Coaching for Teacher Creativity

“I took out the earbuds, and I started having ideas again!”
 
When I read that sentence, it hit me with force. I’ve become a bit of a podcast junky, and I often listen to articles and audio books as I get other things done. I realized my mind was usually crowded with other people’s ideas, leaving little space for my own. I started wondering whether that was also true for the teachers I coached. Were other people’s ideas – in the form of curricula, TPT, and even my own recommendations to them – smothering their own creativity?
 
Creativity is a teacher attribute worth nurturing. So I’ve decided to brainstorm with teachers before we open the teacher’s guide, not after. We’ll play with a blank page before we search online for a template. We’ll consult the literature to confirm our hunches about best practice. We’ll envision the students’ faces in our minds and think about their needs. We’ll play through a potential plan in our heads, imagining how students will respond at each turn. We’ll figure out a fun, new way rather than revising an old plan. It sounds refreshing! It sounds like spring!
 
To coach for creativity, we can:

 
·       Begin by promoting presence (take a deep breath, play Jenga for 5 minutes)
·       Ask “Why?” and also “Why not?”
·       Consider a situation from multiple perspectives
·       Expect surprises
·       Display art
·       Challenge a belief
·       Go outside
·       Catch a fleeting thought
·       Stand up. Move.
·       Ask the teacher to sketch a situation
·       Detach from our own opinions
·       Generate as many ideas as possible before settling  

Get creative! See how many other ideas you can come up with for supporting teachers’ creativity!
 
Unfortunately, teachers frequently experience stress, isolation, challenges, discouragement, and stagnation. As an antidote, research suggests that creativity relieves stress, encourages teamwork, supports problem solving, boosts morale, and can drive personal development.
 
With all this creating, of course, there will be failures. But we’ll fail in increasingly interesting ways! The benefits of coaching for creativity are too good to miss!
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:
 
March madness in the classroom:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/march-madness-meets-ap-lit-brian-sztabnik
 
 
Drop in visits for coaching connections:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/coaching-connections-drop-in-visits/
 
 
Get ready for National Poetry Month in April with these recommendation of novels in verse:
 
https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/2023/12/30/the-2023-nerdies-poetry-and-novels-in-verse-announced-by-donalyn-miller/
 
 
Picture book biographies with older students in mind (introduce scientists, artists, and historical figures in a friendly way!):
 
https://www.middleweb.com/36313/picture-book-biographies-for-the-middle-grades/
 
 
Strategies to calm young brains (that work for old brains, too!):
 
https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-ways-calm-young-brain-trauma-lori-desautels
 
That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!
 
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Want more coaching tips? Check out my book, Differentiated Mentoring & Coaching in Education: From Preservice Teacher to Expert Practitioner, available from Teachers College Press!  I’m so excited to share it with you! TODAY you can still use the code: MAR2024 for 20% off. Click  here  and I’ll email you the free Book Group Study Guide that includes questions, prompts, and activities you can use as you share the book with colleagues.  I hope you’ll love this book as much as I loved making it for you!