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Have you been the recipient of praise that felt lavish and insincere? Experienced teachers usually have a built-in praise barometer and know full-well when they have really accomplished something praiseworthy and when they have not. Constant praise can become background noise or, worse yet, can cause skepticism or self-doubt.  When coaches use frequent or generic praise connected to tiny achievements, it can actually backfire, creating cynicism and undermining the coach’s role as a mentor. A teacher who is overly-praised for tasks that require little effort might doubt the sincerity of her coach or wonder if such praise is offered because there’s nothing more substantive to compliment. When praise is excessive or focused on trivialities, it may not be well-received and can lose its effectiveness (Bayat, 2011). Yet praise is an ingrained, Anglo-American cultural phenomenon (Quinn, 2005) – and one with many benefits, if used appropriately. Rather than choosing not to praise, co...

Today I was talking to one of the most effective young teachers I know. Jason is energetic, intelligent, and always looking for a way to better his practice. But he is a fourth year teacher who almost didn’t make it to a fifth year. That’s because frustrations with new curriculum and a difficult group of students left him wondering if it was worth the pain.   Jason’s confession that he had considered leaving the profession came as a total surprise to me – but it shouldn’t have. Attrition of teachers during their first five years is 30 – 40% nationwide.*   I have become increasingly alarmed by the number of early-career teachers who are choosing to leave the profession. Talented peers have become overwhelmed or frustrated and leave the teaching ranks, even though they’ve just invested extensive time and money in obtaining teaching licenses and advanced degrees. Although teachers leave for a variety of reasons, the overall impact is a shift toward a less-experienced profession.*...

Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement -- and we will make the goal.        ~Jerome Fleishman Do teachers in your school feel like they are swimming against the current in the flood of spring testing? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated when test prep gets prioritized, pushing real teaching to the back burner. During stressful times, praise can help teachers find their happy spot – the reason they come to school every morning! At this time of year, it’s especially important to be on the lookout for praiseworthy actions. “To praise is an investment in happiness,” said newspaper columnist George Adams. We invest in a teacher’s happiness account when we notice and note something good happening. Here’s an email I just sent to Amber, a teacher I’m working with: “Thank you for your thoughtful comments during the meeting this week. It was clear that you were really thinking about t...

As coaches, we leave our footprint in the teaching lives of others. Recommending a teaching practice is an obvious way to influence a teacher's repertoire, and this coaching move is useful early in a coaching cycle when a teacher is looking for new ideas. Later, as teachers are generating their own ideas, we might less-directly leave a footprint through what we choose to affirm. The saying, “What gets tested gets taught,” has its equivalent in the coaching realm: What gets affirmed gets carried on. Affirmations provide encouragement to sustain effective instruction. A coach I was talking with commented, “(Affirmations) gave her the recognition she needed to know how to continue.” I added that the affirmations also gave her the recognition of what to continue. Specific affirmations help teachers determine what to hang on to. One of my coaching friends related that a teacher had given her lesson plans to look over, asking, “Does this look okay?” When my friend confirmed the effective...