The Assistant Principal Podcast

The Assistant Principal Podcast

Episode 8: Who Should I Coach?

In this episode we look into the surprisingly complex question of “Who should I coach?” We examine the five ways that teachers grow, we overview what a systemic approach to teacher growth looks like in a school, and we answer the question. If you only have time to coach one or two people, then you can’t afford to choose the wrong person to coach. This podcast should help.

If I can only coach one teacher, who should I coach?

I’ve been working with the APEx assistant principals on coaching this fall. Knowing that people are very busy, we’ve been focusing on coaching just one person.

In all honesty, it hasn’t gone that well. There have been some successes, but lots of stumbling blocks as well.

What I am learning from this is just how complex coaching is. Of course, we can do very basic coaching without needing a ton of training, but every step carries its own complexities.

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. Today, we are taking a deep dive into one simple question – who should I coach?

After listening to this podcast, you might want to head over to my website, frederickbuskey.com, to watch the video. There are several key graphics that go along with today’s show and watching this show after listening to it should increase the value many fold. I will also include images in the show notes.

Before going further, please know that most of this podcast was written before I listened to Jennifer Gonzales’ Cult of Pedagogy podcast from October 19, 2021. I’ll include a link in the show notes, but her main point is that teachers are in an extra fragile state right now… now being the 2021-22 school year which, for many people, has been even more disruptive and challenging than 2020-21. Jennifer’s podcast has forced me to reflect on my message of growing people. So, I am going to go through the podcast as I had originally intended. At the end, I will share my current thinking on how to adapt the content to this unique and, I hope, temporary context.

Okay, on with the show.

There are three main things we need to consider to identify that one teacher to focus on:

·      First, what are the other avenues of professional development that teachers have open to them?

·      What system of supports does the instructional team provide for teachers?

·      What do you hope to gain from coaching?

We’ll explore these questions and at the end of the podcast I’ll provide my generic answer to the primary question, “who should I coach?”

Coaching does not happen in a vacuum. Coaching is just one strategy to help teachers grow. In the ideal world where resources are infinite, every teacher would benefit from highly personalized intense coaching. However, in the real world we need to view coaching as just one way to help teachers grow.

To better understand this, let’s look at what I call the cube of development. 

The cube of development is simply a metaphor for the multiple ways that teachers can grow. While a cube has six sides, I’ve only identified five paths for teacher growth. Maybe I should call it the pentagram of development, but cube sounds much cooler and I’m sure there is one thing that I have missed. Feel free to email me if you know what the missing side is!

The most common, and most powerful, way that teachers get better is through self-reflection and individual initiative. Self-reflection is the top of the cube. Good teachers routinely reflect on their practice and when they find things they want to improve, they look for resources, learn from those resources, and work to implement that new learning.

However, many teachers are not as self-reflective as we would like. Let’s be clear though, that lack of self-reflection is usually not their fault. In fact, we could say the same thing about ourselves: most school leaders aren’t as self-reflective as we should be. And again, it’s not really our fault.

I might dedicate a future podcast to helping teachers become more reflective, but for today I will just enumerate the challenges to being reflective:

·      Lack of time. If there is a magic bullet in education, providing more time for teachers to learn, plan, assess, and design is it.

·      Pressure and fear both inhibit reflection and there is lots of that going around.

·      The work that teachers do has become very fragmented. It isn’t simply a matter of prepping for three sections of English 10. There are so many other demands that not only cost time but which also fragment thinking and erode the concentration and focus required for deep reflection.

·      There is often little to no accountability or follow-up support for implementation beyond what the teachers can do for themselves. When I say accountability, I mean that in a positive sense. If we are going to put energy into learning something, then we should also put energy into supporting full implementation.

Internal training and workshops is the second side of the cube. Professional learning communities, or PLCs, are the most common example of this, but there are also book studies, lunch and learns, and a plethora of other formats. Instructional coaches and school district personnel may also lead small or whole group training. Topics may be identified by teachers, but more frequently someone else, an instructional expert or administrator, has determined the topic. It is also important to understand that these are group trainings and are rarely individualized for the needs of a specific teacher. An advantage of internal PD is that follow-up and implementation support are much more likely to exist.

External trainers and workshops are similar to internal ones except they may happen either on or offsite and the trainer is not a district employee. This allows for bringing in trainers who are true experts on a specific topic. When the trainings occur onsite, they are for a group of teachers. Typically, an expert will come to the school during a PD day or for an afternoon and do a training. The expert may also work with small teams of teachers during the school day, but when trainings occurs offsite they can serve as individualized professional development for teachers who chose to go. The biggest downsides to external PD is cost and the lack of follow-up support.

Mentoring and peer networks are the fifth side of the cube. Mentoring typically occurs when veteran teachers are paired with entry year teachers, but mentoring can happen in multiple other situations both formally and informally. Peer networks involve more than two teachers and are usuall...

Episode 7: Dr. Sam Sircey and Perspectives

Today I’m joined by Dr. Sam Sircey, the Principal of North Buncombe High School in Weaverville NC.Sam is here with us today to explore perspective taking!

Dr. Sam Sircey:

“If we can’t get a new perspective, we can become complacent and compliant. That’s okay if we are only here to behave well, but we are here to learn.”

“Faculty meetings – we are there to learn something.”

“If we forget that they [students] want to be part of the discussion, then its’s not going to go well.” 

“The relationships my teachers have with their students is more valuable than the content. I’ve always known that, but I don’t think I’ve ever embraced that.

“We need to start with what we can do before we can get to what we want to do.”

“They didn’t need me [to be down in the weeds with them], they needed me to be the person who had the answers.”

“The role of the AP is the most rewarding of anything. The principal role… isn’t that same ‘in the moment’ reward that you would get as an assistant principal.”

“My feelings of accomplishment have more to do with what they [APs] do than what I do.”

“Public school is a good place to be… what we do here has purpose, meaning, and value.”

“Being a principal and assistant principal is hard – and worth every minute of it!”

Frederick

“I forget I have a mountain view until the leaves fall off the trees. As leaders, we can become accustomed to a particular view, so much so that we forget what other views look like.”

“It’s the spirit of working together, which has to begin by acknowledging what the context is.”

“Boundaries provide structure and structure provides safety. If I don’t know where the boundaries are then things are unsafe.”

“You have established a leadership culture where we come together.”

Links:

My email: [email protected]

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html

Sign up for the daily leadership email: https://mailchi.mp/c15c68e6df32/specialedition

Website: www.frederickbuskey.com

Blog: www.frederickbuskey.com/blog (reposts of the daily email)

Today we are doing a coaching grab bag. Today’s episode was inspired by my ongoing work with assistant principals from several different school districts. With these APs we’ve already looked at different types of teacher observations (there are four), some basic observation tools, and some post-observation conferencing strategies. Last month each AP chose one thing to focus on helping a single teacher improve on. Earlier this week we unpacked their experiences and there was so much to talk about.

Links:

My email: [email protected]

The Assistant Principal Podcast website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/appodcast.html

Elena Aguilar, The art of Coaching, https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-art-of-coaching-effective-strategies-for-school-transformation_elena-aguilar/8984956/?resultid=4908afea-0d19-4a8d-adb5-3f2c69e8a81d#edition=8265430&idiq=5291743

Link to a video of a teacher that is interesting to think about (this is not my video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frK7UoNo8Og&t=8s

Imagine this: You receive only six emails a week. One is from your district office and provides all the info you need for the week. One is from your principal and provides all the info your teachers need for the week. The other four are from the PLC teams that you support and are copies of their meeting notes and action items.

Almost no email, and none of it urgent. Just FYI stuff. What could you do with the extra time?

On today’s episode, we examine your relationship with email. I’m your host, Frederick Buskey. The Assistant Principal Podcast focuses on the four themes of strategic leadership:

·      Prioritizing purpose over urgency

·      Dealing with problems instead of treating symptoms

·      Prioritizing progress over action and

·      Serving people ahead of completing tasks.

Email is such a critical thing because it impacts all four of the principles of strategic leadership!

·      The way we typically use email today reinforces the primacy of the urgent at the cost of being purposeful.

·      Email does not lend itself to deep and meaningful analysis and conversation, so it is almost always focused on surface level symptoms instead of root problems.

·      Because email feels so urgent, we focus more on responding to email than actually using it to create progress.

·      Finally, email consumes a disproportionate amount of time and attention at the cost of human interaction and helping people grow.

Today’s show is in response to my work with all of the assistant principals in the APEx program. If you don’t know what APEx is, you can check it out on my website at frederickbuskey.com/APEx.

At the beginning of this school year, I asked the APEx APs to identify their three biggest challenges and, unsurprisingly, email was one of the winners. In further conversations, some common themes emerged:

·      Most APs receive 15-100 emails a day (with 50 being typical)

·      Categories that take up the most time include discipline, teacher questions, athletics, testing, MTSS/Special Education

·      Most APs scan email on their phones multiple times a day.

·      Seeing alerts and knowing that there are unread/unanswered emails in their inbox adds stress to many APs.

·      Many APs view the inbox as a to-do list

·      APs approach email differently, with some feeling that careful crafting and thoughtful responses are important while others respond to emails as briefly and directly as possible.

·      Most APs have a system for prioritizing email and use folders to manage their inbox

·      Many APs will use phone calls to respond to complex emails.

·      Many APs check email outside of work hours.

I’m not an email expert and you can find tons of videos and recommendations on the Internet, so why bother listening to this podcast?  Aside from my soothing voice and uplifting demeanor, you might want to listen because we will examine email through a strategic lens.

If you look at typical email suggestions, they focus on responding to and organizing your email. This is like focusing solely on what you eat when you want to lose weight. Changing your diet is more complex than simply changing what you eat. Similarly, changing your email habits is about more than how you deal with the actual emails you receive. 

I’m going to assume that you are listening to this while you are traveling, but you may want to wait until you are in front of your email. It isn’t a requirement, but I will ask you to think about some things for which it might be handy to have your email in front of you. Of course, you could always listen to the podcast twice!

As we get started, it might be good to remember that email is a relatively new invention. Remember how we started this podcast, imaging that we only received a few emails a week and that they were all informational? That wasn’t a dream, it was the reality twenty years ago. In 2000, if someone wanted something from you, they needed to either call, physically hunt you down, or leave a note. This is a profound thing to understand. 

As a tool for sharing information, email is unsurpassed. The fundamental problem with email, is that we use it for many other things for which it was not designed.

Here’s a fun thing to try if you are in front of your email: Review your emails from the past day or two. How many of the requests or questions you received would people have asked if they had to call or visit you? 

My educated guess is not many.

This highlights two critical issues related to email:

1.     While email started out being a communication tool, but it has become something else – a to-do list.

2.     Because it is a communication tool, email makes it very easy, too easy, for other people to add things to YOUR to-do list.

When used inappropriately, which it often is, email becomes a way to add more work to people’s plates.

Getting control of email involves three aspects:

1.     Changing your relationship with email

2.     Building complimentary communication systems

3.     Managing the email you do get

Today we are focusing on the relationship aspect. We will dig into the other pieces in future episodes.

Let’s dive right in and begin by looking at the relationship you have with your email. Yes, you have a relationship with email, and it is this relationship that makes email so problematic. That’s why the first step to getting email under control is to change the relationship. Remember:

·      Email is a tool. That means it should serve you, not the other way around.

·      The primary purpose of the email tool is to facilitate the flow of information.

Any time you use email as something other than a tool and for a means other than information flow, you are changing your relationship with email. It’s that simple. Tool. Information. This is the simplest step in taming the email best, but perhaps it is also the most challenging.

Changing our relationship requires a better understanding of how we actually use email outside of its intended function for disseminating information. If you have the time to quietly reflect, pause the podcast and think about all the ways that you use your email. If you have access to your email, you can review recent messages and think about these questions:

·      How many simple questions did you get asked?

·      How many messages felt urgent?

·      How many were actually urgent – in the sense that someone was going to get hurt if the email wasn’t attended to immediately?

·      How many emails were FYI?

·      How many requests did you get to do things that weren’t essential to your job responsibilities?

·      Finally, how many emails had anything to do with helping your teachers get better?

This is a special edition of The Assignat Principal Podcast inspired by some work I did recently with nine assistant principals as part of the APEx program. This podcast assumes that you are familiar with 5-mc. If you aren’t, you can go to frederickbuskey.com/resources and download a one-pager. This is a deeper look at the purposes and techniques of 5-mc.

Purpose of 5-mc

1.     Help T become more reflective (by creating space)

2.     Show T that you value them (by listening)

3.     Help you understand what’s happening (by listening)

4.     Increase your listening skills (by not thinking about what you should say)

It is easy and low investment – don’t make it more complicated, there are other observation formats for that. This is like hitting the Bojangles drive through, not sitting down to a meal in a restaurant.

Similarly, 5-mc is an MVP approach. It is great, but it is only one part or step.

Impact over time:

1.     T begin answering the questions routinely without you being there to ask them (become more reflective practitioners)

2.     T view you as a partner in their growth and they will seek you out

3.     You will become more proactive because you will consistently have better information sooner.

4.     Your ability to focus will increase and your mind will quiet down

5.     Change is gradual – this is not about getting teachers to change a specific practice, it is about getting them to be more reflective over the long term.

If you are doing these things, you are not doing 5-minute coaching:

·      Trying to fix things

·      Trying to suggest things

·      Trying to make things better

·      Talking

·      Replying

·      Thinking about answers or next steps

·      You could use the questions as part of a more formal coaching cycle, but it isn’t 5-mc at that point.

(Don’t tarnish the brand!)

The most powerful, simplest, but hardest thing to do:

100% attention, listening, totally present in the moment.

·      It is a gift of immeasurable value.

·      Time is finite, we can’t make more of it, so it is the most valuable resource. Your teachers know that, so when you give them your undivided attention, they know you are giving them something special.

·      It is hard because we want to think about our response or about other things we must do. By understanding that the presence is the value, maybe we can let go of our need to be thinking about other things.

Multiple uses:

·      Reflecting on a lesson

·      A practice

·      A student

·      School culture

·      A school initiative

·      T socio-emotional health

What to do with what you learn?

·      Pieces of information are data a points.

·      One purpose of 5mc is for you to learn more about what’s going on, which means you are collecting data

·      It is anecdotal and informal data

·      How do we use it?

o   Write it down after coaching is over, probably shouldn’t tell T you are writing anything down. Do not write while doing 5-mc, it makes it too formal.

o   Reflect on themes and patterns at the end of the week

o   You can circle back later (hours or days) to follow up with more questions:

§  “You mentioned x, can you say more about that?”

§  “Would you be interested in having a conversation about Y?”

o   You can conduct normative observations in multiple classrooms to gather concrete data. Example, three teachers say they are having trouble keeping their focused lessons short. You can observe multiple focus lessons and look for patterns or wasted time (complex example)

o   Can do formative observations with specific teachers as a precursor to a coaching cycle. “You have mentioned in several 5-mc sessions that you wished you were asking deeper questions, would it be worth doing a coaching cycle on that?”

On being transparent:

·      It can be awkward to begin 5-mc, especially if you are new to the school or don’t have a history of engaging teachers in instructional conversation, or don’t have a school culture that encourages it.

·      Br transparent: “I am working on my instructional leadership, so I am trying to do this 5-mc ting. It works like this: I ask you three questions, then I shut up and listen. It’s teaching me to be a better listener.” Please be patient with me as I work on it.

Responding to certain things:

·      There are never surprises or things they would do differently: That’s okay. It is a sign that they either aren’t good at self-assessing or don’t trust you (or themselves)? Accepting their answers as valid, and being appreciative, will, over time, build trust and help them to become more reflective. The beauty of 5-mc is that it is a bit like yoga – you can start basic, but with continued practice even the same poses yield deeper more powerful results.

·      They ask for feedback: be honest – this is my gift to you, time for you to reflect on your own practice. If pressed, you can offer to come into their classroom later to observe something specific that they want.

·      Teacher wants to think more deeply and will get back to you: YES!!!! that’s a homerun because they are going deeper into reflection.

Going off script:

·      You can drop one (or two) of the questions, but don’t add anything.