Thursday, March 31, 2016

Coaching Manifesto (1st Draft)

I'm in the middle of reading The Art of Coaching by Elena Aguilar (@artofcoaching1).  One of her suggestions is to create a Coaching Manifesto.  I figured a blog post about it would help me to clarify my thoughts and help me to see my own progression over the course of time.  I have many firm beliefs about education and fleshing them out in writing may prove to help me learn a bit about myself and how I can be more effective in my position of helping others in their learning journeys.

1. All students can learn.  Given enough time and proper motivation, anyone can learn anything.  The issues hampering learning are almost always time and motivation.  Leveraging the time we have with students (and teachers) to get the most bang for the buck is crucial to affecting positive improvements.

2.  We can always do better.  I will never be satisfied with the way things are.  There is always room for improvement, always another way to look at things.  A lesson might be great, a conversation fulfilling, but there is no such thing as perfection and that's OK!

3. Change is a process.  Similar to we can always do better, doing better requires a change.  Change is not a bad thing and it is an ever present process in teaching and learning.  Change will never be "over".  Change is not a destination or outcome.  To implement lasting changes in the classroom, incremental steps must be taken.  Trial and error are required.  Failing will happen, should be expected, embraced and engaged.

4. Everyone's experiences are different.  Every student and every teacher has their own life, viewed through their own lens.  When starting a conversation, knowledge needs to be transferred in both directions.  If there is an idea or strategy that we'd like to try that I am knowledgeable about, I need to know what experiences the teacher has had, what their classroom is like, what their style is.  There is no one-size-fits-all strategy that works with everyone in every room.  There are no silver bullets in education.  Accounting for individual styles, preferences and experiences is crucial to understanding how to move a teacher's practice forward.

That's all I've got for now.  I'm hoping to revisit this concept (maybe annually?).