April 23, 2024 • 26 mins
Transform your instructional coaching methods with the wisdom of Kenny McKee, our special guest, who brings the power of compassionate coaching into the spotlight. Get ready to harness the 'rule of two' through our discussion, ensuring that your coaching aligns seamlessly with teachers' goals and tackles the universal struggle with time constraints. Kenny provides a deep dive into personalized support, the kind that recognizes the unique hurdles educators face and cultivates their professional growth. Feel the warmth of nostalgia as we reminisce about our early leadership days back in 2014, threading our past insights into today's challenges within instructional coaching.
Kenny McKee is a National Board Certified Teacher, an instructional coaching author, and an experienced curriculum and content designer. For over a decade, Kenny worked as a high school literacy and instructional coach supporting classroom teachers and other school faculty in professional growth. His classroom teaching career was in middle and high school English language arts. He has also served as a Teaching Instructor for the department of Literacy, English, and History Education at East Carolina University. Kenny has partnered with private schools, public schools, districts, state departments, nonprofits, and education companies in various consulting and leadership roles throughout his career. He currently works as Customer Success Manager with Newsela.
Kenny's website: https://kennycmckee.com/Compassionate Coaching
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennethcmckee/
Select Blog Posts:
- How to make coaching cycles the center of instructional coaching work
- 4 ways teachers can learn from one another
- Instructional Coaching as Collaborative Action Research
Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z Professional Learning Services, Forward Thinking Educator Support. Find out more at www.PlanZPLServices.com. Follow us @PlanZPLS on Twitter and Instagram.
Buy The Minimalist Teacher book from ASCD+ISTE.
Follow on Instagram @PlanZEducation and @minimalist_ed_podcast.
The Minimalist Educator Podcast is a Plan Z Education Services adventure.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about pairing down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusiowsky-Borniman and Christine
Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In today's episode, kenny discusses compassionate
coaching with us.
He discusses some commonbarriers to coaching and what we
can do about them.
His pair down pointer is therule of two.
Kenny McKee is a national boardcertified teacher, an
instructional coaching authorand an experienced curriculum
and content designer.
For over a decade, kenny workedas a high school literacy and
(00:59):
instructional coach, supportingclassroom teachers and other
school faculty in professionalgrowth.
His classroom teaching careerwas in middle and high school
English language arts.
He has also served as ateaching instructor for the
Department of Literacy, englishand History Education at East
Carolina University.
Kenny has partnered withprivate schools, public schools,
(01:20):
districts, state departments,nonprofits and education
companies in various consultingand leadership roles throughout
his career.
He currently works as customersuccess manager with Newzella.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Welcome everyone to today's episode of the
Minimalist Educator Podcast.
Today we are speaking withKenny McKee, who is a fellow
emerging leader same class, 2014.
Woo, woo for us.
So we've known each other forquite a long time.
Kenny, how are you today?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm good.
You know, it's really funny,Tammy, I almost sent you a
picture the other day because Idon't know if you remember this,
but when you and I were in theemerging leaders, we got that
little yearbook.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And when you open it up, you and I are on opposite
pages.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
So it was really sweet to see like this, many
years later, us being stillconnected, even connected much
stronger now.
Yeah, and all that time nineyears later.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, it's crazy how the time has flown by and, yeah,
we've been through quite ajourney with just like different
things that we've done togetherand in with ASCD and outside of
ASCD, which is really awesome.
So, and it's fun that youfinally get to meet my co-author
for this episode, so that'sreally exciting and we're
(02:43):
excited to talk about some ofyour ideas from your book
Compassionate Coaching and justyou know things in general with
some of the roles that you'veworked in and how things kind of
all loop together.
So let's start, kenny, withsome of your ideas behind your
book, compassionate Coaching,which is a really valuable read
(03:07):
for coaches, instructionalleaders, admin, teachers, even
because your approach tocoaching, you know we're in,
we're talking about working withpeople who work with younger
people, and so you and yourco-author, kathy, how did you
come about the idea of focusingon compassion in coaching?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So we felt that there was arobust amount of research now in
the field related toinstructional coaching and that
you could if anyone who wantedto be a student of that
information in the field couldeasily find a book by one of its
(03:53):
leaders, like Jim Knight or,you know, elena Aguilar, diane
Sweeney.
These are people that we revere,have learned a lot from.
But one of the things we werethinking about was what actually
happens when you've kind of gota good framework for coaching
and you've got everything kindof set in place for it to be
(04:17):
successful, yet it's notsuccessful because of a specific
need or barrier that theteacher is facing in some way.
And so the book is really abouthoning in on the situational
context that teachers findthemselves in that make growth
hard, and how can coachingbasically be differentiated or
(04:43):
personalized to support thoseteachers in moving forward.
So that's kind of a high levelway of explaining the why of the
book, because we just keptsaying you know, in this
situation you've really got tolean into these practices.
In this situation you reallyhave to lean into these
(05:04):
practices.
And so we started reading a lotmore from those authors I cited
earlier, a lot of research onmotivation and achievement and
goal setting, as well as likelooking at our experiences as
coaches and what had beensuccessful and interviewing lots
(05:24):
of people to kind of figure out, like, what are the moves that
you make as a instructionalcoach or someone that supports
teachers and professional growth, whether that's in a coaching
role or not?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So at my current school we do have some
instructional coaches, were verylucky to have some already in
place and they have done somesurveys about why our teachers
do or do not engage in acoaching cycle, and the number
one reason that people do notengage is time.
So the teachers are reportingback that they feel like it's an
(05:57):
extra thing and they don't havetime to fit it in.
So would you agree that it isan extra thing, or, and how
would we combat that feeling ofwe don't have the time to do
this?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Oh, great, yeah, that's a.
That's a good question.
And so you know extra thing, Ithink really depends on the
goals and the nature of thecoaching.
So, for example, if, as a coach, you know my main role is to
have folks comply with somethingthat seems out of their daily
(06:34):
work, that would probably seemextra.
Or if, as a coach, I have aninternal goal that's in conflict
with the goals of the educatorand their students, then that
would also be something extraright.
And so I think one of thebiggest, one of the biggest
things you have to do is to makesure that you're in
(06:58):
synchronicity with the teachersgoals.
Now that takes time, like toactually know what their goals
are and uncover them right.
So so you know it's.
It's kind of a double edgedsword a little bit, but you know
, one of the things I thinkthat's a real issue for teachers
is in the book we talk aboutoverload.
That's one of the situationalaspects that might impact a
(07:21):
teacher being able to meet theirgoals, like they got too many
things and they don't haveenough time.
So we go through this goalsetting exercise with teachers
to help them basically try toprioritize their goals and then
and then us work to help support, like whatever is number one on
(07:41):
that list.
And so we ask a couple ofquestions to do that.
You know, the first question wegenerally ask is why is most
pressing, which is noteverybody's first question, but
you know, from my own experienceworking with teachers, I found
that that is the thing that's ontheir mind, is the thing that's
weighing them down, and if youdon't address it and try to help
(08:04):
make a plan for it, youactually probably can't get to
anything deeper or moreimportant in the grand scale of
things.
So we focus on what is mostpressing, and then the second
priority is what is mostimportant, and so we talk about
that next, and then usuallywe'll ask a question like is
(08:24):
there another goal you have thatwould make a difference for
your students?
And that one becomes numberthree, because hopefully the
first two make a difference forstudents, but we always try to
ground it in students if we can.
And then there's a couple ofquestions that we asked to help
eliminate things, and so thosequestions are things like if,
(08:46):
especially around goals.
So a question might be is thatare there going to be
professional repercussions if Idon't do this?
And so if there are, then it'sprobably important, but it may
not be one of your top goals.
But it also means that youcan't just like scratch it off
the list, right?
(09:06):
Another question is will thismake a difference for students?
That's a question to askyourself as a teacher, right?
So if it doesn't, maybe that'sa goal that you can cross off
your list, maybe it's notimportant.
We call those the distractors,the things that can be crossed
off.
And if you answer yes to someof those questions right, like
(09:27):
there are professionalrepercussions or it does matter
to students, we call those thenot nows.
So they're still important, westill hold them somewhere, but
we just can't get to them inthis moment, and I think that
helps.
That helps people prioritizewhere they should focus their
energies on completing thingsfirst, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and so the, the overload or the prioritization
can really help with thatoverload, because then you're
you're finding focus inparticular goals.
One of the other barriers youhave six that you've written
about in the book is thereanother one?
(10:08):
Because I feel like overload isa big one, like just teachers
are everywhere, are overwhelmed,overloaded, too much is
happening.
It can really feel like why amI meeting with my the
instructional coach right nowwhen I have like all this stuff
to do with my students and theycan't tap into?
Well, it's because we'remeeting, because it's going to
(10:30):
benefit your students, right?
So how do you?
And maybe that's like a mindsetbarrier or like something about
maybe a the lack in confidence.
I don't know if there's aconnection there, maybe, but
yeah, I was going to actuallydisconnect and thinking right.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah, I was actually going to highlight that when you
said, is there another one?
And what I was going to say isthe two of the ones in the book
that kind of surface the same inhow you might see someone react
are lack of confidence oroverload, because they both kind
(11:10):
of, when you're feeling thatway, either of those it can seem
.
Like you know the teachersunder a lot of stress.
They seem to like feel a littlebit like things are out of
control and they can't get agood handle on them.
But you have to dig deeper tofind out why.
(11:30):
So you know, we talk, we havesome statements in the book, so
like, for example, if it'soverload, that means I don't
have the time to do my job well,but when it's lack of
confidence, it's I don't havethe skills to do my job well.
Those are two different rootcauses.
(11:51):
Yeah, when you think of lack ofconfidence, a lot of that
happens when you've got somebodywho's new to the role.
They're either a brand newteacher, or there's somebody who
they're doing somethingdifferent for the first time.
Maybe they taught second grade,they moved up to fifth grade,
maybe they were a teacher andnow they're an instructional
coach they're trying to figureout how to master the skills on
(12:14):
the job, essentially.
So, when we look at that in thebook, our focus is really to
lean more into partnership.
Now, partnership should be apart of every type of coaching,
but it becomes really importantwhen somebody feels lack of
confidence.
They really need to feel likethey have a partner who's going
to be with them every step ofthe way.
They need to feel like they canbe vulnerable with that person.
(12:37):
If you're the coach, you alsoneed to share your vulnerability
with them.
A lot of it feels like actionresearch, collaborative action
research where you take thestance of, yes, as a coach, you
might be helping someone learn anew skill, but you don't
(13:01):
necessarily know how that'sgoing to work out in their
classroom context or with thosecertain students.
So you take an approach of hey,we're going to do this together
and if we succeed, we're goingto succeed together, and if we
fail, we're going to failtogether and we're going to
learn from it together.
So trying to take an approachlike that is really the best in
those situations.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Another one of the barriers that are mentioned
there is the school culturebeing a potential challenge.
Is that around organizationaltrust issues or admin teacher
roles?
What sort of challenges are weseeing in the school culture?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
You could talk about school culture so many different
ways.
In the book we categorize threetypes of cultures that we think
that coaching might have a rolein helping teachers kind of
survive and thrive, depending onhow bad it is.
The first type of schoolculture challenge is related to
(14:06):
a shifting culture, and so thisis when, for example, a school
has gotten a new administratorand they have new goals and
people aren't used to whateverthose goals are, or there's a
new curriculum or new resourcethat's being implemented, or,
like we talked about, we wrote,throughout 2020 and 2021.
So everyone has to shift toremote learning, but something
(14:31):
is introduced into the mix thatcauses change, and it's usually
external force that's forcingthe change.
Another type of school culturechallenge is a stagnant culture.
It's almost the opposite.
It's where people havebasically done the same thing
all along and it may not beserving students well, but
everyone's comfortable, and sothat's a different type of
(14:53):
school culture challenge.
And then the third one we talkabout is really toxic culture,
where it's just a very negativeenvironment that makes it really
hard for kids to learn in andfor teachers to feel safe, to
grow and ask questions even andthat's a whole other type of
culture, but for all three typesof school culture challenges we
(15:18):
always emphasize coaching movesaround openness how can we open
up the school culture more tolearn from one another?
And so a lot of that deals withwhat we call public teaching
practices, and all teaching ispublic.
Sometimes teachers laughbecause you'll say public
teaching I'm teaching a friendof kids every day.
(15:39):
It's all public.
But when we're talking aboutpublic teaching we're really
talking about opening up theclassroom for other teachers to
learn from one another andbelieving that teaching itself
is a practice that's worthstudying, and the best way to do
that is to actually observesomeone else to do it right.
There's a hierarchy there, solike if a school really isn't
(16:01):
very used to this and it's avery toxic environment, you know
you might have a morecontrolled setting that starts a
little smaller.
Maybe you do a couple oflearning walks and you know
there's not necessarily feedbackgiven to the teachers, but like
people talk about what are thethings they learned from that
right, and it's more of aninternal discussion with the
group all the way to the otherend of the spectrum of having,
(16:24):
you know, peer coaching, whereyou know you have worked on
building the culture up to apoint where people feel
comfortable asking for support,saying this is their focus,
getting strategies from oneanother, etc.
But yeah, that's where thatwhole idea of like school
culture challenges comes from.
Is these different culturesthat you know.
(16:48):
You hope that the practicesthat you have will actually
impact culture change over timeand we've seen that.
We've seen that in some of theschools that we've worked with.
I can't say it always happens,and so sometimes it's about
helping people find one anotherso they can thrive together in
(17:09):
an environment that may not beideal for that.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, and we know that to have any kind of
transformative change like that,you know it takes like some
persistence and perseverance andyou know three to five years to
see actual change.
So in the roles that you've hadas coach, working with admin,
(17:34):
other coaches how do you, inyour role, or like the previous
role that you had, keep yourselffrom feeling burnt out because
you're trying to work throughthese barriers with so many
teachers and teams?
Like that's taxing on a coach.
(17:55):
And so, like what are some ofthe things that you found you
had to do to maintain yoursanity right?
Because it's working with a lotof people, different barriers,
different levels of adoptionversus resistance right and just
trying to get everybody to kindof move along together.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, you know I I would have to say that one of
the most important things wasfighting, like, your network of
people who are outside of that.
You know, I had some reallygreat teacher leaders I worked
with.
That, you know, obviously youcould share with.
(18:36):
But it's different, like evenlike I always viewed myself, as
you know, a lateral position tothem and like on paper I was.
But there still is kind of apower dynamic that exists.
So, like, when you're coachingpeople, you can't totally always
be open with them in a way thatyou might be with somebody else
who does your job.
(18:57):
And so there were coaches in mydistrict that I could kind of
bounce ideas with and talkthrough issues with and
strategize with, and that wasgreat too.
But also there's kind of alayer there too of what exists
in that network that you'reworking with is a knowledge
based and experience that, whileit's very important, it is
(19:20):
limited.
So that is why I think it'sreally important that if you're
in a coaching role, that youconnect with people outside,
outside of your immediatesurroundings, your district,
your whatever ecosystem thatyou're working in, and so that
it's been really important tomake connections and contacts
(19:40):
beyond that, and so I've beenvery fortunate to be able to do
that a lot of different ways.
Now I will say I used to.
I used to get a lot of ideasand experiences and talking
through things through Twitter.
That was how I found a lot ofpeople.
Twitter, to me, is not the sameas it used to be, and so,
(20:03):
although it's still, you knowwell, and it's X now, by the way
, it's not the same thing andit's not that that's a useless
tool.
Now I think there's still a lotof thriving education
communities on there.
It's just that I'm not in themix with those as much.
But I will say that for me, thatwas a place where I could find
a lot of people.
It could be something different.
(20:24):
I mean, some folks find folkslike that through Facebook
groups.
Some people use, you know, somepeople can connect through
Instagram or LinkedIn, and Ithink that all those social
media tools are really helpful.
But also like in-person events,like if you can go to a
conference and meet somebody,especially if you're in coaching
(20:44):
and you can find a coachingconference, that's a great ideal
place to like make connectionswith people, right.
So I think that's really,really important to do.
And also, you know I alwaystake the stance.
This is something I learnedfrom one of Jill Knight's books
and it's an exercise I use.
I've used it in almost everyjob I've had and I used it
(21:05):
accidentally as a teacher a lot,and you two might be familiar
with this, but he has somethingthat he calls going to the
balcony and I'm not sure ifyou're familiar with this, what
it?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
means I can't, no, no .
Speaker 4 (21:18):
But what it basically means is like when you're in a
situation and it's reallyintense, instead of being there
with your feelings, you try tostep out of your mind to like an
observer who's on a balcony,who's watching over this
situation happening and you tryto think as that observer on the
(21:41):
balcony, what should thisperson do in this situation?
Because they have some distancefrom it, right.
And so whenever things feel alittle intense for me, I try to
like shift my thinking to anobserver and think about how
would this observer, what arethey witnessing?
And like if you react, if youlike, get upset with someone,
(22:03):
like how's that person going tointerpret that?
Versus like if you're open tolearning or if you're patient or
if you're asking questions.
It kind of keeps me in check alittle bit.
I can't say I'm 100% successfulwith that, but I'd say after
many years of practice, I'mmaybe 80% successful.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That sounds like such a good strategy to be able to
take a step back away from yourimmediate emotions and whatever
might be triggering you at thatmoment and think about it from a
different perspective.
That's a really good tip.
Thank you for that one.
Before we wrap things up today,we like to ask our guests to
give us a pare down pointer, soit could be building on
(22:43):
something that you've alreadymentioned or something that you
use personally in your life.
To pay back and get back to theessentials.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
So what I would share is what I call the rule of two,
and so the idea is that whenyou're coaching someone, first
of all whenever you're coachingsomeone.
I want to back it up a littlebit, so I'm going to do two
things here.
But you know, it's always good,first of all, it's always good
to ask questions.
(23:13):
As a coach Like that's what Ilean into I ask a question.
So, rather than plowing intogiving someone suggestions and
telling them how you think theyshould work on whatever they're
working on or to solve it, Ialways like to ask first, you
know, would you like suggestions?
(23:33):
And then, if they say yes, thenI use the rule of two, which
means that I will give them twothings and no more and no less.
And the reason for that is oneI want to show them that they
still have a choice in thedecision-making process, and so
(23:58):
giving them two possibilitieshelps them kind of think through
things.
Also, if you give them too many, there's that paralysis, the
was it analysis paralysis thatoccurs Like I worked with a
coach.
She was awesome coach, goodfriend, awesome human being, but
I remember like when she was mycoach, she would tell me like
12 things and like six of them.
(24:18):
I didn't know what they meant,like I'd never heard of them
before, right, like some Googlein the names, and then I
couldn't do anything.
So there is a danger of tellinggiving someone too many ideas
because then they feeloverwhelmed, right, but giving
them one.
One idea also communicates.
This is like I believe this isthe way to solve this, and so I
(24:41):
feel like two always gives themsome options and with those two,
also the option to opt out andsay I think this is actually a
third, better way.
So that's the rule of two.
It's pretty simple.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
We like simple and paradigm.
We just don't need toovercomplicate things sometimes.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
No, no.
There's too many things thatare complicated in the world, so
, like let's, let's figure outhow we can limit those while
still making good decisions.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, for sure.
Thank you so much for beingwith us today, Kenny.
That was a great conversation.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Hey, thank you both for having me.
I appreciated being here.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z
Professional Learning ServicesForward Thinking Educator
Support.
Find out more atPlanZPLServicescom.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the minimalisteducator podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at Plan Z PLSon Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
Gaia Moretti.
Welcome to the Minimalist Educator Podcast, a
podcast about pairing down torefocus on the purpose and
priorities in our roles withco-hosts and co-authors of the
Minimalist Teacher Book, TammyMusiowsky-Borniman and Christine
Arnold.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In today's episode, kenny discusses compassionate
coaching with us.
He discusses some commonbarriers to coaching and what we
can do about them.
His pair down pointer is therule of two.
Kenny McKee is a national boardcertified teacher, an
instructional coaching authorand an experienced curriculum
and content designer.
For over a decade, kenny workedas a high school literacy and
(00:59):
instructional coach, supportingclassroom teachers and other
school faculty in professionalgrowth.
His classroom teaching careerwas in middle and high school
English language arts.
He has also served as ateaching instructor for the
Department of Literacy, englishand History Education at East
Carolina University.
Kenny has partnered withprivate schools, public schools,
(01:20):
districts, state departments,nonprofits and education
companies in various consultingand leadership roles throughout
his career.
He currently works as customersuccess manager with Newzella.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Welcome everyone to today's episode of the
Minimalist Educator Podcast.
Today we are speaking withKenny McKee, who is a fellow
emerging leader same class, 2014.
Woo, woo for us.
So we've known each other forquite a long time.
Kenny, how are you today?
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm good.
You know, it's really funny,Tammy, I almost sent you a
picture the other day because Idon't know if you remember this,
but when you and I were in theemerging leaders, we got that
little yearbook.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And when you open it up, you and I are on opposite
pages.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 4 (02:10):
So it was really sweet to see like this, many
years later, us being stillconnected, even connected much
stronger now.
Yeah, and all that time nineyears later.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, it's crazy how the time has flown by and, yeah,
we've been through quite ajourney with just like different
things that we've done togetherand in with ASCD and outside of
ASCD, which is really awesome.
So, and it's fun that youfinally get to meet my co-author
for this episode, so that'sreally exciting and we're
(02:43):
excited to talk about some ofyour ideas from your book
Compassionate Coaching and justyou know things in general with
some of the roles that you'veworked in and how things kind of
all loop together.
So let's start, kenny, withsome of your ideas behind your
book, compassionate Coaching,which is a really valuable read
(03:07):
for coaches, instructionalleaders, admin, teachers, even
because your approach tocoaching, you know we're in,
we're talking about working withpeople who work with younger
people, and so you and yourco-author, kathy, how did you
come about the idea of focusingon compassion in coaching?
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Yeah, that's a great question.
So we felt that there was arobust amount of research now in
the field related toinstructional coaching and that
you could if anyone who wantedto be a student of that
information in the field couldeasily find a book by one of its
(03:53):
leaders, like Jim Knight or,you know, elena Aguilar, diane
Sweeney.
These are people that we revere,have learned a lot from.
But one of the things we werethinking about was what actually
happens when you've kind of gota good framework for coaching
and you've got everything kindof set in place for it to be
(04:17):
successful, yet it's notsuccessful because of a specific
need or barrier that theteacher is facing in some way.
And so the book is really abouthoning in on the situational
context that teachers findthemselves in that make growth
hard, and how can coachingbasically be differentiated or
(04:43):
personalized to support thoseteachers in moving forward.
So that's kind of a high levelway of explaining the why of the
book, because we just keptsaying you know, in this
situation you've really got tolean into these practices.
In this situation you reallyhave to lean into these
(05:04):
practices.
And so we started reading a lotmore from those authors I cited
earlier, a lot of research onmotivation and achievement and
goal setting, as well as likelooking at our experiences as
coaches and what had beensuccessful and interviewing lots
(05:24):
of people to kind of figure out, like, what are the moves that
you make as a instructionalcoach or someone that supports
teachers and professional growth, whether that's in a coaching
role or not?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So at my current school we do have some
instructional coaches, were verylucky to have some already in
place and they have done somesurveys about why our teachers
do or do not engage in acoaching cycle, and the number
one reason that people do notengage is time.
So the teachers are reportingback that they feel like it's an
(05:57):
extra thing and they don't havetime to fit it in.
So would you agree that it isan extra thing, or, and how
would we combat that feeling ofwe don't have the time to do
this?
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Oh, great, yeah, that's a.
That's a good question.
And so you know extra thing, Ithink really depends on the
goals and the nature of thecoaching.
So, for example, if, as a coach, you know my main role is to
have folks comply with somethingthat seems out of their daily
(06:34):
work, that would probably seemextra.
Or if, as a coach, I have aninternal goal that's in conflict
with the goals of the educatorand their students, then that
would also be something extraright.
And so I think one of thebiggest, one of the biggest
things you have to do is to makesure that you're in
(06:58):
synchronicity with the teachersgoals.
Now that takes time, like toactually know what their goals
are and uncover them right.
So so you know it's.
It's kind of a double edgedsword a little bit, but you know
, one of the things I thinkthat's a real issue for teachers
is in the book we talk aboutoverload.
That's one of the situationalaspects that might impact a
(07:21):
teacher being able to meet theirgoals, like they got too many
things and they don't haveenough time.
So we go through this goalsetting exercise with teachers
to help them basically try toprioritize their goals and then
and then us work to help support, like whatever is number one on
(07:41):
that list.
And so we ask a couple ofquestions to do that.
You know, the first question wegenerally ask is why is most
pressing, which is noteverybody's first question, but
you know, from my own experienceworking with teachers, I found
that that is the thing that's ontheir mind, is the thing that's
weighing them down, and if youdon't address it and try to help
(08:04):
make a plan for it, youactually probably can't get to
anything deeper or moreimportant in the grand scale of
things.
So we focus on what is mostpressing, and then the second
priority is what is mostimportant, and so we talk about
that next, and then usuallywe'll ask a question like is
(08:24):
there another goal you have thatwould make a difference for
your students?
And that one becomes numberthree, because hopefully the
first two make a difference forstudents, but we always try to
ground it in students if we can.
And then there's a couple ofquestions that we asked to help
eliminate things, and so thosequestions are things like if,
(08:46):
especially around goals.
So a question might be is thatare there going to be
professional repercussions if Idon't do this?
And so if there are, then it'sprobably important, but it may
not be one of your top goals.
But it also means that youcan't just like scratch it off
the list, right?
(09:06):
Another question is will thismake a difference for students?
That's a question to askyourself as a teacher, right?
So if it doesn't, maybe that'sa goal that you can cross off
your list, maybe it's notimportant.
We call those the distractors,the things that can be crossed
off.
And if you answer yes to someof those questions right, like
(09:27):
there are professionalrepercussions or it does matter
to students, we call those thenot nows.
So they're still important, westill hold them somewhere, but
we just can't get to them inthis moment, and I think that
helps.
That helps people prioritizewhere they should focus their
energies on completing thingsfirst, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, and so the, the overload or the prioritization
can really help with thatoverload, because then you're
you're finding focus inparticular goals.
One of the other barriers youhave six that you've written
about in the book is thereanother one?
(10:08):
Because I feel like overload isa big one, like just teachers
are everywhere, are overwhelmed,overloaded, too much is
happening.
It can really feel like why amI meeting with my the
instructional coach right nowwhen I have like all this stuff
to do with my students and theycan't tap into?
Well, it's because we'remeeting, because it's going to
(10:30):
benefit your students, right?
So how do you?
And maybe that's like a mindsetbarrier or like something about
maybe a the lack in confidence.
I don't know if there's aconnection there, maybe, but
yeah, I was going to actuallydisconnect and thinking right.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yeah, I was actually going to highlight that when you
said, is there another one?
And what I was going to say isthe two of the ones in the book
that kind of surface the same inhow you might see someone react
are lack of confidence oroverload, because they both kind
(11:10):
of, when you're feeling thatway, either of those it can seem
.
Like you know the teachersunder a lot of stress.
They seem to like feel a littlebit like things are out of
control and they can't get agood handle on them.
But you have to dig deeper tofind out why.
(11:30):
So you know, we talk, we havesome statements in the book, so
like, for example, if it'soverload, that means I don't
have the time to do my job well,but when it's lack of
confidence, it's I don't havethe skills to do my job well.
Those are two different rootcauses.
(11:51):
Yeah, when you think of lack ofconfidence, a lot of that
happens when you've got somebodywho's new to the role.
They're either a brand newteacher, or there's somebody who
they're doing somethingdifferent for the first time.
Maybe they taught second grade,they moved up to fifth grade,
maybe they were a teacher andnow they're an instructional
coach they're trying to figureout how to master the skills on
(12:14):
the job, essentially.
So, when we look at that in thebook, our focus is really to
lean more into partnership.
Now, partnership should be apart of every type of coaching,
but it becomes really importantwhen somebody feels lack of
confidence.
They really need to feel likethey have a partner who's going
to be with them every step ofthe way.
They need to feel like they canbe vulnerable with that person.
(12:37):
If you're the coach, you alsoneed to share your vulnerability
with them.
A lot of it feels like actionresearch, collaborative action
research where you take thestance of, yes, as a coach, you
might be helping someone learn anew skill, but you don't
(13:01):
necessarily know how that'sgoing to work out in their
classroom context or with thosecertain students.
So you take an approach of hey,we're going to do this together
and if we succeed, we're goingto succeed together, and if we
fail, we're going to failtogether and we're going to
learn from it together.
So trying to take an approachlike that is really the best in
those situations.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Another one of the barriers that are mentioned
there is the school culturebeing a potential challenge.
Is that around organizationaltrust issues or admin teacher
roles?
What sort of challenges are weseeing in the school culture?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
You could talk about school culture so many different
ways.
In the book we categorize threetypes of cultures that we think
that coaching might have a rolein helping teachers kind of
survive and thrive, depending onhow bad it is.
The first type of schoolculture challenge is related to
(14:06):
a shifting culture, and so thisis when, for example, a school
has gotten a new administratorand they have new goals and
people aren't used to whateverthose goals are, or there's a
new curriculum or new resourcethat's being implemented, or,
like we talked about, we wrote,throughout 2020 and 2021.
So everyone has to shift toremote learning, but something
(14:31):
is introduced into the mix thatcauses change, and it's usually
external force that's forcingthe change.
Another type of school culturechallenge is a stagnant culture.
It's almost the opposite.
It's where people havebasically done the same thing
all along and it may not beserving students well, but
everyone's comfortable, and sothat's a different type of
(14:53):
school culture challenge.
And then the third one we talkabout is really toxic culture,
where it's just a very negativeenvironment that makes it really
hard for kids to learn in andfor teachers to feel safe, to
grow and ask questions even andthat's a whole other type of
culture, but for all three typesof school culture challenges we
(15:18):
always emphasize coaching movesaround openness how can we open
up the school culture more tolearn from one another?
And so a lot of that deals withwhat we call public teaching
practices, and all teaching ispublic.
Sometimes teachers laughbecause you'll say public
teaching I'm teaching a friendof kids every day.
(15:39):
It's all public.
But when we're talking aboutpublic teaching we're really
talking about opening up theclassroom for other teachers to
learn from one another andbelieving that teaching itself
is a practice that's worthstudying, and the best way to do
that is to actually observesomeone else to do it right.
There's a hierarchy there, solike if a school really isn't
(16:01):
very used to this and it's avery toxic environment, you know
you might have a morecontrolled setting that starts a
little smaller.
Maybe you do a couple oflearning walks and you know
there's not necessarily feedbackgiven to the teachers, but like
people talk about what are thethings they learned from that
right, and it's more of aninternal discussion with the
group all the way to the otherend of the spectrum of having,
(16:24):
you know, peer coaching, whereyou know you have worked on
building the culture up to apoint where people feel
comfortable asking for support,saying this is their focus,
getting strategies from oneanother, etc.
But yeah, that's where thatwhole idea of like school
culture challenges comes from.
Is these different culturesthat you know.
(16:48):
You hope that the practicesthat you have will actually
impact culture change over timeand we've seen that.
We've seen that in some of theschools that we've worked with.
I can't say it always happens,and so sometimes it's about
helping people find one anotherso they can thrive together in
(17:09):
an environment that may not beideal for that.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yeah, and we know that to have any kind of
transformative change like that,you know it takes like some
persistence and perseverance andyou know three to five years to
see actual change.
So in the roles that you've hadas coach, working with admin,
(17:34):
other coaches how do you, inyour role, or like the previous
role that you had, keep yourselffrom feeling burnt out because
you're trying to work throughthese barriers with so many
teachers and teams?
Like that's taxing on a coach.
(17:55):
And so, like what are some ofthe things that you found you
had to do to maintain yoursanity right?
Because it's working with a lotof people, different barriers,
different levels of adoptionversus resistance right and just
trying to get everybody to kindof move along together.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Yeah, you know I I would have to say that one of
the most important things wasfighting, like, your network of
people who are outside of that.
You know, I had some reallygreat teacher leaders I worked
with.
That, you know, obviously youcould share with.
(18:36):
But it's different, like evenlike I always viewed myself, as
you know, a lateral position tothem and like on paper I was.
But there still is kind of apower dynamic that exists.
So, like, when you're coachingpeople, you can't totally always
be open with them in a way thatyou might be with somebody else
who does your job.
(18:57):
And so there were coaches in mydistrict that I could kind of
bounce ideas with and talkthrough issues with and
strategize with, and that wasgreat too.
But also there's kind of alayer there too of what exists
in that network that you'reworking with is a knowledge
based and experience that, whileit's very important, it is
(19:20):
limited.
So that is why I think it'sreally important that if you're
in a coaching role, that youconnect with people outside,
outside of your immediatesurroundings, your district,
your whatever ecosystem thatyou're working in, and so that
it's been really important tomake connections and contacts
(19:40):
beyond that, and so I've beenvery fortunate to be able to do
that a lot of different ways.
Now I will say I used to.
I used to get a lot of ideasand experiences and talking
through things through Twitter.
That was how I found a lot ofpeople.
Twitter, to me, is not the sameas it used to be, and so,
(20:03):
although it's still, you knowwell, and it's X now, by the way
, it's not the same thing andit's not that that's a useless
tool.
Now I think there's still a lotof thriving education
communities on there.
It's just that I'm not in themix with those as much.
But I will say that for me, thatwas a place where I could find
a lot of people.
It could be something different.
(20:24):
I mean, some folks find folkslike that through Facebook
groups.
Some people use, you know, somepeople can connect through
Instagram or LinkedIn, and Ithink that all those social
media tools are really helpful.
But also like in-person events,like if you can go to a
conference and meet somebody,especially if you're in coaching
(20:44):
and you can find a coachingconference, that's a great ideal
place to like make connectionswith people, right.
So I think that's really,really important to do.
And also, you know I alwaystake the stance.
This is something I learnedfrom one of Jill Knight's books
and it's an exercise I use.
I've used it in almost everyjob I've had and I used it
(21:05):
accidentally as a teacher a lot,and you two might be familiar
with this, but he has somethingthat he calls going to the
balcony and I'm not sure ifyou're familiar with this, what
it?
Speaker 3 (21:17):
means I can't, no, no .
Speaker 4 (21:18):
But what it basically means is like when you're in a
situation and it's reallyintense, instead of being there
with your feelings, you try tostep out of your mind to like an
observer who's on a balcony,who's watching over this
situation happening and you tryto think as that observer on the
(21:41):
balcony, what should thisperson do in this situation?
Because they have some distancefrom it, right.
And so whenever things feel alittle intense for me, I try to
like shift my thinking to anobserver and think about how
would this observer, what arethey witnessing?
And like if you react, if youlike, get upset with someone,
(22:03):
like how's that person going tointerpret that?
Versus like if you're open tolearning or if you're patient or
if you're asking questions.
It kind of keeps me in check alittle bit.
I can't say I'm 100% successfulwith that, but I'd say after
many years of practice, I'mmaybe 80% successful.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That sounds like such a good strategy to be able to
take a step back away from yourimmediate emotions and whatever
might be triggering you at thatmoment and think about it from a
different perspective.
That's a really good tip.
Thank you for that one.
Before we wrap things up today,we like to ask our guests to
give us a pare down pointer, soit could be building on
(22:43):
something that you've alreadymentioned or something that you
use personally in your life.
To pay back and get back to theessentials.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
So what I would share is what I call the rule of two,
and so the idea is that whenyou're coaching someone, first
of all whenever you're coachingsomeone.
I want to back it up a littlebit, so I'm going to do two
things here.
But you know, it's always good,first of all, it's always good
to ask questions.
(23:13):
As a coach Like that's what Ilean into I ask a question.
So, rather than plowing intogiving someone suggestions and
telling them how you think theyshould work on whatever they're
working on or to solve it, Ialways like to ask first, you
know, would you like suggestions?
(23:33):
And then, if they say yes, thenI use the rule of two, which
means that I will give them twothings and no more and no less.
And the reason for that is oneI want to show them that they
still have a choice in thedecision-making process, and so
(23:58):
giving them two possibilitieshelps them kind of think through
things.
Also, if you give them too many, there's that paralysis, the
was it analysis paralysis thatoccurs Like I worked with a
coach.
She was awesome coach, goodfriend, awesome human being, but
I remember like when she was mycoach, she would tell me like
12 things and like six of them.
(24:18):
I didn't know what they meant,like I'd never heard of them
before, right, like some Googlein the names, and then I
couldn't do anything.
So there is a danger of tellinggiving someone too many ideas
because then they feeloverwhelmed, right, but giving
them one.
One idea also communicates.
This is like I believe this isthe way to solve this, and so I
(24:41):
feel like two always gives themsome options and with those two,
also the option to opt out andsay I think this is actually a
third, better way.
So that's the rule of two.
It's pretty simple.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
We like simple and paradigm.
We just don't need toovercomplicate things sometimes.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
No, no.
There's too many things thatare complicated in the world, so
, like let's, let's figure outhow we can limit those while
still making good decisions.
Speaker 3 (25:15):
Yeah, for sure.
Thank you so much for beingwith us today, Kenny.
That was a great conversation.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Hey, thank you both for having me.
I appreciated being here.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Today's episode was brought to you by Plan Z
Professional Learning ServicesForward Thinking Educator
Support.
Find out more atPlanZPLServicescom.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Be sure to join Tammy and Christine and guests for
more episodes of the minimalisteducator podcast.
They would love to hear aboutyour journey with minimalism.
Connect with them at Plan Z PLSon Twitter or Instagram.
The music for the podcast hasbeen written and performed by
Gaia Moretti.
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