Friday, November 15, 2013

Pressure and Release

This week I read an article on the internet that got me thinking about the gradual increase of responsibility in coaching.  The article was about – once again, horse training.  I could practically take the article and paste it right here, I was making connections to coaching all over the place!  (The link to the article is at the end of this post, so you can take a look at it for yourself if you’d like.)

Horses are extremely fine and intelligent animals, but I still don’t know that teachers would like the comparison.  Nonetheless, I’d like to share some of the insights I gained with you.  Here’s a direct quote to get us started:

Training horses really is quite simple, because it involves not much more than the appropriate application of pressure and the exquisite timing of the release. But those adjectives, “appropriate” and “exquisite,” are where the real challenges lie, because these are the very things that make the difference between a horse having trouble, responding obediently, or responding with enthusiasm.

Let’s paraphrase that to apply to coaching and teachers.  Coaching, like horse training, involves the appropriate application of pressure – if we take the definition of pressure as “an influence that pushes or urges.”  I’d like it better if the definition said, “nudges or urges,” because as a coach I do feel like I am sometimes nudging and often urging the teachers I am working with.  Nudging them to think differently, urging them to try something new. 

According to the article, pressure is appropriate when it is “applied with focus, care and intention for a specific outcome.”  Translation:  Identify a focus for your coaching, a specific outcome.  Since you are working with a teacher and not a horse, this can be a joint enterprise!  Determining together the intention of your coaching work will ensure that your urging feels like encouragement, not coercion. 

When working with horses, pressure should be applied “very slowly and smoothly, progressing to the point at which it becomes effective and motivates the horse to try something.”  In other words, just the amount of nudging needed to encourage – and no more.   In horse training, how can you tell if the pressure was applied appropriately?  “The horse responds calmly and becomes more responsive and more willing.”  If urging from coaches is appropriate, teachers are willing and ready to take on more responsibility. 

How Do You Know If Your Timing is Exquisite?

Knowing when to release – give the teacher more responsibility – is all about timing.  In horse training, “If you release too early or too late, your horse won’t do what you expected.”  Letting go too soon means lost opportunities for learning.  Hanging on too long means lost opportunities for interdependence and true collaboration, learning together.  If your timing is exquisite, “the quality of response increases, and learning occurs “quickly with a minimum of difficulty.”  Conversely, you’ll know your timing was ineffective if “the quality of the response decreases” and “it takes longer to teach something.”  More support would have been beneficial.  The horseman uses the words “dull” and “heavy” to describe the sluggish response when release comes too early.  You’ve seen this happen as a coach when something you’ve worked on with a teacher slips away when you are no longer urging.  Let the Gradual Increase of Responsibility Model for Coaching guide you as you tune in to how to release exquisitely.

As you learn when to nudge and when to stop nudging, with appropriateness and exquisiteness, you’ll notice “how confidently and calmly (the teacher) begins to respond.”  Urging appropriately and releasing exquisitely leads to learners who respond “with enthusiasm”!

I must end this post with a note of caution that has little to do with coaching but everything to do with schools and change.  The horse trainer notes that inappropriate application of pressure is pressure that “comes on too fast and too strong, with no time for mental processing.  It is applied with an expectation that the horse must react instantly.  There is no teaching principle behind it: Do it or else!”  Sometimes mandates from government agencies or district or school administration have these unfortunate characteristics.  If our teachers are put in this situation, we as coaches have the responsibility to mediate that pressure.  I have seen coaches do just that with powerful, positive results.  I hope that few of you are in that uncomfortable position, but if you are, I am at least relieved to know that teachers have you as their ally for a more appropriate improvement process.


This week, you might want to take a look at:

The whole article about pressure and release in horse training:


Plus a little something for everyone from different academic areas:

A video showing the engage-explore-explain-elaborate-evaluate learning cycle as students learn about chemical vs. physical changes:



This “BOOKMATCH” poster helps kids choose a just-right book:



A Pinterest board for Social Studies Teaching Resources:



A video where students turn-and-talk about patterns they see during choral skip counting:



Free Word Work Activities (from Teachers pay Teachers):



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