Teacher Leader Coach

One art of coaching is knowing when to direct, guide, and get out of the way. Initially, I thought the coaching style related to the client's experience. Novice educators would need their hands held and told what to do, while veteran staff would have the big picture and a robust toolbox and just need a nudge in one direction or another. It only took a few interactions to realize this was a gross generalization. Experience matters, but much more nuance is needed. Some new teachers come in incredibly prepared, with parents who were educators and sound pre-teaching training. It's hard to believe that after a couple of months on the job, they aren't a decade into the classroom. Some veteran teachers seem like they never learn enough to progress independently, and after 20 years of teaching, it's more like they have had 20 first years. In some circumstances, the teacher has ample knowledge and skills but cannot determine which tool is the right one to do the job. In others, ...

Servant Leadership is a term that is used by a lot of people to describe their self-proclaimed style. The term originated in a 1970 essay titled  The Servant as Leader by Robert Greenleaf. In that essay, Greenleaf said:           “The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to                serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one        who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire                     material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there       are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.           The difference manifes...

Ownership is something I value as a critical character trait. Admittedly, I took too many decades to come around to this idea. Like many kids, I quickly said, "It wasn't me!" or "I don't know!" when any idiot observing could clearly see it was me and I did know. But I felt it was my way of deflecting ownership and mitigating the consequences coming my way. Over and over, I would use this tactic when I had not been caught red-handed. It worked from the point of avoiding the worst of some consequences in the short term, but in the long term, I was eroding trust and relationships. Once I came to grips with the fact that the short-term pain of owning my mistakes led to my own growth as a human, faster restoration of relationships, and quicker resolution of the issue, I worked to change my habits. It is still easier to try and avoid the inevitable immediate disappointment, but knowing the benefits of admitting my mistake, I now default to honesty and openness. Th...

Based on the tone in which the title question is asked, this question could sound supportive or demeaning. The mood of the asker or the receiver could interpret that question either way. The goal, of course, is for that question to be supportive. Life is hard, teaching is hard, and whenever we think we have a handle on it, something new and unexpected happens. In this unknown is where a great coach thrives. A great coach does not need to be an expert in any particular field. However, they do need to be experts at helping people identify what is limiting their success and how to overcome that challenge. Clients often ask questions that start with, "I'm not sure how to..." or, even more self-defeatingly, "I just can't seem to..." Coaches must validate their clients' feelings but not agree with them. Coaching needs to switch to co-finding solutions after discerning what the client "can't" accomplish. What has the person tried? What seems to ba...

Is a leader a visionary with amazing insights into the future and groundbreaking new ideas? Is a leader full of charisma able to rally positive energy and action from those they influence? Is a leader a doer who puts in countless hours to ensure that all parts of the process they lead are completed? Is a leader someone with a strong personality who demands loyalty? Is a leader someone who empowers those in their charge to carry the burden of success? The answer to those questions is yes, no, maybe, or sometimes. Each leader is different and probably contains some parts of all of those. Leaders who know themselves will recognize their areas of weakness and surround themselves with complementary leaders. A leader without a vision is more of a manager, and that is not a negative term. Most of what happens daily is the management of the essential tasks. However, a leader who is only a visionary needs to pair up with a manager, or the vision will never become a reality.  Many leaders ar...

What is a teacher? Anything that helps us learn is a teacher. Life is a teacher. YouTube is a teacher. Parents are teachers. Siblings are teachers. My dad likes to say, "Everyone is good for something, even if it is a bad example." That statement shows that everything can be a teacher if we let it. It might teach us something good or something to avoid, but either way, we learn. Aristotle is quoted as saying, "Without pain, we cannot learn." Pain is an excellent teacher! But what makes a great school teacher? The kind that inspires students to show up as their best selves every day has students working harder than they imagined possible and even gets the students who hate school to want to be in their class. Historically, some have such an astounding knowledge base that students flock to them to learn. Mesmerized by how intelligent that teacher is, their lectures run deep and amaze students. But there is more to these geniuses than their IQ as well. Because there ar...

Being able to fully assess a situation without bias is a superpower. Taking in all available information, determining what is important and what to ignore, and using that information to make the best possible decision is what anyone can strive for. It is precisely what teachers need to excel at to maximize their impact. I want to make it perfectly clear that assessing and grading are two very different actions. Grading is assigning a value to student work. Assessing is looking for information from the student's work to inform actions to improve understanding. Too often, we as teachers feel that a score on a paper, whether a numerical score such as 85% or a standard attainment like a 2 out of 3, feels like we are communicating to students. We also break out the colored pens and write copious guidance on student work. All most students see is that score, and that is where they stop. They are concerned with the end, and the means be damned. All those notes we have written to them are ...

Sitting down to write, I am just not feeling it. Today has been a crazy busy day, and it got late on me quick. And that became the inspiration for this coaching post. The coaching world is great when a client (I will use that term for the person being coached) comes to you excited with an idea and ready to create. But often, a coach will be working with someone not feeling it. The teacher may have a class of students who are not feeling it, so they are either not doing or not learning from their work. The teacher may not feel it because they have been told to do something by an administrator they don't believe in or previous similar attempts at something have failed. You may not feel it because you feel coached out for the day or don't like working with your client. During these times, empathy is a great starting place. When your clients are down, let them know you hear them and will support them. When you are down, let the clients know that you are not firing on all cylinders,...

Trust is Paramount Stephen Covey’s book The Speed of Trust identifies four pillars of trust building: integrity, intent, capabilities, and results. Each pillar must be repeatedly demonstrated to build trust, which teachers, leaders, and coaches need to succeed. If they are not visible and tangible, trust will be built slowly or, worse, eroded . My favorite definition of integrity is that integrity is how we act when we think no one is watching. There was a psychology class at my high school when I was a student that would perform active experiments. One day, I unwittingly took part in one of these. I was walking to my locker down a back hallway, and a girl I did not know was on her hands and knees, searching the carpet for something as I turned the corner. I almost tripped over her and then asked her what she was doing. She told me she had lost a contact lens and was looking for it. I dropped onto all fours and crawled around for a while, trying to help her find it. After a couple ...