1. Do you agree that Instructional Coaches are in a position "to make people feel good about themselves (and) to feel good about their profession"? Share with us an experience in which you feel authentic communication (empathetic listening) empowered someone?
2. Have you found that your "thoughts, perceptions, beliefs, values, emotions, and prior knowledge" have affected your ability to REALLY listen to another person? How do you set aside these obstacles to look deeply for what another person has to offer?
3. An experience I had with Meyers Briggs transformed a staff to which I belonged. Our work with this tool enabled us set aside personal differences and to deeply respect one another. Awareness of our learning (and operating) styles rendered us a cohesive and powerful staff of presenters. Have you ever had experience with this, or another, "self-reporting instrument"? Would you be interested in taking one?
4. I have found that giving genuine compliments and finding common ground are two strategies that have worked best for me in forging a new relationship. What have you found to be most effective?
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4 comments:
1. Yes, I agree I/Cs are in a position to make people feel good about them selves and their profession! With that said, I also think it is a crucial starting off point if we want to be credible and be able to make change and have those difficult conversations later down the road. I feel that there is a difficult balance to keep with this job (maybe more so in the first years) between creating trust in relationships and also getting things done to justify the position. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, but other times when I am establishing relationships and “just talking” it can feel like a waste of time when there are so many other things to get done. I truly believe that we have to establish the trusting relationship but some days it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day!
2. Yes, I have found my “prior knowledge” has affected my listening abilities, unfortunately! I am working on really listening to those particular people and not doing much of the talking. The ones that I am having the most difficulties with are the same few folks that all it seems like they do is complain, and often it’s about each other!
3. I have not use the Meyers Briggs tool. I would like to see it and possibly use it. I had this section highlighted in my book to ask about!
4. I agree with giving compliments and common ground. I would also add that genuine conversation works well too! One of my best day as an I/C so far, was spent going classroom to classroom on a prep day and just talking to the teachers! It was great! Some of it was personal and some was work related, but it was all meaningful and well worth the time it took!
Gretchen
I/C's can make teachers feel good about themselves and the efforts that they are putting forth into the classrooms. I have a teacher who is so in tune with what she wants, ( I mean expects) her children to do in reading. She expects that all her children reguardless of where they are starting from will be readers and be at benchmark by the end of the year. She is not settling for anything else.
You can tell in her teaching and her practices that she genuinely believes this. I have been telling her in many prior conversations throughout the year that she will see the gains, just give the program she is using time to work. I know from prior knoweldge that change doesn't occur over night and doesn't happen quickly sometimes.
Finally, after progress monitoring and entering data for several weeks worth of PM we were able to sit down with graphs and really examine the growth that all her children are making. She is seeing double and triple gain in some instances. She is seeing growth even in those children that you wouldn't expect to see growth from.
I updated the data wall for November yesterday and dragged her in to look at it. She still had a smile on her face this morning when I brought it up again. I definately believe that there is a positive relationship because we are able to build upon our existing relationship. We have celebrated successes and now we can work on some of those children where tougher conversations are needing to occur.
1. I hope to help people feel good about the profession, and to feel good about themselves in that they are improving their "good enough" to actually good.
I know that authentic communication really helped Brent and me when we were team teaching: the honest, open conversations we had about what was going on in the classroom let us analyze each other's and our own teaching.
2. I liked the line, "If a coach writes off teachers as being resistant, hostile, or negative, they may dismiss teachers who might actually be open to change." We need to remember that the persona in the staff meeting may be different than the persona in the lunchroom which may be different than the persona in the classroom. We need to keep open minds and try to keep our own conflicts to a minimum!
3. I took the Meyers-Briggs in college, but haven't really looked at it since then. I just drug the results out of my files this evening. I'm an INTP, and reading the description on the handout of what INTPs enjoy and have problems with was shockingly accurate.
4. Genuine compliments only can be given by someone who is truly listening and observing the complimentee, which also helps in building relationships of trust.
Yes IC's can make people feel good about themselves and their profession. Absolutely! I became a mentor to a new teacher to KU this year because we both coached volleyball together. She was the head coach and I was her assistant but I could help her navigate through the sometimes turbulent waters of dealing with parents and discipline at the high school. Sometimes I just listened to her and let her vent.
2. Yes, my thoughts,perceptions really affect my ability to really listen to others on the staff at KU. This is probably because I've worked with some of these people for 20 years! That is a long time to build up a perception of someone. It is difficult to set these obstacles aside, but I want to look at how we can work together to improve the learning experience for kids at KU.
3.Yes, I took this as an administrative student and it is really interesting and helpful to know what can of learner I am and how to deal with those who are not like me.
4. Listening and showing you care is what relationships are about for everyone.
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