If
you've been following "My Coaching Couch" posts over the past six
months or so, you've travelled with me on a journey through an extended
coaching cycle. Together we've examined
each coaching move in the GIR model:
Modeling, Recommending, Questioning, Affirming, and Praising. We've thought about how the model moves from
dependence to a more collaborative, interdependent stance. If you've missed
some posts, or if you recognize one of the moves you'd like to think more about
this summer, you can click on the links on the right to revisit previous
posts. Hopefully they will provide food
for thought.
In
honor of the summer months, we'll take a lighter approach during the next few
posts. It will be a cartoon break! We'll still be thinking about coaching, but
we'll do it through the lessons learned from favorite animated movies.
Today's
animated feature is "Up!" In
this movie, our plucky protagonist is a persistent scout determined to do a
good turn daily. Although his initial
efforts to help old Mr. Fredricksen
are rebuffed, Russell continues asking and eventually worms his way into Mr. Fredrickson's
house and heart.
What
can we coaches learn from Russell and Mr. Fredricksen? From young Russell, we learn that "if at
first you don’t succeed, try, try again."
What coach has not had their efforts to provide support go unappreciated
and unaccepted by a teacher or two? Like
Russell, we sometimes have to work hard to get our foot in the door. We don't want to be pesky, so our efforts
must be sincere and truly beneficial. Providing
a resource or offering to sit by and support a struggling student may be an
initial entry point. After the door is
open a crack, we can look for something that gives us clues about what is important
to the teacher. Like Russell learning
about Mr. Fredricksen's wife, we not only form an authentic connection, we
begin to uncover what our role might be in the coaching adventure. Once the teacher is talking, our listening
pays big dividends in building trust and developing a meaningful coaching
path.
From
the character Mr. Fredricksen, we have the ultimate themes of holding tight to
your dreams, keeping promises, and treasuring the relationships we create with
other people. Coaching begins with
relationship-building, and the strength of the relationship is predictive of
how successful the coaching cycle will be in improving teacher effectiveness.
In
any coaching journey, there will be distractions along the way (think, for
example of the dog pack that Carl & Russell encounter and the fire started
by Mr. Muntz). We'll be more effective
if we reduce diversions and have a single coaching goal during a cycle. Save those other adventures for a future coaching
cycle! Keeping a singular focus allows
both you and the teacher to more effectively gauge the success of your
work. After arriving at your
destination, you're more likely to get a future invitation if the results of
your work together are evident in student learning.
From
the cartoon movie “Up”, we learn the value and importance of caring for others
and of making the sometimes extraordinary efforts required to help them fulfill
their dreams.
And
most importantly, we can take a lesson from the movie's title. Be an optimist, see problems as opportunities
to build capacity, and have positive assumptions about teachers and students. It will leave you and those you work with
feeling UP!
This
week, you might want to take a look at:
Suggestions
for coaching the major shifts of the Common Core:
This
video about teaching difficult vocabulary:
And
speaking of vocabulary, enjoy summer’s change of pace by visiting Free
Rice. On this site, you can test
your vocabulary knowledge (and when school starts, have your students or
teachers test theirs). For every answer
you get right, 10 grains of rice will be donated to the United Nations World
Food Program:
Enjoy a poem that captures the sense
of accomplishment teachers feel as they wrap up a successful school year:
The
article, “Lessons from My Summer Vacation,” by Erin Ocon. Erin reflects on the
importance of slowing down and simplifying her goals at the start of the
summer:
That's it for this week. Happy coaching!
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