Choosing Hope

For the eighth time, I’ve chosen a word-of-the-year to guide my intentions. Having just one word has made it easier to stay the course. Of course, that word has to be well-chosen, and it’s best if it can carry me in many directions. That’s why I love my word for 2025: Hope.
 
Teachers need hope, and instructional coaches are in a position to help teachers build a path of hope. Since choosing my word, it has, of course, been popping up everywhere! I was delighted to find a section on hope as I read from Brené Brown’s book, Dare to Lead. Brené says that hope is the antidote to anger, fear, or despair, which might be masked as cynicism. This is good to know. That dubious, cynical teacher might be masking self-doubt. Her skepticism could come from a place of anxiety. Her sarcasm might represent discouragement. Digging out of that place and into a place of hope creates better outcomes for both the teacher and her students. As coaches, we can cultivate hope.
 
The four parts of the pathway to hope are goal, pathway, agency, and self-efficacy. Let’s think about each and how it might grow hope (in the teachers you work with and within you).
 
Goal
The idea of choosing a goal is all around us at this time of year, and it’s usually how we head into a coaching cycle. Choosing a goal gives us a focal point as we move forward. We know where we want to go. Let’s make sure goals come from a place of progress, recognizing our strengths and building on those rather than focusing on deficiencies. A strengths-focused goal sets us on a path of hope.
 
As coaches, let’s make sure the goals teachers set are achievable. When my principal first introduced the idea of a stretch goal, I was not a fan, and I’m still not. For me, a goal that I know is beyond my reach is discouraging. The SMART acronym works for me: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. These are good guides for a coaching cycle goal.
 
Pathway
Once we know the destination, we can choose the pathway. I’m a hiker, and when I’m at the trailhead, I take a careful look at the posted map. I think about the time, energy, and strength that I have as I consider the options for getting to where I want to go.
 
There’s more than one route to achieving a goal, and coaches can help teachers see those paths. Offering multiple suggestions for teachers to choose from helps them select a route that suits their pace and supports teachers’ agency.
 
Agency
Agency is choice with authority. Help teachers see that they can make choices about instruction, even if there’s a scripted curriculum to follow. There is so much space between the lines, and teachers sometimes assume the worst about how they are expected to use provided resources. Instead, help teachers see possibilities, with the required curriculum (if you have one) as a starting place.  
 
As the lead learner in the classroom, teachers are authorized to make decisions. They have the charge, so they need the choice.
 
Efficacy
Self-efficacy is needed to feel hope. Coaches can boost teachers’ confidence by highlighting strengths, supporting asset-based reflection, and celebrating progress. Because it won’t be a straight path forward, we need to encourage risk-taking and normalize challenges. Teachers might need to switch to Plan B and Plan C.
 
As teachers make progress toward a goal, determination and tenacity increase. Letting go of doubt generates optimism and an assurance of good things to come. Coaches help teachers persist in the face of setbacks. With clarity and kindness, our conversations teach hope.
 
As I pursue my one word goal for 2025, I’ll keep in mind the value of goals, pathways, agency, and efficacy as I cheer myself and others on.
 
This week, you might want to take a look at:

“One little word” resolutions for students:
 
https://ourclasswrites.com/2012/01/08/one-little-word-one-big-idea/
 
 
Strategies for Public Speaking: Big, Loud, and Slow:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/big-loud-and-slow-six-strategies-for-better-public-speaking/
 
 
This 3-minute video has 8 activities for closure:
 
https://www.edutopia.org/video/8-closing-activities-to-wrap-up-a-lesson/
 
 
A well-balanced diet – choice and parameters in reading and writing:
 
https://ccira.blog/2018/08/28/a-well-balanced-diet/
 
 
Or, as the new year gets underway, you might consider: Is balance the right goal for life?
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/the-big-fresh-january-23-2016no-balance/
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
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! You can use the code: JAN2025 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!
 

Coaching for Teacher Agency

Teacher agency—the power and autonomy to make meaningful decisions about pedagogy—is a cornerstone of effective and sustainable teaching. When teachers have agency, they act as the lead learners in their classrooms, making informed decisions that benefit their students and align with their professional expertise. Instructional coaches have an important role in fostering this agency, inspiring teachers to take ownership of their practices and helping them navigate the demands of the education system.
 
The Empowering Potential of Agency
 
When teachers are positioned as lead learners, the work is energizing and sustaining. Having agency infuses teaching with purpose. Reflecting on how to best support student learning through expertise in content, pedagogy, and knowledge of students is demanding but motivating. It sustains teachers in their professional roles and fosters fulfillment.
 
Coaching to Empower Teachers
 
Instructional coaches can play a critical role in fostering teacher agency. But we must be mindful of unintentionally taking hierarchical positions that undermine teachers’ invention of their own teaching identities. To empower teachers, coaches must recognize teachers’ professional expertise and position them as active agents in their classrooms.
 
When using the GIR model for instructional coaching (see below), everything we model, recommend, question, affirm, and praise should acknowledge teachers’ agency and efficacy. They choose what we will model and what they will focus on. We offer recommendations as options, saying, “Some things you might want to consider…” We ask questions that support teachers’ decision-making. When good things are happening, we affirm and praise the choices made.
 
Practical Strategies for Supporting Agency
 
One of the most effective ways to empower teachers is through reflection. Reflecting on practice helps teachers feel volitional and capable, allowing them to recognize the agency they already possess to exercise their expertise through thoughtful decision-making.
 
Our coaching approach should highlight opportunities for choice. We can offer suggestions framed as “Some things you might want to consider…” This invites teachers to think critically about what is presented. Providing multiple options increases opportunities for choice and autonomy.
 
Teachers should feel empowered to make instructional decisions based on their students’ needs rather than rigidly adhering to scripted curricula. The process of reflection, risk-taking, and refinement reinforces the idea that teachers have both the power and responsibility to adapt and grow in response to the dynamic needs of their classrooms.
 
Teacher Agency Within Constraints
 
Teacher agency exists within systems of accountability and constraints, such as state standards, district mandates, and required curricula and materials. However, teachers often imagine there is less wiggle room than actually exists. There is usually more chance for agency than teachers recognize. Coaches can help teachers creatively work within existing systems to better meet their students’ needs. It doesn’t have to be subversive work. The space for agency is already there, ready to be acted within. Coaches can help teachers find that space.
 
By exercising agency, teachers create instruction that honor students’ interests, needs, and experiences and fosters equity and inclusion. Coaches can support teacher autonomy, allowing them to resist narrow, prescriptive approaches that may not serve diverse learners effectively. Instead, they can advocate for practices that prioritize meaningful, student-centered, and culturally responsive teaching.
 
A Call to Celebrate Teacher Agency
 
Teacher agency is central to effective instruction. It is the capacity for teachers to act autonomously, informed by their pedagogical expertise and their students’ realities. By positioning teachers as their own agents of change, we celebrate their professionalism and the critical role they play.
 
As instructional coaches, we can support teacher agency as an essential component of meaningful, student-centered, responsive teaching. Empowered teachers are better equipped to meet the needs of their students and sustain themselves in their roles. Let’s cultivate teacher agency and celebrate the impact teachers have on their classroom communities.

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

Using “Hot Chocolate” breathing to create calm: 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCIyEn8_XLU&t=5s
 
15 things productive people do:
 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2016/01/20/15-surprising-things-productive-people-do-differently/
 
Creating class books:
 
https://choiceliteracy.com/article/lets-write-together-the-importance-of-class-books/
 
Interactive read-alouds in science:
 
https://www.amnh.org/explore/curriculum-collections/integrating-literacy-strategies-into-science-instruction/interactive-read-alouds
 
 
Questions worth considering about coaching ethics:
 
https://newbycoachlive.wordpress.com/2018/08/06/why-think-about-ethics-in-coaching/
 
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
 
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! You can use the code: JAN2025 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!