The Challenge of Advice
As an instructional coach, I’m amazed how challenging it can be to flip a switch from successfully supporting students to successfully supporting adults. Master teachers know that students need to be the primary driver in their own learning, and so they ensure that there are ample opportunities for the students in their classes to be the main agents – to be the ones developing ideas, solving problems, highlighting and fixing errors, challenging ideas, etc. While I know that this same premise is true for teachers – that teachers need to be the main agents or the main thinkers in solving their problems – it was and is difficult to restrain myself as an instructional coach from stepping in immediately as a problem solver.
Like most great problems, there is an incredible nuance to being an effective instructional coach who recognizes when they should offer concrete, simple solutions and when they should guide a teacher to uncover their own path. In my first year as a coach, I was working with a second year teacher, Caitlin* who consistently asked for advice, and I wanted to support her in the way she was asking for support. I felt a desire to prove that I knew things and that I had rightfully earned my coaching role due to effective practices in my classroom. Shouldn’t I share my knowledge and give Caitlin what she is asking for, straight advice? The answer is: sometimes…maybe.
Caitlin’s frequent requests for specific feedback resulted in our meetings feeling more formulaic and transactional compared to the coaching meetings I had with more experienced teachers, where we naturally fell into explorations of student work or participation. She would ask a specific question, and we would decide on a small concrete change Caitlin could make. I would agree to see that change in action – like a tweak in homework procedures or increasing wait time before calling on students. At the next meeting, we would discuss that shift and select something new. From the outside perspective, these small concrete changes would seem like progress, but I felt that something was missing.
On the one hand, my advice seemed to help build trust in our budding teacher-coach relationship. Trust is vital to building all relationships – and especially coaching relationships with adults. Elementary-age children tend to give you fresh chances easily, and trust can be repaired relatively quickly. Adolescents and adults, however, will remember how you made them feel and require a longer time to fix a relationship that has been harmed. Since the changes seemed to “work” for this teacher, she would ask again for advice, and I, feeling successful, felt we were on an okay path.
On the other hand, I began to question this advice cycle. Had I asked enough questions to truly understand the problem? We began trying various structures surrounding student small group work, and my inclination was to dig into how we knew what the students understood. I also asked questions about who did the work within the group and how we might encourage more voices. But I didn’t really dig in and kept reverting to more surface-level advice surrounding specific groupings or where in the room the students would work. As the year went on, I realized Caitlin was deeply passionate about the curriculum – about which concepts were covered and in what order. It felt like a missed opportunity that I had not discovered this sooner. I think we could have made more valuable progress for her by focusing more on her passion for the curriculum or making connections between the curricular choices and the small group work. I found I didn’t really understand her beliefs and assumptions behind the problem we were addressing. We began digging into what effective group work meant to Caitlin. She wanted the students to see how the individual details were a piece of the bigger picture so we began working on reflection questions that had them make more connections. This work felt more important and the conversations felt more valuable as we dug in and moved away from the concrete advice.
The goal of the coaching slowly shifted from effective small group practices to ensuring students’ understanding, which is not an uncommon experience (see “The Power of Coaching”).
Another challenge I faced in quickly becoming a “problem solver” was that I was doing the work of thinking through solutions. Teachers benefit from brainstorming and solving solutions with the support of a coach as opposed to merely implementing the coach’s ideas. Instead of offering a quick solution, could I ask some more questions to see what Caitlin might want to try? Or could we have tried to ensure that we were truly addressing the root of the issue? Was this even solvable?
To help address this nuance and to decide when and which advice might be appropriate, I needed to carefully consider my own values and perspectives that I brought along with me. Knowles offers a Coaching Academy course that trains teachers in the art of instructional coaching. The course elevates the components of identity and power that a coach should consider in approaching their coaching relationship. Based on work from Elena Aguilar’s Arise: The Art of Transformational Coaching, we support coaches in training to recognize that the work of a coach and teacher does not happen in a vacuum and that they must consider underlying beliefs and ways of being to expect true change. Otherwise, addressing surface-level issues may create some temporary change, but is unlikely to lead to transformation. The coach is not excused from the transformational process. They must also bring an honest curiosity to the work and an openness to change.
Here are some ideas I try to keep in mind before dispensing advice (and yes, I recognize the irony of listing advice on giving advice…) :
- Ensure I understand the issue. Is it the most impactful/important issue to address with the teacher?
- Identify any skill or knowledge gaps. Can I build off a solution they already have? Can I help them build problem-solving skills?
- Attend to emotions. Is this teacher at their wits’ end? Is this a new or continuing problem?
- Have I checked my disposition, attitude, and emotional state?
- How might my identity and the identity of the person I’m coaching affect my thinking?
In the book The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier suggests coaches
Stop offering up advice with a question mark attached. That doesn’t count as asking a question.
If you’ve got an idea, wait. Ask, “And what else?” and you’ll often find that the person comes up with that very idea that’s burning a hole in your brain. And if she doesn’t, then offer your idea- as an idea, not disguised as a fake question.
With this now in mind, I reflect on my work with Caitlin. While I would likely still want to dispense some concrete advice, I would have asked a lot more questions. I imagine that this might have felt less “productive” at the time for both of us. I also imagine that I would have learned more sooner about what Caitlin believed and valued about learning. By examining what Caitlin thought an effective classroom looked, sounded, and felt like, I would have been building trust differently. The relationship built was valuable, and yet, I can’t help thinking that we both could have grown more had we explored our beliefs.
*Caitlin is a pseudonym