One thing I have found to be a beneficial part of coaching is my willingness to give up a few hours on Sunday afternoon to meet with teachers. I know that this could be a bad habit, but honestly there are not enough hours to meet with all the teachers I serve (43) during a standard school week, let alone a year-round schedule. Trust me it is not every Sunday, but I am able to have really good coaching conversations in without the worry of picking up the kids in 30 minutes, another meeting conflicting, or the fact that we have a life after the bell rings.
I have been able to get teachers to dig deeper with their math lessons. I am excited to see the math class transform from surface level- gotta get this math "covered" (How I hate the term "cover" material...) to higher order thinking and digging deeper mathematical lessons. I have been told my several teachers that these Sunday sessions have transformed the way they plan and teach. I cannot tell you how that makes me feel, but I can assure you that there is slight satisfaction.
However, the "proof is in the pudding" and that "proof" is in the test scores. I fear that the bi-monthly/quarterly common assessments will not show this transformation with student's learning and teachers will go back to their old ways that get quick results (drill and kill). I am currently wrestling with how to cheer teachers on as a coach and keeping the trust I am building with them as they change their instruction to higher level, and yet what seems like the stalling of their students' learning. Change takes time, the students have not been expected to learn/think in this manner before and things
will fall into place, but it will take more than a month or even two.
