Removing Hurdles

As a coach, I often get asked, "What exactly do you do?"  My response is usually, "I try and remove the hurdles that teachers are facing, regardless of how hard they are."

  I have been in education for 11 years, most of which have been in a classroom.  I know some of the struggles I had and my mission is to make teachers able to do their job to the best of their ability.  By allowing teachers to do this, it is only going to make the whole teaching/learning process much smoother.  As a coach, I constantly ask, "What do you need? What can I do?  Where do you need me?"  I believe building these relationships with teachers and showing them that I am here to support them, allows for us all to grow.  I have found that since taking over this role as a coach a month ago, that the teachers are sharing with me their needs.  While sharing these needs, I make in my personal goal to fix it regardless of whether it's technology, modeling, coverage, resources, etc.  It has taught me to balance many things at one time, but if I can alleviate something from the staff, then it is well worth it.  

  I look at this as whatever I can do to help, allows for all teachers to focus on something else that will impact their instruction, and make it more meaningful for students.  To me, that is why we are all in this profession together.  Moving forward, these are some of my personal goals to cover. 

-Provide non-evaluative feedback

-Start instructional rounds where teachers can observe other teachers and have a conversation

-Continue to remove hurdles that are interfering with daily instruction

  

Becoming a Players Coach

We all know in every sport that you need a good coach to be successful.  Some of the best coaches though do more than the traditional X's and O's.  By establishing a core relationship with each of their players, coaches often get better results than expected.  Of course, there is a need to teach the fundamentals of how to play a sport but more importantly, you need to build relationships to move your players forward.

Look at some of the best coaches in the sports world: Gregg Popovich, Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick, and the list could go on.  The one thing these coaches have in common is, of course, they know their sport but more importantly, they know their players.  These coaches take the time to build the relationships with their players, the trust and study their strengths/weaknesses.  This, in turn, helps when trying to move players forward.  I am sure it is not easy to coach some of the greatest athletes and personalities in the game but these coaches have had success as well as made their players better.  When meeting with their players, I wonder if the questions are that we ask in education.  What can I do to make you better?  What obstacles are you facing now?  What do you need to grow?  What could you have done differently?  

   As a new instructional coach, this is the framework that I am using to better serve the teachers in my building.  I not only want to talk X's and O's of their teaching but also build those relationships that are needed to be successful.  When working with teachers, I try to highlight the greatness that they bring day in and day out, but also want to find ways to help them grow.  This being myself modeling, finding resources, assisting in technology integration, or whatever the case may be.  I believe my sole purpose is to serve as a support so that on game day, they are performing at a high level.  The only difference is that their game day is every day.