Archive for the ‘Coaching’ category

The “K” Playbook: Professional Learning for a Lifetime*

April 5th, 2011

dancing-house-prague(google image)

A mentor once said to me that he had never seen a kindergartner arrive at school with the idea that he or she was not a learner. During my professional years spent as an elementary principal, I cherished the opportunity to “kid-watch” kindergartners on a daily basis.  The block area served as a favorite space of the kindergartners- and me. Here the fantastical imaginations and risky behaviors of five-year olds led them to design and construct post-modern expressionist structures reminiscent of Frank Gehry’s most interesting work.

I learned kindergartners aren’t afraid to explore the intersection of disparate materials that leads them to create whimsical, sometimes even absurd architectural spaces – towers, homes, castles, even whole cities- combining Legos, wooden blocks, aluminum foil, cardboard- whatever they could find in the kindergarten co-laboratory.  Turned loose, kindergartners epitomize the dispositions of lifelong learning. They are adaptable, flexible thinkers who will play in the sandbox for hours, despite their short attention span in circle time. They love math and science and writing and painting and music and mythical stories and non-fiction information and chasing each other and dancing- all in the name of learning.

Tower Building

Taking a page from the kindergarten playbook, I wrestle with how we can grow the passion for learning inherent in kindergartners in our own work as educators. What it means to educate and be educated takes on new meaning in today’s technology-driven world. The task of educating young people who will graduate from our high schools with the capability to add value to our communities and workforce presents a challenge unique to these times. Our country’s very economic survival depends upon our educational community doing its best work ever in the history of public education.

We educators have watched Shift Happens (Mcleod and Fisch) on YouTube, read Tom Friedman’s the World is Flat, and listened to Tony Wagner push us to not just focus upon the national achievement gap but also the global one. Yet, the momentum necessary to make necessary changes never quite gets us off the ground.  In fact, as Larry Cuban noted in 1992 in the article, “Computers Meet Classroom. Classroom Wins”, reforms do not change schools, but rather schools change reforms and, in such a way that little change ever occurs in schools.

A lifelong quest as an educator has been to figure out why we educators are less likely to change, indeed to incorporate new learning into our work, than almost any other field. I have come to believe that the potential for“deep change” in which knowledge, practices and processes shift is a function of the availability of substantial time for our own adult learning- something that is in little supply in America’s Pk-12 schools.

We educators have little time to play in the sandbox; to explore the intersections of disparate ideas, disciplines, and cultures that would lead us to create, design, and invent the curricula, assessments and instruction necessary to provide learning sustenance to contemporary learners. Instead, teachers work long hours during a 200 day school year, using what daily planning time is available to accomplish clerical and administrative tasks related to operational details of the job. Little to no time exists for a typical Pk-12 educator to read, think, reflect, collaborate, write, study, listen, converse, create, problem-solve; indeed, simply learn. This situation is inconsistent with other professions in this country and with the professional life of educators who work in high performing educational communities around the world.

I have come to the distinctly simplistic perspective that our educators need more unencumbered professional time dedicated to learning and that if they had access to such time, education would be transformative for learners and learning. However, expecting educators to acquire and use skills and then assimilate rapidly shifting technologies into their work with students, means coming to terms with the fact that integration of new technologies, new pedagogies, and new content demands far more time than our teaching educators are obligated to work in traditional contracts and on traditional calendars which do not serve us well in the twenty-first century.

Time to work together

On the other hand, some aspects of educating young people well in today’s world aren’t a lot different than 10,000 years ago. I suspect the best tribal teachers knew the value of team learning, hands-on approaches, practice, coaching and high levels of Bloom’s. For early Homo sapiens, teaching well surely meant the difference between the life and death of a tribe’s young people. Our earliest teachers knew that neither they nor their pupils could afford to rest as learners, but rather that they all had to constantly adapt and flex as they acquired new knowledge and skills essential to survival. Tony Wagner describes the skills that teenagers need in this century’s colleges, workforce, and communities as survival skills, too. These skills include Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Collaboration Across Networks and Leading by Influence, Agility and Adaptability, Initiative and Entrepreneurship, Effective Oral and Written Communication, Accessing and Analyzing Information, and Curiosity and Imagination.

Opportunities to develop and use Wagner’s skills don’t typically emerge as a result of traditional curricula, instruction or assessments used in most of America’s public schools. If Tyack and Cuban are correct, not much will change as a result of any of our ghosts of reform – past, present or future. So what will it take to drive home the deep change needed so that our digital learners get the learning spaces they need today? And, if educators have little opportunity to engage in and assimilate new professional learning, why would they not remain closed and resistant to change?

Lifelong learning is essential to practitioners in the field of education. We must provide time for our teachers to continue learning if we expect them to embrace meaningful and necessary changes to transform schools of our past into schools for the future. This means providing significant time to try out new strategies and tools, to build relationships with each other as learners, and find the value inherent in participating in both virtual and face-to-face learning communities.

Time should not be either a luxury or an excuse for educators to do the hard work and play essential to their own learning. Just as in kindergarten, creative and inventive ideas in the block area or sandbox come with the time to think, to collaborate, to try out different construction materials and strategies, to analyze, and decide what to do next. Expert kindergarten teachers purposefully schedule the time needed for young children to do the messy work of learning. School calendars and contracts that reflect the time needed for educators to engage in their own learning work are a must. The biggest challenge is finding the funding, and, even more important and scarce, the will to make the necessary changes in structures leftover from the agrarian and industrial ages of public education.  Perhaps, if our communities and educators believed our survival depended upon it, change would happen tomorrow.

*I first composed this piece 12/09 and never posted it until #edchat reminded of it tonight.

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Posted in assessment, Authentic learning, Big Idea, Bloom's Taxonomy, Coaching, Collaboration, Creativity, critical thinking, cross-disciplinary thinking, Curriculum, disruption, educational reform, Harvard Graduate School of Education, imagination, Innovation, interdisciplinary thinking, Pam Moran, Pedagogy, Relevance, School Community, teaching, Tony Wagner, Uncategorized

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A Teacher’s Lessons from Writing, Part 2

January 19th, 2010

My cell phone rang when we were deciding which package of paper towels to buy.

“Kevin, this is John Paine. Do you have a few moments to talk?”

I had both anticipated and dreaded this call, and the paper goods lane of Publix was not my ideal setting for the conversation. My wife, sensing it was the call I’d been waiting for, dug through her purse to find a beat-up memo pad, found a page with about an inch of clean space, and thrust it into my hands along with a pen. I think she waved as she headed for the frozen foods section.

“Um, sure Mr. Paine, this is fine.” I found some clearance between a package of paper towels and the shelf above it. Voila! an impromptu desk.

“I’ve read your manuscript in its entirety and will send you specifics, but I wanted to discuss a few general things with you by phone first.”

“Okay.” (Note the high intelligence of my response. I was a bundle of nerves.)

I found Mr. Paine, no lie, via an internet search, and I never expected him to take on my manuscript. A professional editor, he’d worked on books I recognized by authors I recognized. He’s on the speed dial of several major publishers and is called for emergencies, such as a book still needing editing on the eve of its print run. When he requested the rest of my manuscript after reading the first hundred pages, I thought it might be so he could have a non-example to share with colleagues for a few profession-related laughs.

“I think you’ve don a good job to this point,” he said. “In fact, I wish my teachers had taught this way.” Even though it was my writing he was editing, his comment on teaching caught my ear.

“Really?” I asked. (Again, note the deep intellect represented in my response.)

“Yes, I would have learned much more and it all would have seemed far more interesting and relevant.”

This was a gift. Even if he then said that the writing should never accost a reader’s eyes, I would have floated out of the paper goods aisle.

“There are some things you can do that I think will make your message even clearer,” he continued. “One thing that editors help writers do is see a manuscript from a reader’s perspective. That’s my job, so here are a few general suggestions.”

Like a good paper towel, I absorbed all I could from Mr. Paine’s comments. I won’t bore you with the details, but this conversation launched one of the greatest periods of learning I’ve experienced. I needed to step away from my investment in the project and view it from a different perspective. As I worked with Mr. Paine through the following weeks, I grew in my understanding of seeing from a reader’s perspective. I needed more examples. I needed to use fewer technical terms. I was at my best when I allowed my examples to become short stories that entertained and informed. I was at my worst when my writing failed to touch the ground, when its theory remained theory without practical applications. I needed an editor, a teacher, someone to say, “I know your intent. Here’s a better way to communicate it.”

As a teacher, I know that letting others see our work in the classroom can be intimidating. Many of us have experienced the administrator and clipboard fly-by described by Alan Sitomer, which was most likely followed by a brief discussion in the administrator’s office with the ceremonial placement of the evaluation in our personnel files. But, as I learned, there is value in having someone else redirect our perspective—not with a clipboard and brief observation. Instead, we need “editors,” coaches who come along side us and help us do what we do better, perhaps with more of the learner’s perspective in mind. We need professional relationships like those described by Derek Keenan in his excellent blog post.

Though I’ve written about coaching before, the value of such a relationship became clearer to me through my experience with a professional editor. This, I thought, is what I need in my teaching. Someone who respects my work, who sees its value, and yet sees how I could make it even better, how I could make it more effective. Someone who can guide me to see and think like my learners, not check a box or circle a number on a form. Someone who wants my work to be its best because of its potential influence, not someone who’s crossing a task off of their to-do list.

I need a professional editor for my teaching.

Image: ‘Happy Buggy Wednesday’ http://www.flickr.com/photos/10687935@N04/3946962619

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Posted in Coaching, editing, paper towels, Professional Development, teaching, writing

Who Should Coach? Three Essential Traits for Professional Development Coaches

May 19th, 2009

By Kevin Washburn

“Who do you think should be our coach?” I get this question from administrators in schools that invite me to lead professional development events. There is an assumption that after a few days of working with teachers I’ll have a good sense of who could coach colleagues effectively. Sometimes I do, but often I don’t feel confident in making a recommendation. I’ve had teachers in these events who seemed resistant but on a return visit had become a new initiative’s supporter and best practitioner. Conversely, I’ve experienced teachers who seemed receptive and motivated during training but who resisted actually making changes to their practice. The training event is not the best setting for identifying potential coaches.

What, then, should we look for? What traits does a successful coach possess? While a lengthy list could easily be developed, let’s examine three that are critical.

First, an effective coach possesses a passion for and a deep understanding of the new initiative. Genuine passion is contagious. It acts like a magnet, drawing others to its energy, but it rarely manifests itself as a cheerleader. A quiet dedication to doing something right, to working with excellence even while learning, marks the teacher who attracts others to a new initiative. An effective coach will help colleagues see the value of new ideas through actions more than words. Does the teacher take an initiative to make changes to her practice? Does she seem concerned about getting it right, about trying out the initiative as designed? Does the teacher pursue more knowledge and better ways of implementation?

Implementing a new initiative is an act of transfer—the applying of new ideas and methods to actual classroom practice. Coaching others is a step beyond that: equipping and enabling others to be successful in their transfer of new ideas and methods to their classrooms. “The first factor that influences successful transfer is degree of mastery of the original subject,” conclude Bransford, Brown, and Cocking. “Without an adequate level of initial learning, transfer cannot be expected. This point seems obvious, but it is often overlooked…Transfer is affected by the degree to which people learn with understanding rather than merely memorize sets of facts or follow a fixed set of procedures [italics added].”1

Just attending the same training event everyone else attended does not equip someone to coach colleagues successfully. Deeper understanding must be constructed so that the coach can adapt the initiative to various teachers, various classrooms, and to best serve various students. An effective coach seeks additional learning and, if available, additional training in the new initiative.

Second, an effective coach knows how to strategically handle difficult conversations. If the training event went well and the administration has been open with teachers prior to it, difficult conversations may be few in number, but they will still happen. At some point, the coach encounters a colleague who is overwhelmed and feels stressed and defensive about making changes, or a colleague who feels threatened by the idea of having a coach in the classroom, or even a colleague who would like to be left alone to use the same approaches that have been used before. All these conversations occur in every type of school.

After explaining the importance of self-respect and respect for one’s counterpart, Holly Weeks, author of Failure to Communicate, explains how a successful coach perceives difficult conversations:

Self-respect and respect help us frame the problem between us and figure out how to talk about it. Meanwhile, respecting the landscape of a tough conversation assumes there will be problems ahead. Rather than put our heads down and start to plow through, we will do better to step back, take a satellite view, and think about the lay of the land. That is, think about the problems we are likely to encounter and look for a good path through them.2

A good coach will approach difficult conversations with such a “satellite view,” rather than a perspective of “the problem is you.” A good coach stays focused on solving problems and supporting progress, avoiding and ignoring personal attacks.

Finally, a good coach focuses on improving thinking. The goal with any major professional development initiative should not be to produce robots who follow formulas to plan teaching. The goal should be to help teachers understand what works and why it works, to deepen teacher thinking about teaching and to increase teacher intentionality. A good coach aids colleagues’ thinking, often using questions to support teacher thinking rather than short-circuiting thinking by always giving answers. Questioning helps others discover insights for themselves. David Rock, author of Quiet Leadership, explains:

…it’s time to give up second guessing what people’s brains need and become masters of helping others think for themselves. The best way to do that is by defining solutions rather than problems, and helping people identify for themselves new habits they could develop to bring those solutions closer. Pivotal to all this is the art of enabling other people to have their own insights. Once people have had new insights for themselves, our job as quiet leaders is to provide the encouragement, ongoing support and belief in people, over time, to ensure they develop the new habits that are possible. Then we will be truly bringing out the best in others.3

Certainly more contributes to successful coaching, but these three traits are where I’d begin my search, either for a coach or to determine my potential as a coach. Here are some guiding questions based on these thoughts:

  • With whom does the new initiative seem to resonate? Who holds the same values as those advocated by the new approach? Who shows an authentic dedication to the new ideas?
  • Who is skilled at navigating difficult conversations? Who can calm others in the midst of heated interaction? Who maintains a focus on finding solutions? Who seems capable of equipping and encouraging colleagues?
  • Who is skilled at engaging others in thinking? Who asks great questions? Who can use questioning to help others think things through for themselves? Who works with colleagues to think things through rather than assigning blame or taking resistance personally?

The professional development event may be great. The presenter may be dynamic, engaging, and informative. But after the event, the real work begins. The coach plays a pivotal role and directly influences the success of a new initiative. Effective coaches know the program, know the people, and know the processes that will optimize success. When asked for my recommendations, the best advice I can offer administrators is, “Choose wisely.”

  1. Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (Washington, D. C.: National Academy Press, 1999), 41, 43.
  2. Weeks, H., Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008), 45.
  3. Rock, D., Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 27.

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Posted in Coaching, David Rock, Education, Education Reform, Holly Weeks, Kevin Washburn, Professional Development

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