Compassionate Coaching

How to Help Educators Navigate Barriers to Professional Growth

Kathy Perret, Kenny McKee

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781416630203
• eBook ISBN: 9781416630227
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

When we embark on a journey, every action revolves around the destination. Of course, not all trips are smooth sailing. We inevitably hit distractions, obstacles, and detours. These challenges threaten to blow us off course, but when we stay focused on the destination rather than the barriers, we can move forward.

The same is true in education. Barriers to effective teaching are neither permanent states nor character traits. Rather, they are temporary challenges successful coaches help teachers overcome by connecting them with the right methods and keeping them focused on the destination.

In Compassionate Coaching, Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee identify the six most vexing challenges teachers face—lack of confidence, failure, overload, disruption, isolation, and school culture challenges—and the six corresponding ways that coaches can help teachers surmount them, dubbed the compassionate coaching focus areas.

Coaching with compassion is a process focused on partnership, empowerment, prioritization, routine, connection, and openness. Done well, it can result in transformational improvements to student achievement and teacher work satisfaction. In some cases, it can even shift the trajectory of whole schools.

Roadblocks and detours can get in our way when we are coaching just as they can during any journey. Instead of grumbling about the setbacks, we can open our eyes to the possibilities of a new and better route. That's what compassionate coaching offers. Let's go!

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Chapter 1

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Charting a Course for Effective Coaching

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Most of the time, when we embark on a journey, our every action revolves around the destination. We enter the destination into our GPS to guide us, and we travel on the combination of paths we know will get us there successfully. The same is true of successful coaching journeys. The destination—effective coaching—comes first and foremost.

Of course, not all trips are smooth sailing. We hit distractions, roadblocks, and detours, and when we do, we need to focus clearly on the problem to see us through. The challenges keep us on our toes, but when we stay focused on the destination rather than the barriers, we are able to move forward. In this chapter, we'll discuss the essential elements of a successful coaching journey, including what you'll need to get going and some ways to help make sure your trip is a smooth one.

Setting Your GPS

Using a GPS is simple—you enter your destination, and away you go. If you get off track, your trip is recalculated to get you back on course using incremental steps. In coaching, you also need a system that can show you the way to your destination and get you back on track when you veer off course. This is where the Instructional Coaching GPS comes in; it's a reflective exercise for knowing exactly where you're going and how to get there. Whereas the GPS in a literal journey stands for "global positioning system," in the Instructional Coaching GPS, the G stands for "goal," the P stands for "plan," and the S stands for "steps."

Goal

• What does instructional coaching mean to you?
• What are your hopes and dreams as an instructional coach?

Plan

• What daily actions will you take to adhere to your goal?

Steps

• How will you monitor or check that you are on your desired path?
• How will you course-correct if you are veering off your desired route?

Once you've written down your responses to the GPS questions, reflect on them. We have found that coaches need to be crystal clear on their work intentions if they are to stay the course on their journey, and your answers to the questions in the Instructional Coaching GPS can serve that goal.

Instructional Coaching Pathways

Just like journeys by road, effective coaching journeys require us to take certain tried-and-true pathways to reach our destination. In our vision of coaching, the three major pathways on the journey to success address the fundamental human needs of autonomy, belonging, and competence (Anderman & Leake, 2005).

The Autonomy Pathway

After decades of educational reforms, one of the major complaints teachers have is that their autonomy as practitioners is being steadily encroached upon. For example, in some schools, teachers are provided with a mandated curriculum. Although such a curriculum can offer a great instructional program for many students, some teachers say they have been discouraged from refining and adapting the curriculum to meet their students' specific needs. Teachers whose students must meet strict federal or state standards feel discouraged from using creativity or personalized goals with them. Too often, this lack of autonomy means coaches focus more on "fidelity" to the curriculum than on improving teacher practice.

Truly effective coaching places people above programs. Successful coaching isn't about bringing teachers along but about building teachers' capacity to make the right instructional decisions for students. Though coaches play an important role in probing teachers' beliefs about instruction and sharing research and strategies with them, individual teachers must have the freedom to tailor ideas for their classroom contexts and veto ideas they don't think they should prioritize. Put simply, teachers' autonomy is essential to the coaching journey.

Researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (2000) have found that a sense of autonomy correlates with a sense of motivation. As Jim Knight (2019) writes, "People are rarely motivated by others' goals, and a one-size-fits-all model of change rarely provides helpful solutions for the individual complexities of each unique classroom" (p. 16). To Knight, being accountable to the detached vision of others is a kind of "irresponsible accountability," in contrast to the "responsible accountability" of teachers and coaches co-constructing goals and learning together through planning, discussion, and classroom-based coaching cycles (Knight, 2019).

The Belonging Pathway

Teachers who participate in coaching need to feel a real sense of belonging in the learning community if they are to succeed in their journey. This feeling is built over time, and each coaching interaction has the potential to build upon or erode it. One especially meaningful way to build trust is to honor commitments. If coaches don't show up or if they cancel their sessions, they can't expect teachers to respect what they have to offer. If a supervisor suggests that a coach cancel a coaching session to do something else, a frank conversation about the harm this could do to the coaching program is warranted.

The words and phrases we use as coaches can also have an effect on teachers' sense of belonging. It is paramount for us to come across as partners and learners rather than "experts," and one way to do this is to use proactive language (e.g., stems such as "I can," "I choose," or "I will"), both during coaching and in our own thinking about the process. (Figure 1.1 shows some easy ways to recast common phrases related to coaching with a more proactive slant.)

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Figure 1.1. Proactive Coaching Phrases

Instead of …: Teachers are not ready.

Say or Think …: Teachers are not ready yet.

* * *

Instead of …: Teachers are reluctant to be coached.

Say or Think …: Teachers fear the unexpected.

* * *

Instead of …: Teachers aren't willing to make changes.

Say or Think …: Teachers need multiple opportunities to try out new strategies without being judged.

* * *

Instead of …: Teachers don't want to accept coaching.

Say or Think …: Teachers will accept coaching when the process is clear.

* * *

Instead of …: I don't know how to reach teachers.

Say or Think …: I can empower and support teachers.

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Another way to ensure that teachers feel comfortable in the coaching process is to use what Garmston and Wellman (2016) call the "third point" (p. 109). This can be any focus of discussion separate from either the coach or the teacher: student work, a video of classroom instruction, a professional reading, a data set, and so on. A third point enables the coach and teacher to discuss and discover information and ideas together rather than the coach dictating what the teacher should learn or do (Knight, 2019; McKee & Davis, 2015).

The Competence Pathway

The most effective coaches revere the teaching profession and truly respect the competence of teachers. As Buckingham and Goodall (2019) note, "Learning rests on our grasp of what we're doing well, not on what we're doing poorly, and certainly not on someone else's sense of what we're doing poorly" (p. 7).

Lately, we've been intrigued by the concept of appreciative inquiry (AI) and the role it can play in framing strengths-based instructional coaching. "At its heart," write Stavros, Godwin, and Cooperrider (2015), "AI is about the search for the best in people, their organizations, and the strengths-filled, opportunity-rich world around them. AI is not so much a shift in the methods and models of organizational change; it is a fundamental shift in the overall perspective taken throughout the entire change process to 'see' the wholeness of the human system and to 'inquire' into that system's strengths, possibilities, and successes" (p. 97).

Appreciative inquiry moves us away from a deficit model of teaching focused on what isn't working toward a strengths-based approach that acknowledges the fundamental competence of teachers. At the center of AI is the 5-D Cycle, a reflective exercise composed of the following five questions:

1. Defining: What is a worthwhile focus for our collaboration?
2. Discover: What excites you about teaching / your content / your students?
3. Dream: How would you describe success?
4. Design: How do we design for success?
5. Destiny (after a collaboration): What were the successes we can repeat? How might we tweak this process in the future?

Think about how working through a path of AI shifts the focus away from deficits and toward shared success for students, teachers, and coaches alike. Whereas a deficit model rarely leads to the sense of competence needed for teachers to bravely tread new paths in their work, visions of success can serve to energize the work of change.

The Fuel

You can have your GPS ready to go and know the pathways backward and forward, but you aren't leaving the driveway unless there's gas in the tank. And just as cars need fuel to move forward, so too does instructional coaching. In our vision of coaching, this "fuel" is made up of three essential elements: the coach-administrator partnership, the coach's professional learning, and the coach's own willingness to be coached.

The Coach-Administrator Partnership

Administrator support of the coaching process improves the perceived value of the coaching process and, by extension, the number of teachers who seek coaching. For these reasons, we encourage principals to work closely with coaches in schools. Jim Knight (2018) offers the following suggestions for school administrators:

• Be sure the coach has time to coach and isn't focused on too many other duties.
• Encourage a partnership approach between teachers and coaches. Remember that the coach isn't there to "fix" anybody.
• Understand that, in most cases, coaches will maintain confidentiality about their work with teachers.
• Establish a schedule of regular meetings with the coach.
• Model an interest in professional learning for themselves.
• Remember that coaches are not supervisors (and that if they do have supervisory duties, those need to be made clear).
• Learn or develop a schoolwide set of instructional strategies.

Both parties should take time to sit down together and clarify each other's roles and responsibilities, and these touchpoints can form the foundation of any coach-administrator agreements.

One of the best ways for administrators to grow a culture of coaching in a school is by putting on their own coaching hats (Johnson, Leibowitz, & Perret, 2017), seeking out opportunities to reflect with teachers and share possible resources to help them reach their goals. A simple statement can go a long way. For example, say, "I understand you have a goal to help your students in the area of writing. Is there a certain book or resource you may need?" Suggesting that the teacher consult with a coach goes even further. At the same time, coaches should bear in mind that administrators often only have a big-picture understanding of the coaching process and may need to be told explicitly how to support the work.

Professional Learning

An abundance of books, training opportunities, and conferences addressing instructional coaching exist. Despite all these opportunities, we continue to encounter instructional coaches who had no formal training when they started coaching. We encourage you to fill your tank with as much knowledge as you can. Find a note-taking system that allows for mini-action planning as you learn.

One idea is the What, So What, Now What framework, which you can use to jot down key points, their importance, and your thoughts on how you can implement them. As you take notes, reflect on and answer these three questions:

1. What are the key points?
2. So what is so important about them?
3. Now what steps do I take to put them into practice?

We hope that reading this book will provide you with plenty of professional learning, but our words will never leave the page unless you put them into action. Let us know about your progress on Twitter, where you can find us at @KathyPerret and @kennycmckee, using the hashtag #compassionatecoaching.

Finding Your Own Coach

In a 2017 TED Talk, Atul Gawande reminds us that in sports, coaching is never over—everyone, even the top players, gets a coach. Therefore, if you're a coach, who coaches you? Finding a coach of your own can help you become a better coach yourself. Learning the importance of helping others reflect and grow is one thing, but experiencing the benefits firsthand is quite another. You deserve a confidant who will reflect with you just as you do with teachers.

Often, coaches will want to network with other coaches. We too think this is critical, but we also think it's vital to have a dedicated coach of your own. Michelle TeGrootenhuis, an Iowa-based coach, agrees:

I began utilizing a coaching log when I realized I had no idea how much of my time was spent actually IN classrooms, working with teachers, versus gathering, analyzing, and sharing data and resources. However, tracking time was not by itself satisfying. I knew I needed to reflect on that information and then set some professional goals, but doing that on my own would not have been effective. I knew I needed someone else to look at that data and ask me questions, provide some feedback, and perhaps offer some sugge...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Praise for Compassionate Coaching
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction: Breaking Through
• Chapter 1. Charting a Course for Effective Coaching
• Chapter 2. Coaching Through Lack of Confidence
• Chapter 3. Coaching Through Failure
• Chapter 4. Coaching Through Overload
• Chapter 5. Coaching Through Disruption
• Chapter 6. Coaching Through Isolation
• Chapter 7. Coaching Through School Culture Challenges
• Chapter 8. Looking Backward, Looking Forward
• References
• About the Authors
• Related ASCD Resources
• Study Guide
• Copyright