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How do you spell coaching?  What are its essential characteristics? I pondered this question through poetry, hoping for insights, because poetry distills meaning, filtering the extraneous and crystalizing the essential.  Acrostic poetry, simple as it is, forces a focus on essential characteristics.  Here are my essential characteristics of coaching, acrostic style: C ollaborative O pen A pproachable C ollegial H onors expertise I nvitational N on-evaluative G rowth mindset Or take a look at coaching through Haiku: Listening harder Real concerns swirl and surface We make the current If you are beginning to plan for opening activities for the school year, consider including poetry with a focus on teaching and learning.  Blend opportunities for both collaboration and individual composing.  Finding just the right words to describe these important processes can set the stage for deep conversation.  This week, you might want to take a look at: Goal setting and Go...

“ Welcome to wherever you are This is your life, you made it this far Welcome, you got to believe That right here, right now You're exactly where you're supposed to be Welcome to wherever you are .”                                                 ~Jon Bon Jovi Welcome!  Put out the welcome mat.  You’re welcome.  Whether used to greet, to accept, or to acknowledge gratitude, the sentiment expressed through the word “welcome” is open and inviting.  Coaches affect the culture of a school and can impact how welcoming the school climate feels.  We welcome those new to our staff when we send an introductory email and invite other faculty members to do the same.  I spent some time this week with early-career teachers, and one express...

Today I conferred with two teachers who had just led a wonderful writing camp for students.  I know it was wonderful because I conferred with them every day, talking through plans and celebrating successes.  I know it was successful because I reviewed the student feedback: All but one reported significant increases in their confidence as writers (one started and ended with 10 J ).  Students said, “They should never stop doing writing camp!” “It couldn’t be better,” and “I wouldn’t take back an instant!”  But as I conferred, tears welled up in one teacher’s eyes, then the other.  They were upset because one dad had expressed concerns in the parent survey about the camp.  Never mind that 19 students had glowing reviews.  One parent had a different perspective, and never mind that that parent had a history of harassing teachers at the school.  These teachers felt worried that perhaps one child’s heart had been hurt, that there had been a misstep or o...

The school year here has only just ended, but we are already thinking about how to make next year even better than the last!   I’ve been pondering the power of a theme, a mantra, or a chant to guide our upcoming work.   Right now, I’m leaning toward, “Be Our Best!” I’m envisioning kicking off the school year with a “Be Our Best” banner and a Disney sing-along (or at least watch-along!) of Beauty and the Beast ’s “Be Our Guest,” with a consonant modification, just to get the mantra stuck in our heads.  We’ll do some brainstorming about what it takes to “be our best,” creating an anchor chart that we can reference when we meet throughout the year.  Then we’ll read a short piece about collaboration and think together about how we can encourage and support one another, how we help one another see the bright spots.  We’ll make a list of adjectives that describe the type of feedback we’d like to get from each other (helpful, honest, constructive, etc.), and we’ll tal...

Although the solstice hasn’t happened yet, summer is here for many of us.  School doors have closed or are closing soon, and we will (hopefully) be taking up a different pace.  I love the poem, “A Lazy Thought,” by Eve Merriam, which reminds me about the tempo I’d like to take this time of year: There go the grownups To the office, To the store. Subway rush, Traffic crush; Hurry, scurry, Worry, flurry. No wonder Grown ups Don’t grow up Any more. It takes a lot Of slow To grow. It takes a lot of slow for children to grow, and I’m of the belief the same axiom is true for adults.  As we attend, provide or prepare for professional learning experiences that happen during the summer months, let’s take advantage of the slower pace.  No lesson plans or sub plans for tomorrow means we can give our full attention to our professional learning.  We can reflect, think deeply about new approaches, and plan for future use.  Will you brood over the challenges that vexed yo...