When Coaches Affirm Teachers’ Frustration

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This week, I talked with a colleague who was trying to learn a new app they had just started using. Her voice was charged as she described all of the problems created by this transition. She was intense as she talked about the features she’d grown accustomed to that weren’t in this new version. She was alarmed and upset that these changes hadn’t been communicated well – she figured them out and had to problem-solve in the moment. Things were not going well, and it was clear how irritated, exasperated, and down-right angry she was! And, as I listened, It sounded like there was good reason for her disappointment and dissatisfaction.
 
“That sounds so frustrating!” I said.
 
And she continued on, naming even more problems that she’d encountered with the new system. But as she continued, the tenure of her voice became just a bit more relaxed. Occasionally, she paused, and I’d again affirm, “How frustrating!” or even just, “Wow!” Finally, as her list of irritations ran down, she paused. “Thanks for listening. I really just had to get that out before I could think about anything else,” she said.
 
A Postitive Move
As coaches, we shouldn’t affirm everything a teacher says, but when we affirm their feelings, we can’t go wrong. Sometimes, affirming the negative Is a positive coaching move.
 
Instructional coaches often look for opportunities to encourage teachers, build their confidence, and bring positive energy to their work. But sometimes, the most helpful thing we can do is to acknowledge what's not going well. Teachers have frustrating days, and they don't always need us to put a positive spin on things. In fact, sometimes affirming a teacher's frustration is exactly what needs to happen before a productive conversation can take place. It may seem counterintuitive, but doing this can clear the way for more productive conversations. An extremely frustrated teacher isn’t yet ready to move forward. After a teacher expresses negative perceptions, it can be helpful to validate them, especially when the perceptions are accompanied by strong emotions.
 
When we affirm a teacher’s frustration, we can mirror their feelings. Mirroring means matching the teacher’s posture, gestures, pitch, volume, cadence, or language choices. Coaching rapport improves when several of these communication systems match. When a coach mirrors to affirm negative emotions, a teacher feels understood, and negative feelings de-escalate. The teacher exhales. That’s what happened when my friend described her experience with the new app.
 
Mirroring negative perceptions shows your sensitivity to the teacher’s experiences. There are hard days, lessons that don’t go well, and students with challenging behavior. Saying so, putting those experiences into words, can be a first step to moving past those events. Having a trusted colleague acknowledge and validate frustrations helps to resolve the emotion.
 
Helping Teachers Get Unstuck
When I was coaching Shaina and she expressed frustration about a lesson on  she had just taught, affirming those feelings seemed to have a neutralizing effect. As Shaina reflected on the lesson, she described how the partner talk she had used as a lesson opener had fallen flat. She had felt sure her students would be interested in talking about themselves, but she ruminated about how, when she asked them to turn to a partner and share a connection, there was a lot of silence followed by a little bit of talk about what was for lunch. Later in the lesson, Shaina had given each student a card and asked them to move to separate sides of the room depending on their evaluation of the info. On the card.  She was discouraged that, when it came time to defend their choices, students hadn’t made the distinctions she was hoping for, and they had little to say. She had been expecting a healthy debate! As Shaina described her frustrations with the lesson, I mentally catalogued them but didn’t say much.
 
Once the tide of Shaina’s frustration seemed spent, I affirmed her frustration. “It can definitely be frustrating when a carefully-planned lesson doesn’t turn out the way we expect,” I said.  My affirmation acknowledged Shaina’s careful planning, and my use of the pronoun “we” demonstrated that other teachers (including me) shared similar frustrations. Validating Shaina’s frustration was an important step that cleared the way for more-productive talk.
 
Acknowledge Before You Encourage
Reassurance comes from having feelings acknowledged. Although we don’t want to shift away from the teacher’s own feelings too quickly, you can probably think of a time when it just felt good to know that you weren’t alone in your struggles. Saying, “I’ve heard other teachers talking about that, too,” can soften a frustration. Saying, “That happened to me when…” could build unity while reducing feelings of defeat. But keep descriptions of your own frustrations short. Stay with the teacher.
 
Listen first. Acknowledge what was difficult. Let the teacher know that you understand why the experience was frustrating. Sometimes, teachers don't need us to make things better. They just need to know that we understand why things were hard. And that simple act of affirmation can make all the difference in getting a coaching conversation moving in a more productive direction.
 
Affirming is a valuable move in the GIR model. Usually, it means affirming things that went well. But when teachers are upset, saying, “That sounds so frustrating!” goes a long way.
 

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