Don’t conclude before you understand. After you understand, don’t judge. Ann Dunham, anthropologist.
Evaluate and guide. (Linda Belans)
Urgency is at the core of our work: it pushes us to do whatever it takes for our Kids, turning our impatience with an inequitable educational system into vision and action. Urgency can also direct that impatience to our staff, devolving into coaching to deficits with sentences that being with You’re not, and other phrases that repeatedly send the message to them that they’re not good enough. We know this doesn’t work with students. And it doesn’t work with adults – to retain them or toward achieving our mission.
ASSETS works through inquiry and suggestion to help build essential trusting relationships, which are at the heart of effective coaching. ASSETS creates a mindset to foster successful outcomes. This makes it possible to offer tough feedback when the situation calls for it.
Assess the situation from an open and neutral mind: what will I learn, hear or see today?
Seek information by turning criticism into nonjudgmental inquiry.
Solicit stories to gather data and listen for salient themes to work with.
Extrapolate successful elements and techniques.
Transform successful techniques to apply to challenging situations.
Succeed.
Assess: Before we enter the classroom for an observation, debrief a lesson, or coach a staff member, it’s wise to pause and check our assumptions. We want to make sure we’re entering the room in a mindset of evaluation, not judgment.
→ Will you feel judgmental about the teacher’s inability to capture the students’ attention, or evaluative about the technique she is using to convey information?
The first step is to:
Seek: You walk into a history classroom where the teacher is explaining reasons the United States got involved in WWI. You notice that the students are checked out. Check in with yourself before you check out with the teacher:
→We want to offer successful models to strive toward, rather than dwell on behaviors that don’t work. This sets the tone for true learning and creates pathways for transformation.
A strategy is to:
Solicit: Before you meet with this teacher to debrief the observation, take 60 seconds to focus your attention on her: check your judgment and turn criticism into nonjudgmental inquiry.
Breathe, picture bringing out her best teaching, then enter the debriefing session.
- What worked for you in this class? (Remember: You are using ASSETS to build relationships while offering feedback toward change).
- Why did it work?
- What were your objectives?
- What would you have liked to work better?
- I can imagine it was upsetting to you that your students weren’t paying attention and didn’t seem interested. Talk to me about a recent time when your class was fully engaged.
→This is an example of framing the parameters of the brief story you are seeking.
She might reply: We were studying a president whose words were different from his deeds which affected other leaders’ policy decisions. I asked the students to think and talk about the confusion this caused, and to recall for themselves a time when what they said and did were two different things, and how that might have confused people and caused arguments.
→Soliciting stories and listening for salient themes creates a non-threatening environment, takes the teacher to a successful mindset and helps sets the stage to:
Extrapolate: You point out to the teacher that her students are most attentive and participatory when they engage in critical thinking and inquiry, and when they can relate the information to their own lives (dual purpose teaching).
How were you bringing history alive to make it relevant to the students’ lives?
She might answer: I talked about history as if I were telling a story, with characters, action, conflict and so on. You guide her to:
Transform. What dual purpose lesson do you want to teach about our entry into WWI? It is wise to focus on The One Thing you hope to transform.
She may reply: I want students to learn through history that when they fight with people, there are often many things that contribute to it and can affect lots of other people. I want them to learn that words and deeds are powerful.
How would you transform this to apply it to the situation we are working with?
→“We” is inclusive and let’s her know that you are solving this problem together.
If she doesn’t know how to do this, you can offer:
What about setting the stage for entry into WWI as a play and assign parts; some students could play the countries involved to help them think beyond themselves.
The two of you can tease this out. The teacher is likely lit up by now and you realize that her passion for the topic has returned. She is fully engaged; just as you want her students to be: success floods the room. Offer her resources if she needs them.
Succeed: When doing an observation, debriefing or responding to a situation, it’s helpful to assume that people wake up each day with the intention of doing their best.
→We want to aim our responses to a bigger vision of themselves than they might have.
Offer observations about things that work rather than things that don’t work so they know what is expected and have a tangible outcome to head toward. To help insure follow-through and success, break things down into manageable, realistic chunks so that the teacher can build upon them. Compliment her when she’s mastering the art of teaching by pointing out the specific things she has done so she can continue to transfer and transform them.
→Thoughtful positive feedback and tools build confidence and trust. This makes it possible to have corrective conversations when your feedback is direct rather than through the inquiry process.
