served as a school-wide “lab” classroom in which all teachers in the school came through to observe and learn as well as many of our school’s university partners. That whole year my room felt like a masquerade because it was one of the years I struggled the most as an instructor but then I realized that much of my fear was based on a false narrative that a master teacher exists when the reality is that the only master teacher is one who realizes that there is no such thing. When this belief is the framework of a coaching relationship then teachers do not have to worry about reaching some unreachable state but rather focus on growth over time. As a coach it is essential that we do not compare our teachers to others who are in a more nuanced state of instruction and it is equally essential that we ensure teachers that there is no true master. Teachers should focus on growth and not on the achievement of an inaccurate archetype and the only way for them to get there is to have coaches open up about the struggles that all teachers face regardless of years of experience or reputation.
At the core of instructional coaching is relationship but coaches often take the notion of relationships for granted. The reality is that relationships must be cultivated intentionally and over time and in the context of coaching they must be based on overcoming a mutual challenge. The challenge may be a problem of practice or a personal goal but the most of all the common challenge we all face as educators is the remarkable challenge that the job provides each day to each educator. When we as coaches are vulnerable about our own shortcomings and struggles we provide permission for others to do the same and when we have an open and authentic relationship based on that mutual understanding then true learning can occur and true growth can be achieved.
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