I was so excited to be invited to a coaching cycle with Angie. Angie was a strong teacher, the quiet leader type, who was respected by peers and who just didn’t seem to want or need coaching. When I had first begun at the school, she had been one of the most vocally welcoming and kind staff members. But since the day school began, her closed door and air of grandeur sent me the message “I don’t need coaching.” I had never received a signup for coaching cycles or a nibble on the coaching line I cast out in each and every PLC meeting. Not until that staff meeting—the one I had never thought Angie would deem worthy—had I sensed that she would ever invite me to coach in her classroom. But apparently, the topic of strategy and guided reading groups had piqued her interest, so here I was, entering her country-farm-chic-themed classroom.
Angie and I had met the week before. We had looked at student data and work. We had co-planned the week’s lessons and decided to focus on creating small groups and individual goals based on the anecdotal data we could glean from student conferences.
As the minilesson progressed, the students were engaged and following along, for the most part, but when she switched to having the students involved in thinking and processing their read aloud, they seemed to be unable to produce any ideas about the character’s traits exhibited in the pages read. She had modeled the thinking superbly and provided a strong passage in the text to showcase the character, but the students were not responding. Finally, a couple of students shared their thoughts and she was able to conclude the lesson and send them off to read in their own books. She gave me a concerned look, and we went about our plan. She would confer, and we would both take notes on student responses. As we went through the first couple of students, we were met with the same vacant unresponsive stammers or stares, and it finally dawned on me.
I was the problem.
We couldn’t begin this coaching cycle until the students trusted my presence in the room. Learning is a vulnerable process, and my alien entity threatened that vulnerability. As we debriefed that day, we agreed to shelve the plans we had made and just allow me to be a presence in the room throughout the rest of the week.
This is just one example of how the power of presence and trust can affect the work of a coaching cycle, but the problem can be avoided. Through increased presence leading up to a coaching cycle, investments in time in the classroom at the beginning of the year, and a variety of “upkeep” presence moments throughout the year, coaches can not only increase the opportunities they have for coaching but also ease and prepare students to be ready for another adult’s presence.
Coaching Cycle Prep
Whether you are in a school where coaching is optional or one where it’s mandatory, it is always exciting to begin a new coaching cycle. Like the beginning of the school year it is laden with possibility. Delving into student work and hashing out curriculum, changing practice and affecting growth, means opportunities abound in the few weeks spent together. Often coaches are so eager to begin a cycle, or the cycle begins so abruptly, that integrating yourself into a classroom’s ecosystem may be skipped.
Here are a few ways you can integrate yourself into a classroom culture.
- Spend time in the classroom observing as a student, not in the back of the room.
- Read alouds are always a good win.
- Do frequent walk-throughs.
- Teach a lesson as a “guest speaker.”
- Share your writing.
- Do a book talk.
It’s important not only for the colleague you’re coaching to feel comfortable with you, but also for the students to feel they could open up to you as well. Spending time in the classroom with no agenda or co-planned experiences lets everyone just get to know you as an adult without agenda or instructional focus. Even a few days will help ease everyone into the work as you prepare to take on more intensive and vulnerable work.
Beginning of the Year
Much of the groundwork that needs to be done at the beginning of a coaching cycle can also be done at the beginning of the year. Whether you are a building-based or multi-site coach, you can begin laying the groundwork for any subsequent coaching cycles as well as create connections and build relationships between yourself and your fellow teachers and students.
Some ways you can integrate yourself into classrooms at the beginning of the year:
- Make a short presentation to each class about yourself and your role, but mainly yourself.
- Spend time outside at recess or in the lunchroom.
- Choose a “beginning of the year” book and offer to let all teachers have you come in and read it.
- Join in the beginning-of-the-year relationship-building games.
- Spend any unaccounted-for minutes in classrooms.
If you can lay the groundwork early, beginning a coaching cycle won’t produce as much anxiety for students when a new adult joins their classroom. They will be used to you popping in and out for a variety of reasons and times. The more comfortable they feel with you, the more open they will be in subsequent experiences. This is a crucial step, especially when coaching literacy. Opening up to a teacher about their experiences and thoughts can provoke a lot of anxiety in students. If you observe a teacher struggling to confer with a student, remember it might not be the teacher who is having trouble conferring but the student having trouble with you watching.
Throughout the Year
Once you’ve established your presence in the school, it becomes a matter of maintaining that presence. As the year progresses, your responsibilities and workload most likely will increase. It becomes more and more important then to make sure to keep track of the time you’re spending in classrooms, not only in relation to your other duties but also to ensure you are being as equitable as you can be. It will help you see which classrooms you’re spending your time in and which classrooms you’re losing touch with.
- Keep a coaching log and track which rooms you have and haven’t spent time in.
- Offer a whole-school read aloud of one book. Create an activity for the students to complete that can be displayed near or around your office.
- Find creative ways to offer teachers an extra prep period once in a while. The weeks leading up to a break are prime times to give teachers a little boost in their time.
Had I taken the time to spend time in Angie’s classroom, perhaps the students would have been more willing to open up during the lesson. It wouldn’t be another week until I saw what she saw: a vibrant, insightful class of engaged students. Much of the literature on coaching focuses on the relationship between teacher and coach. Although this is the most important bond of trust to be formed, the relationship between coaches and the students can equally support or stunt the work possible in a coaching cycle.
