The
family I grew up in has three girls – myself and my two sisters. Although we now live in different states, a
couple of weeks ago we got together, and we all brought our flutes –
instruments that have been rarely used since our high school days. We thought it would be fun to play together
again. We flipped through some old
music, recognizing familiar tunes. Every
page or so, one of us would call out, “Let’s play that one!” Then we’d all lift
our instruments, count out the beat, and begin to play.
We
were enjoying our melodic walk down memory lane when unfortunately we started a
song that was not music to our ears. It
sounded so bad that we stopped, mid-measure.
“Where were you?” I asked, thinking we had somehow gotten out of
sync. Indeed we had! Although two of us pointed to the same spot
on the page, my other sister pointed to some notes – on the adjacent page! We were not even playing the same song! No wonder it sounded awful! After laughing until our sides hurt, we
pulled ourselves together and started playing again – making sure we were on
the same tune.
I
thought about that experience this week in conjunction with setting the stage
for coaching. I’ve noticed how important
it is for the principal and coaches to be singing the same song. Mixed messages about coaching can undermine
the relationships of trust you are trying to build with teachers. Ideally, you and your principal should see
eye-to-eye about who will be coached.
The most successful models I’ve seen are the “All In” model and the “By
Invitation Only” model. In the “All In”
model, the principal sets the expectation that all teachers will participate in
coaching sessions at some point during the year, either individually or as part
of a small group. The “By Invitation
Only” model is what the name describes – the coach is invited into the room at the invitation of the teacher. This model works well when the coach has
already built strong relationships, and it requires credibility and trust. Both of these approaches have the benefit of
avoiding the stigma that coaching happens to someone who needs to be
fixed. We want to build the
understanding that teaching is about continuous improvement, focusing on
students’ needs, and making ongoing adjustments to practice.
Be
sure you and your principal are singing the same tune about what your coaching
model will be. Next week’s post will
talk about other aspects of the Principal/Coach agreement. Whether this is a formalized document or just
an informal declaration of expectations, it is an important part of getting the
school year off to a smooth start.
Since
this week starts off with International Literacy Day, you might want to take a
look at:
Ideas
for celebrating the day (with connections to the upcoming movie release of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) at:
Top
10 Ways to Turn Your Students into Enthusiastic Readers:
A
video showing how literacy and technology work together in the science classroom:
Podcasts
with book recommendations:
For young readers: http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/podcast-series/chatting-about-books-recommendations-30130.html
For adolescent readers: http://www.readwritethink.org/parent-afterschool-resources/podcast-series/text-messages-recommendations-adolescent-30214.html
A Pinterest
Board with great recommendations of non-fiction for kids:
That’s
all for this week. Happy Coaching!
No comments:
Post a Comment