All I needed was the love you gave, all I needed for another day, and all I ever knew, only you (Yazoo)

Looking over an A level Language paper recently, made me nostalgic for teaching an English class again.

The last time I actually did that was at Woodford House, two years ago.

Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana.

It's the connections with students built up over time that makes teaching a class so special.

That allows you to see them pretty much every day so you learn their quirks. You see them on good days and average days (and even bad days if they're girls). You see them develop their thinking in bite size chunks. The nitty gritty.

Yes, the relationship is different to being a learning coach in the Learning Centre - my current context.

While I can help lead students to their own discoveries easy enough (my only way forward when confronted by maths problems is to ask them what strategies they've used already and then ask them what they could do next), that's not the same as conferencing a student through a critical response to a poem.

I can well understand why Principals/ Head Teachers decide to go back to the classroom.

Though I'm dressed in these rags, I'll wear sable some day (The Animals)

Learning coaches - part three (I think)

After extensive research, comprehensive surveys of all our students, staff and parents, and considerable analysis and soul searching involving long nights hunched over results in deep concentration, with all due modesty and sobriety, I can reveal, in a world premiere kind of way, an info graphic to beat all info graphics on, fanfare please...Learning Coaches!!!

Footnote: Every place has its jargon so some explanation required - LC is Learning Centre (where our senior students study in a self-directed fashion); OA is Office Administrator; the three places listed as preferences are in the LC.

The strong survive, they stay alive, they always cool (The Four Tops)

 Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

Version 1: The first step of my Learning Coach inquiry picked up pace this week.

Version 2: Going forward, to cover off the Learning Coach journey that will roll out because I have skin in the game I will further be unpacking after drilling down into the nitty gritty.

I hope you chose Version 1! Version two makes no sense!

What I've been doing is finding out what a Learning Coach is all about and understanding how it works - it seems there are a variety of ways people approach it, and obtaining insights from students and staff via my surveys.

This will continue into next week as I further analyse the surveys.

Seth Godin (I LOVE his succinct posts) has reminded me about a key element in my inquiry and I aim to keep it in mind after I finish a Learning Coach model for our campus.

It's this: Don't forget the second step

Step two is easily overlooked. Step two is turning it into a habit. Committing to the practice. Showing up and doing it again and again until you're good at it, and until it's part of who you are and what you do.

Right on brother!

Listen, do you want to know a secret? (The Beatles)

Seeing is believing - a strategy is required!

Why am I interested in figuring out what a good learning coach does?

As Dan Rockwell highlighted in one of his posts - managers notice environments and people.

• How does the environment feel? Hinder? Elevate?
• How are people interacting with each other?
• What is the energy level of individuals or teams?

I have noticed what is largely missing from our Learning Centre because I notice what I am not doing well. I have noticed how some teachers are not interacting as learning coaches with their students.

I see and continue to believe we are lacking an essential person to help free up our teachers to become (better) learning coaches.

It's hard not to notice how the environment of the Learning Centre is geographically perfect for learning coaches to prosper.

My inquiry has now gathered together student, staff and parent voice.

Time to analyse!

So many things I would have done but clouds got in my way (Joni Mitchell)

Learning coaches, learning conferences, learning centres, life-long learners.

I like the way our rhetoric has embraced the idea of learning and moved away from 'teaching'. Although I've never really subscribed to the concept of teacher as teller and wise old holder of the knowledge, okay maybe a teenie weenie bit 30 years ago when I was kicking off my career, I now greatly appreciate the fact that teaching has morphed more and more into lead learner status.

I'm currently researching what a learning coach is spost to be all about. What does a good learning coach do, how is that different to the old model, and how does it suit our context at Westmount school?

Three good questions right?

I started with some research. Mostly came up empty but here's a bit of what I've found out so far, regarding some key points of being a learning coach and how this role can be a mutually enjoyable and rewarding relationship.

• Coaching is a one-to-one relationship in which the coach’s experience assists the learner with their action learning.
• Coaches can help especially with the reflection and conclusions.
• Individuals prefer to learn in different ways and the coach should be aware of such differences.
• The role of the coach in action learning is to support and enable the learner.
• Building a comfortable relationship is important.
• The will to complete the learning or be a good coach is the main success factor.
• Teachers (expert collaborators) need to make learning visible, need to have the capacity to facilitate learning conversations with learners regardless of content

Reading this again reminded that I did a lot of coaching stuff in the Middle East while working for Cognition.

That's where I'm headed next.