Reflections on being an Instructional Coach

Year 4 as Instructional Coach has all but ended.  COVID 19 may allow us to return for a few weeks, but I am doubtful.  Waiting on a State and Administrative decision.  But during this time, I have been able to work on updating my website.  I am not sure how much of it is truly for others at this point as it is a reflection of my journey.  Through Iowa's TLC plan, Instructional Coaching was a brand new position for our district.   The intentions of Jim Knight, Diane Sweeney, Elena Aguilar, the ones that had forged the path and written the books vs. the reality of feet on the ground, figuring it out.  

I would love to say that I was warmly embraced by the entire staff and they were all eager to join with me because I knew exactly what I was doing, how to offer support, and had a clear vision others could follow. HA! Prom vs. Middle School first dance.  I wanted the beauty of Prom, but reality was the extreme awkwardness of not only how to reintroduce myself to a staff I had worked with for over 20 years, but how to "Coach" instructionally and intentionally...whatever that meant.  I also had to learn to toughen up.  During that first year or two I was met with a good deal of snide and hurtful remarks around my "worthless" position. I had to figure out how to even begin to enter conversations at the lower grades and at the administrative level.  I was a career teacher at third grade with no idea what happened in K, 1st, or 2nd and certainly not at those closed door administrative leadership meetings.  And now, there was no one on my team because I was a team of one.  Yes, there were three other IC in the same boat, but each at their own level, figuring out the same things.  I was no longer a "teacher" but also not an "administrator", I was to be the "expert" on everything related to teaching and yet engulfed by the reality of inexperience.  Needless to say, I learned that leadership is a willingness to say yes, not a position because you have all the answers.  

During that first year I was not even drinking from the fire hose, I was being drowned by it.  Drowned by out of town meetings that took me away from my family.  Drowned by after school meetings that changed my normal routines.  Drowned by conversational words that were not yet a part of of educational vocabulary.  Drowned by what Mike and I referred to as bubbles.  We knew they all connected, but how? The life raft or oxygen mask was simply hope and a desire to help. 

As I watch others around me being willing to say "yes" to hard things, they experience the same types of transitions.  A friend who adopted a large family of small children, fire hose moment.  Another that said yes to taking on the "unwanted" church campus, gurgling for air.  Taking on another department to manage, the role of four men wrapped into one.  And today, all the front-line workers that are facing COVID-19, leading where the world has not gone in over 100 years.  Decisions that are life and death, decisions that effect hundreds of thousands, decisions that will be criticized no matter  what.  Leadership is being willing to say yes. A willingness to sit at the table, to listen, to speak, to challenge and be challenged.  A willingness to go first, a willingness to call others to follow, a willingness to be vulnerable where safety once was.

Instructional coaching is not about having all the answers, it is about meeting people where they are at and coming along side of them.  It is about gently pushing their comfort levels, reassuring them the next step is safe because you are there.  It is taking time to listen with your heart and solve problems with your new found resources.  Coaching is not about teaching one how to teach, it is about supporting them while they strive to improve.  Life is always moving forward.  Sometimes in dull routines, sometimes pushed by fierce winds.  If our teachers so choose, we will partner together as best we can, learn from each other, all the while our students reaping the benefits of our willingness to simply say "yes."