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
Some Study Group Participants Aren’t Reading the Book
A couple of teachers who participate in our book discussion group don't seem to be reading the book—at all. It makes for awkward moments in the conversation, like last week...
Making Assumptions
It had been a rough morning. I'd spent the last two and a half hours in jaw-tightening silence, watching a novice teacher making misstep after misstep in his classroom. In...
Walk-Arounds: Gathering Data to Test Assumptions
As an instructional leader, I am subjected to tattling. You are probably assuming I mean tattling on the part of children, but you'd be surprised. I am referring to teachers...
Busywork?: From Classroom Assistant to Agent of Change
It’s the day before school starts, hours before the kindergarten classrooms will be filled with parents and students excited to meet their very first teachers at a meet and greet...
Overwhelmed Coach
Everyone in education feels overwhelmed from time to time. Coaches can feel extremely stretched at particular times throughout the year. The months of November and March are the most intense...
Katherine Casey on Sharing Blunders with Colleagues (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Katherine Casey explains to Heather Rader why it is helpful for coaches to share their teaching blunders with colleagues. Katherine is the author of Literacy Coaching: The Essentials....
I Can’t Quite Put My Finger On It
Have you ever been working with a teacher and they start to tell you about a new strategy or "program" you are not familiar with, but the description you are...
What is the Evidence?
The first and most brutal fact that must be confronted in creating professional learning communities is that the task is not merely challenging: it is daunting. It is disingenuous to...
Not That Into Me
For the past 11 years during the holiday season my husband and I have watched the movie Trapped in Paradise with my brother. The movie stars Nicholas Cage, Dana Carvey and Jon...
Eight Tips for Building Relationships: A Tale of Two Literacy Coaches
I stopped by Monroe School to see the literacy coach, Kate, before the school day began. I was in her office for about five minutes when second-grade teacher Leah burst...
Ways to Avoid Coaching Traps
When we first began providing staff development to schools, our mentor at Tufts University shared the book Strategies for Teacher Collaboration by Loviah Aldinger with us. We each carry a well-worn copy...
Troubleshooting Coaching Cycles
Last summer, we were fortunate to host Diane Sweeney at our coaching summer institute. Diane introduced us to the idea of coaching cycles. She assured us that coaching cycles would...
Three Little Phrases No Literacy Coach Can Live Without
If there are three skills any literacy coach needs, they are the ability to engage with colleagues, diffuse hostile situations, and connect with people who have a different world view....
Navigating Conversations
The thought had been weighing on my mind for a while. I needed to have a conversation with my principal. It is my job as a coach to keep a...
When Coaching Fails: How to Help Educators Who Resist Help
It’s Year 5 in my tenure as principal at a previous school, and a teacher continues to use worksheet packets for literacy instruction. This, in spite of the fact that...
Navigating Curricular Change
My son pounded the couch with both of his fists, and I looked up from where I was reading while he was doing his homework. “I can’t do this!” he...
When Harsh Words Are Said: Ways to Move Forward
When an experienced coach was hired for a maternity leave position, I (Kate) began to experience what I can only describe as impostor syndrome. I became hyper-aware in every PLC...
Hope
Hope is not an emotion; it’s a way of thinking or a cognitive process. —Brené Brown What is hope? This word is woven into my day-to-day conversation: “I hope you...
When Coaching Fails: How to Help Educators Who Resist Help
It’s year five in my tenure as principal at a previous school, and a teacher continues to use worksheet packets for literacy instruction. This, in spite of the fact that...
Coaching Minute: Clarifying a Vision
Inga Omondi encourages asking questions during meetings to determine how a vision needs to be clarified.
