Trigger
words are words that make someone pay attention; they compel a person to act.
They are a tool for advertisers, and they can be an invitation for
coaches.
A
trigger word that gets my attention and compels me to act is “lazy.” When I
hear this word used to describe students, I first have to swallow a bit of
anger that tends to rise up. I hate to hear that label applied. Children come
into the world full of curiosity and energy. Sometimes schools or situations
reduce that drive. But, if that’s happened, it is teachers’ job to reignite
that fire. Labelling students as lazy is not a step in that direction.
The
“lazy” label came up last week as I was working with a group of fourth-grade
teachers. The emotions triggered by that word put my mind in such a fog that I
don’t have a clear memory of how I responded. But (unfortunately), this was not
the first time I have worked to coach teachers out of this negative mindset.
A
couple of years ago, as a group of eighth-grade math teachers sat around the
planning table, I asked, “What do you know about these eighth graders as
mathematicians?”
“They’re
lazy,” a teacher replied.
I
probed and prompted until the teacher changed her stance: “"You know, sometimes
they're hesitant because they don't have the skills. They don't remember." This more-productive comment led to a long
discussion about working memory and opportunities for practice and partner work
that could strengthen students’ skills.
I
later got an email from the district’s instructional leader, who had been in
the room during the conversation. “I really don’t like the (teachers’) first
response to be that (the students) are lazy,” she said, and continued: “Unfortunately,
I think you heard a version of that in each building. You did a great job
helping teachers see the students’ responses in a different light.”
Thankfully,
I had been able to turn that situation around a bit. But my foggy-brained
response this week got me thinking that I needed to have a well-prepared
approach for coaching teachers out of negative mindsets. That’s why I was
thrilled when I learned about a 4-step process for speaking
up against bias. It works for that important topic, and I could see that I had
unknowingly used this approach in previous conversations with teachers. Naming
and knowing the four steps will help me support teachers better when they
express negative mindsets about students.
Here are the four steps:
1) Interrupt. In the
conversation with eighth-grade math teachers, this meant stopping the planning
conversation to address the mindset. Interrupting means taking time out to
address a concerning comment before moving on.
It could sound like, “Just a second, could we back up and talk about something
I heard?”
2) Question. The goal here is to understand why the
teacher made the comment. It might sound like, “I wondered why you called
students ‘lazy’? What makes you say so?” By asking a question, you are giving
the teacher a chance to explain and maybe even recognize on their own the
negative mindset they are speaking from.
3) Educate. This would be
the time to explain how the term perpetuates unhelpful thinking. Related to
“laziness,” I could share what Carol Dweck, who has extensively studied the
growth mindset, said: “Everyone is born with an intense drive to learn…They
never decide it’s too hard or not worth the effort…They walk, they fall, they
get up. They just barge forward. What could put an end to this exuberant
learning? The fixed mindset.” Negative mindsets, in teachers and in the
students themselves, get in the way of learning.
4) Echo. The final
stepped in this process is to amplify other voices that address the issue. According
to Learning for
Justice,
this
especially means amplifying voices of those who are being negatively described.
In the “lazy” example, this might mean asking students about what motivates
them, or even asking how they would feel if a teacher called them, “lazy,” and
then reporting these findings back to the teacher community. I haven’t tried this step, but it sounds
promising!
Now
that I’m prepared with a step-by-step process to address negative mindsets, I
think I’ll have a cooler head the next time I hear a trigger word that makes me
want to stop a teacher in her tracks. And actually, that’s exactly what I
should do! These steps can coach teachers out of judgment frameworks and into more
productive frameworks for teaching and learning.
That’s
it for this week. Happy Coaching!
x
