Have
you ever had those moments where you just want a re-do on a conversation? The ability to rewind, take back, and replay
what just happened? Thankfully, those
moments tend to happen more in my personal situations than professional ones
(my family’s pretty forgiving, and mostly they’re stuck with me!). But, this week I had a “wish-I-could-take-that-back”
moment with a student teacher.
Many
of my coaching moments come from interactions with pre-service teachers. Since I’m their university supervisor, these
situations can be loaded, because they include evaluation (which we’re
cautioned to avoid as coaches). So that
makes my conversations with them pretty high-stakes.
Now,
as I write this, it is April 21. My
student teachers are almost done with their year-long internship
experience. I expect them to be
good. I expect them to be ready. I expect them to be proficient. But sometimes, they’re not…..yet. You might have similar expectations and
disappointments with the teachers you’re working with – whether novice or
experienced. There are often things that
aren’t going well that should be addressed. And I’m out there every week on the internet
giving advice about how to address such things, so I ought to know how to do
it. But my conversation with Bethany
this week definitely needed a re-do.
When
I observed Sandi’s class this week and noticed the lesson falling flat, I
felt the time had come to shake things up.
To basically say, Hey, we’ve only
got a few weeks left. We’ve got work to do!
I had been patient, mentioning and working with Sandi on one thing at
a time over the course of the year. She
is smart and a hard worker, but things just haven’t clicked. The progress has been slow. So this week, with less than a month left, I
think my patience was running short. I
wanted to go in for the quick fix. I
wanted to somehow make things hurry up and happen that hadn’t happened
gradually all year long. Looking back, I
think I came into the conversation with guns blazing! I pointed out several things that seemed like
evidence she wasn’t ready yet to take on her own classroom…problems with
pacing, classroom management, and giving directions. I gave specific examples and recommendations
until I noticed tears beginning to well up in Sandi’s eyes. Whoa – I put on the brakes, but too
late. The fact that there were many
things to fix and time was short didn’t suddenly give Sandi more insight and
ability. Sometimes, a shake-up is needed
and actually useful in these situations, giving a teacher a reality-check that
change is needed. But my conversation
with Sandi didn’t do that. Without a
little coddling, she is unlikely to have the efficacy to change. So I tried again the next day. I couldn’t really
get a conversation re-do, but hopefully my follow-up did some relationship
repair.
This
time, after observing, I began by pointing out the things that went well. This
time, I offered possible recommendations and asked which she thought would work
best. This time, I hope I did not
offend.
As
a coach, there’s always a balance between pushing and lifting. The push comes through asking questions that
require honest reflection and hard thinking. Pushing brings awareness and
urgency about the need to change. The
lift comes through recommendations and praise.
Unfortunately, there’s no magic formula for how much of each to include to
produce the desired results. That
equation is dependent upon context and personality. I didn’t get it right with Sandi this week,
but I’ll keep trying, adjusting the pushing-lifting ratio. After all, coaching is a learning experience
for the coach, too.
This week, you might want to
take a look at:
The abacus and CCSS:
Lesson idea for poems
about objects (National Poetry Month continues!):
“Poem in Your Pocket”
day is April 27! Get ready to celebrate
with these ideas:
DIY place-value cups (I love these
manipulatives!):
Avoid fake news by making sure it
passes the CRAP test:
That’s it for this week. Happy Coaching!
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