The Art of Coaching
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction Coaching for Transformation
What Might a Transformed Education System Be Like?
One Purpose and Two Promises
Where I'm Coming from and Who This Book Is For
Summary of the Contents and How to Use This Book
A Couple Notes
Part One: Foundations of Coaching Chapter 1: How Can Coaching Transform Schools? A Story about What Coaching Can Do
What Will It Take to Transform Our Schools?
A New Tool Kit Based on Ancient Knowledge
What Can Coaching Do for a School? What Does the Research Say?
The Necessary Conditions
Speaking of Race
The Value of Coaching
Chapter 2: What Is Coaching? A Story about a Coach Who Didn't Know What She Was
Why We Need a Definition
What Are the Different Coaching Models?
A Vision for Coaching
A Coach Who Knows Who She Is and Can Travel Back in Time
Chapter 3: Which Beliefs Help a Coach Be More Effective? The Dangers of Unmonitored Beliefs
The Basics about Beliefs
Coaching Beliefs and Core Values
My Transformational Coaching Manifesto
Identifying and Using Your Coaching Beliefs
Chapter 4: What Must a Coach Know? Introducing New Coaching Tools: Coaching Lenses
A Story about a Teacher Who Seems to Struggle with Classroom Management: Part 1
A Story about a Teacher Who Seems to Struggle with Classroom Management: Part 2
When Will I Use These Lenses?
Part Two: Establishing Coaching with a Client Chapter 5: Beginning a Coaching Relationship: How Do I Develop Trust with a Coachee? “Without Trust There Can Be No Coaching”
A Story about Trust
What Is Trust?
Useful Lenses for This Stage
Ten Steps to Building Trust
Assessing Levels of Trust
“The Thin Cord of Trust”
Chapter 6: The Exploration Stage: What Do I Need to Know at the Outset? From the Edge of the Field
The Stage of Exploration
Useful Lenses for This Stage
Ten Steps in Exploration
Moving on to Planning
Chapter 7: Developing a Work Plan: How Do I Determine What to Do? What Role Does a Work Plan Play?
Useful Lenses for This Stage
Developing a Work Plan
How Do I Use This Work Plan?
Part Three: The Coaching Dance Chapter 8: Listening and Questioning The Three Movements in the Coaching Dance
Listening in Transformational Coaching
Listening as a Vehicle for Whole-School Transformation
Questioning in Transformational Coaching
Chapter 9: Facilitative Coaching Conversations Coaching Conversations
Facilitative Coaching
Chapter 10: Facilitative Coaching Activities Engaging Clients in Learning Activities
Scaffolding the Learning
Facilitative Coaching Activities
Conclusion
Chapter 11: Directive Coaching Conversations When Is Directive Coaching Useful?
A Story about a Principal Who Needed a Directive Coaching Stance
Mental Models
The Confrontational Approach
The Informative Approach
The Prescriptive Approach
Coaching for Systems Change: Institutional Mind-sets
Chapter 12: Directive Coaching Activities Further Engaging in Learning Activities
Observations
Conclusion
Chapter 13: Technical Tips and Habits of Mind Tricks of the Trade
Scheduling
Planning for a Coaching Conversation
The Arc of a Coaching Conversation
Logistics during a Conversation
Coach Responsibility during Conversation
Closing the Conversation
Conclusion
Chapter 14: Reflection and Assessment: What's Next? A Midyear Crisis
The Midyear and End-of-Year Reflection
Coaching for Systems Change
Part Four: Professional Development for Coaches Chapter 15: What Is Professional Development for Coaches? The Importance of a Team
Professional Development for Coaches
Developing Reflective Practices
Conclusion
Conclusion A Final Story
The Road Ahead
Fearlessness and Faith
Appendix A: The Coach's Optical Refractor (the Coaching Lenses)
Appendix B: Coaching Sentence Stems Facilitative Coaching
Directive Coaching
Appendix C: Transformational Coaching Rubric
Appendix D: Cheat Sheets and Lists Essential Frameworks for Transformational Coaching
Coaching for Systems Change
Tips for Using Different Approaches
The Coaching Conversation
Five Steps for a Midyear or End-of-Year Reflection
Appendix E: Recommended Resources
Appendix F: Glossary
Acknowledgments
References
Index
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 4: What Must a Coach Know? Table 4.1 Coaching Conversation: Debrief Plan
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2: What Is Coaching? Figure 2.1 What Is Transformational Coaching?
Chapter 3: Which Beliefs Help a Coach Be More Effective? Figure 3.1 The Ladder of Inference
Chapter 13: Technical Tips and Habits of Mind Figure 13.1 Sample Weekly Schedule for Site-Based Coach
The Art of Coaching
Effective Strategies for School Transformation
ELENA AGUILAR
Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Cover design by Michael Cook
Cover photo by @ Jelena Veskovic/iStockphoto
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FIRST EDITION
FOR MY MOTHER, LINDA,
MY FIRST AND FINEST COACH
“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
—Arundhati Roy (2003)
Introduction
Some years ago, during a very difficult time in my coaching career, I was coached by Leslie Plettner, who was then with the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools, a nonprofit organization supporting school transformation. It was hard to describe what happened when we met for our sessions at a café, but I always left renewed and empowered, bursting with new understandings about myself and my work. Sometimes Leslie asked provocative questions, other times she guided me in looking at situations from a perspective I'd never considered, and often she pushed me to try something different in my work—I usually felt stretched, but supported; my coaching improved quickly. After a while, I realized that I could express my fears and expose my worst flaws, and Leslie would still believe in me and work with me. Leslie communicated an unconditional acceptance that I had never encountered in schools.
During the time I worked with her, I found it hard to identify what Leslie “did” as a coach. I couldn't identify the specific “coaching moves” she made, I couldn't figure out how she was thinking or how she made decisions about what to ask me. She was an amazing coach, and I wanted to be just like her.
In the following years, as my coaching practice developed, I explored the complicated processes that result in effective coaching and learned how to see the elements that made up Leslie's coaching. This book is an attempt to make what goes on in an effective coach's mind visible—to make a coach's thoughts, beliefs, knowledge, core values, and feelings explicit so that they can be replicated by others. Coaching is an art, and just as the process of producing a piece of art can be broken down, so can coaching.
Art is a useful metaphor to help us understand coaching. Consider, for example, just a sliver of what a visual artist must know in order to produce a painting: how the chemical elements in the mediums he's working with interact with each other, how they are affected by humidity, and the order in which they need to be applied. A musician plans a piece of music, then carefully crafts and rehearses it many times before it is performed. Although art may seem magical, sometimes effortless, and perhaps impossible to replicate, it requires scientific knowledge and skills and an ability to precisely use a range of available tools and materials. The end product may be a delightful surprise, different perhaps from the artist's original vision, but a great deal of intention, planning, thought, and knowledge lie deeply embedded within the outcome.
Coaching can be perceived as a mysterious process, but in fact it requires intention, a plan, and a lot of practice; it requires a knowledge of adult learning theory and an understanding of systems and communication. An effective coach must possess certain analytical capacities and an ability to think sequentially. Coaching, like creating art, requires intuitive capacities, an ability to see something that is not yet—but could be—in existence, and the willingness to surrender to the process and trust that a worthwhile product will emerge. Like any visual or performing art, coaching requires attention to detail as well as an appreciation for the whole, and an understanding that the artistry is in the process as well as the product.
Although a coach plans and applies a body of knowledge and skills, an artful coach also engages in the work creatively. Our education system is a heavy and serious place these days. The need to improve our schools is urgent. But when a coach taps into and harnesses creative energy, when the process is enjoyable, even fun, the end result is more likely to be transformational.
Coaching for Transformation
I coach for transformation—transformation of the adults with whom I work, the institutions in which they work, the lives of the children and communities they serve, and our society as a whole. I coach to help teachers, principals, central office administrators, and all educators transform their behaviors, beliefs, and being. The model of coaching that I propose holds transformation as the end goal; it also assumes that to meet this goal, the process must be transformational. Transformation describes both the destination and the journey.
Transformation is a term that is at risk of being overused and drained of meaning, so a definition is necessary here. The prefix trans- means across, on the other side of, beyond—where we are going is unknown and yet to be defined. A transformation is an end result almost unrecognizable from its previous form, a change so massive and complete, so thorough and comprehensive that until we are there, it is unimaginable. For example, mist transforms when it solidifies into an iceberg; a caterpillar transforms when it becomes a butterfly. How can we create something we can barely imagine? Working toward something unclear and ambiguous can be uncomfortable. This process of creation will require us to suspend our beliefs about whether or not it can be done and to forge onward, creating and transforming in spite of our own preconceptions. Transformation, of course, can be positive or negative. The assumption in my definition is that the destination is a tremendous, positive improvement over the current state.
Coaching that is practiced as an art is coaching that has the power to transform—to completely change the substance, appearance, and even essence of one thing into another. This can be a challenging craft, at first, for those who are goal oriented, driven by strategic plans, seeking benchmarks, and secure working in a sequential, linear progression. Goals and plans will be crucial for this journey, as long as they are guides and not dictators. However, transforming individuals, institutions, student experience, and our society will require a new set of tools and some new ways of being.
What Might a Transformed Education System Be Like?
I envision an education system that is equitable for all children. Because so many definitions are used for the term equity, I would like to share mine here.
In its most simplistic definition, equity means that every child gets what he or she needs in our schools—every child, regardless of where she comes from, what she looks like, who her parents are, what her temperament is, or what she shows up knowing or not knowing. Every child gets what she needs every day in order to have all the skills and tools that she needs to pursue whatever she wants after leaving our schools, and to lead a fulfilling life. Equity is about outcomes and experiences—for every child, every day.
An equitable education system, therefore, is one in which student achievement and learning are not predictable by race, class, language, gender, sexual orientation, or other such social factors. An equitable school system will be one in which African American and Latino males do not constitute the largest groups of students who do not graduate from high school. Nor will English language learners with learning disabilities have the lowest passing scores on a high school exit exam, as they do currently in California. Equitable classrooms will be those in which boys are not routinely the
students found in time-out chairs. According to a range of measurements including, but not limited to, standardized test scores and high school graduation rates, we will not be able to predict who will perform well in school. All students, regardless of family income levels, home zip codes, primary language, skin tone and gender, will have access to experiences, conditions, and support so that they can graduate from high school ready for college and careers.
This definition of equity is no small task. It describes a transformation that might be hard to imagine. It is this mind-set—that transformation is unimaginable, unattainable—that we must transform. The natural world abounds with transformation: life on Earth emerged from star dust! Human societies have undergone equally massive transformations. Consider the women's suffrage movement in the United States, Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent resistance to British colonialism, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. We can transform our schools. It is possible.
In order to meet the needs of all students, we must also transform the experience for the adults who work in schools. Until we address the social, emotional, and learning needs of educators, we won't be able to transform the experience for students. We can start by identifying the needs that teachers and administrators have, finding ways to meet those needs, and bringing groups of educators together in different ways. In this way, together and in healthy relationships with each other, we can explore solutions to current challenges and improve outcomes and experiences for kids. This is where coaching comes in. It is a holistic approach to working with people that incorporates an understanding of how institutions and systems impact experience and learning and that fosters transformation at multiple levels.