Coaching Teaching

In my last years in the classroom, I was asked to be an instructional coach.  I jumped!  I wanted to do this!  Here's my exploration of why and of what my expectations included. Writing this piece helped me clarify why I 'jumped' at the opportunity to coach.   (But the challenge was that no relief of school responsibilities was offered and no additional money.  It proved to be difficult for me to increase my job responsibilities to add instructional coach. I thought of Virginia Wulff -- she needed "a room of one's own." ) 

1. Do I want to be an instructional  coach? why or why not?

Women who don't feel attractive often will look at their friends and offer positive commentary in the hopes that the friends will reciprocate.   People insecure with how they parent their child will sometimes turn to a friend and complement their parenting, hoping, again, that there will be reciprocity.

A discovery I made is that even when not reciprocated, I feel better -- more attractive or more skilled as a parent -- if I complement a friend.  More often than not, a really helpful conversation follows.

I feel a deep satisfaction in filling a hole that needs filling.
 

2. Why do I want to coach?

Beliefs that motivate my interest in coaching:
1. I believe in equal worth of all people and in supporting dignity for all people.
2. Each person has a desire to do their best at all times.  Sometimes a person's best is limited by externalities; sometimes those externalities can be revealed or eliminated to free a person to be more successful.
3. I believe that to receive more, a person must give more.

I am drawn to coaching to see the great offerings of other teachers, to grow because of my experiences with them, and to validate the work they do well.

I want to see and to understand different perspectives and to open my mind and heart to different styles of interacting with and teaching teenagers. I'm interested in collecting successful strategies and ideas.

A " helper" and teacher by nature, I'd like to help others see their strengths and to develop their own successful style working with teens by sharing the collected strategies with them.

My large goals are:  to infuse a positive attitude rooted in our commonalities and in my belief structure (the above 3 items) into our teaching culture;  to connect us all as members of this learning community to work together to help our students love school and to love learning.

 My interest in validating others' work is rooted in my personal need to increase my teaching strategies, my personal need to be validated in a role/profession I have loved and valued, and my personal need to have a more connected community.

The metaphorical image I hold in my head in regards to my teaching over the past 30 years is that of an oil drill/pump alone on a flat field in Texas.  Pumping away, nearly chicken-like in its pecking, the oil drill is alone, working hard 24/7, stuck firm to the ground with little around it.  I've not received much coaching or meaningful help regarding teaching during my 30+ years in the classroom.  I had to search to find a time when I received relevant coaching in and for my teaching career.

I'm pretty self-aware and often others view me as confident and thus not needing support or coaching.  I'm not sure where that perception comes from, but even in college I was plagued by people who said to me, "Your sense of confidence is intimidating..." and "you're not someone who ever needs any help." That's not always the case, but regardless, I have been mostly ignored by my supervisors.

The consequence of being ignored is quite profound and lasting.  I have felt empty, in the dark, and alone. I have developed the idea that I must be ok at what I do because I don't get complaints.  I figure: I'll hear about it if I make a mistake. It's as though I need to determine the shape of an object when all I'm given is the negative space.

An unintended consequence:  I don't work in professional groups so well   After 15 years of little to no coaching, I found myself less able to ask for help when I needed it.  The same is true now after 30+ years of teaching. I shouldn't need help, I thought/think, after all I was now 15/30 years into my career.  I was/am seasoned.  This attitude is growth-slowing or even growth-stopping.  In my first years, I worked crazy hard, throwing all-nighters on lesson plans, writing comments and figuring out stuff on my own.  I look back, shake my head a little, and think that I'd love to take my present self and simply offer company, ideas, and support  to my younger self.  I would have fretted less, gotten more sleep, and likely moved more quickly through those things I felt I needed to do.

 3.Coaching that I've had that went well: 

I began teaching in 1986 after a failed attempt at a career possibility at Tufts University School of Medicine.  I chose to coach, live in a dorm, and teach at a boarding school because of my fun experience one summer at Northfield/Mount Hermon school in northern Massachusetts.  I thought I'd teach in an independent school for a year or two until I figured out whether I wanted to go to business school or to chase a PhD in psychology.

Five years later, I stopped for a think.  I was off-track.  I was still coaching, teaching, and living in a dorm. This was not what I had planned. By now, I should have been at least part-way through graduate school. 

I found myself in the office of Al Porterfield, my advisor from Oberlin College, expressing my concern about the derailment.  I think of this time with him as the first time I was "coached" in my teaching career.  He asked,  "And what are you doing now?"  

I'm sure I was quite animated: "I get to spend time with fun teenagers and run a swim team and do dorm activities and I'm learning so much about math and psychology when I teach these subjects -- it's such a kick!" He listened to my enthusiastic tirade patiently.  Then he asked, "So why would you want to change?" 

He stated the obvious so well.  As a "coach," he listened and asked a single simple question that clarified exactly  the most important characteristic of a career.  

A second coaching moment was my first day at Albuquerque Academy.  Reeling from a morning of meeting kids, calming the energies of 8th and 9th graders, and organizing myself, it was lunch time.  Cathy Lydon walked in: "It's time for lunch. I'll walk with you so we both are on time."  She made it clear in that statement that we needed to be on time. Our conversation (rather one-sided with her listening) let me know that she was simply there for me. 

A third moment was in the swimming pool, so it wasn't about coaching my teaching, it was about coaching my swimming.  It was 5:45 am; I was 45 minutes late to practice.  I tiptoed by Reed Barnitz while I thought he was looking elsewhere.  "GOOD AFTERNOON," he said firmly.  (I didn't make a typo in the above statement when I wrote "am," btw)    He knew me well enough to know that that's all he needed to say.  He also knew that I would find his comment exceedingly humorous.  This was the only time I was late.

There are several commonalities and observations that can be made about these successful coaching experiences.  (1) Listening is so important. (2) Sometimes the person being coached simply does not see the obvious.  (3) Walking with someone is a kind act and symbolic of a shared path. (4) Coaching can be made particularly effective when tailored to an individual.