Lead Lit Topic: Tough Nuts
A teacher who refuses to work with her grade-level team to design new units. A principal who is always upending your schedule with new responsibilities. A literacy coach who is in tears because she feels so isolated. A participant who continually interrupts an in-service session with “Yeah but . . .”
Tough Nuts are not easily defined, but you know one when you see it. They are the challenges that sit at the center of your forehead in the dead of night, robbing you of sleep. The stories of how we’ve dealt with these ongoing and immediate challenges are here.
Results
Coaching Minute: Keep the Focus on Students
Inga Omondi suggests keeping the focus on students in order to entice apprehensive teachers into a coaching relationship.
Coaching Minute: Navigating Tough Conversations
Instructional coach Holly Wenning shares advice for navigating tough conversations.
What Happens When Teachers Receive Conflicting Advice?
As we sat across from a brand-new teacher and listened to him share the writing lessons his team was using, a million questions and thoughts flitted through our heads. Does...
How to Let Go of Outdated Literacy Practices
One of the great misconceptions we often carry throughout our lives is that our perceptions of ourselves and the world are basically accurate and true, that they reflect some stable,...
Coaching Minute: Listen Deeply
Instructional coach Staci Revere shares a key mantra to use when working with teachers, especially those who do not want to work with an instructional coach.
Offer a Mirror: How Coaches Empower Reflection
“I don’t know! It’s just that I get in there and I start teaching it, and then things happen...like someone has a connection or someone doesn’t understand a word and...
Have Coach, Will Travel
I have a confession to make: I secretly pine for the beautiful literacy coaches' spaces that I see on social media and wish that I could re-create them for the...
Competitive Comparisons
We’re deep in the brave new world of remote online learning, and it has revealed a long-kept secret about education: Many of us are quietly competitive and make constant, relentless...
Remote Learning for Our Youngest Students
I’ve been reflecting on the events of the past few weeks, a still-fresh alternate reality in which I’d wake up in the morning with one plan and have it changed...
Professional Renewal: Facilitating Change Within Ourselves
One of our friends recently shared that her family wanted to go plastic-free in her household. Naturally, I had lots of questions about how they would accomplish this. “How will...
You Don’t Write? No Worries
“You don’t have to write to teach writers,” the literacy coach said pointedly as we planned to lead a session on using mentor texts to support writers in our classrooms....
Where Confidence Begins
Our neighbor Ed is handy. A couple of weeks ago, he showed us pictures on his smartphone of the additional room he created on the backside of his garage. “Yep,...
Equitable Coaching
We were meeting as a leadership team to discuss the direction for professional development in the second half of the year. Our team is composed of a representative from each...
Rethinking Homework
Paul Janeczko’s poems are some of my favorites to share with students when I am introducing a poetry unit. I am sad that he passed away recently. Publishers Weekly published...
What Do We Mean by Coachable?
My youngest son recently tried out for and earned a spot on a travel basketball team. As we mused about what being on the team would entail (how many practices,...
Field Notes: Stories and Courage
When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending. Brene Brown Monon Trail Elementary School built a new...
What Happens Next Is What Defines Us
My own children have been my greatest teachers. For me, one of the most challenging aspects of parenting has been to help pick them up after a disappointing event in...
Tackling Coaching Challenges
One of Merriam-Webster's dictionaries defines a nemesis as a "formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent." As a literacy coach, I find that my biggest nemesis is professional development. I...
Aligning Commercial Practices with Excellent Literacy Instruction
“So, what are you guys using for literacy?” I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been asked that as a school principal. It’s not a bad question or something...
The Hole in Your Swing
I am a baseball fan. I played the sport through high school, spent a couple of years riding a bench in college, and now enjoy it mostly from the confines...
Clearing the Plate: Helping Teachers Feel Free, Not Full
“David,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I just can’t do our session today.” Her tired expression, slumped shoulders, and weak voice had told me that already. “Don’t worry about it,...
