By Brit Seward, M.Ed., School Improvement Representative, Mathematics Support
My coach often says, “Don’t call me coach if you’re not willing to be coached.” That statement stays with me because coaching only works when you are coachable. Being coachable means listening, reflecting, understanding, adjusting, celebrating wins, and taking responsibility when the results are not what we hoped for. Ultimately, the teacher, the coach, and school leadership share accountability for coaching outcomes.
Effective coaching cannot be reduced to encouragement, resources, and comfortable conversations. Coaches must be willing to have difficult conversations, and teachers must be willing to hear them. The key is remembering that the conversation is about instructional practice, not the person. Correction can feel like criticism when trust is weak or emotion overtakes the purpose of the conversation. Strong coaching keeps the focus on the problem we are trying to solve.
Knight (2021) argues that learning requires seeing reality as it is, not as we wish it to be. He also emphasizes that coaching should be connected to meaningful, student-focused goals. This becomes especially important when student outcomes show that something is not working.
Across many of the schools we support, large numbers of students are performing below grade-level standards. When most students are struggling, we cannot keep explaining the problem by pointing to individual students. Nor is simply blaming teachers productive. We must examine instructional practice.
We cannot intervene our way out of weak core instruction.
Intervention has an important place, but when widespread learning gaps persist, strengthening Tier 1 instruction must be part of the response. That requires honesty. Coaches must be willing to identify instructional weaknesses, provide meaningful support, follow up, and hold educators accountable for engaging in the coaching process.
At the same time, coaches must examine their own practice before labeling someone “uncoachable.” Have we built trust? Have we listened? Have we clearly identified the problem? Have we modeled effective practice? Have we provided opportunities to practice and receive feedback? Have we celebrated growth? Effective coaching depends on clear goals, trust, communication, reflection, and opportunities for development (Psychology Today, n.d.). If we expect teachers to be coachable, coaches must be willing to be coached, too.
Once meaningful support has been provided, however, persistent refusal to reflect, engage, or adjust becomes more than resistance to coaching. It becomes an accountability issue.
Teachers must also be willing to become students of their profession. Humanizing students means seeing them as capable, investing in them, taking time to know them, and giving them what they need to grow. We should see students with the same care, patience, and possibility we would want someone to see in our own children. No one is suggesting this work is easy, but it is human work.
We cannot spend more time talking about what students do not know than figuring out how to teach them what they need to know. When most students are not getting it, our professional response should be: What can I change? What can I teach differently? What does this student need from me?
After all, teaching is coaching. Our responsibility is not simply to identify the gap, but to help students close it.
Every educator should have a coach and be a coach. That includes building leaders, who should be among the strongest instructional coaches in their schools. Good coaches know their craft and know their people. They listen, motivate, observe, discern, adjust, and recognize that one approach will not work for everyone. They are not merely flexible; they are fluid. They adapt when the landscape changes.
Our students are changing. Our challenges are changing. Our practice must continue to evolve.
So, what are we coaching? And are we willing to be coached?
References
Knight, J. (2021). The learning zone: Hey instructional coach, what do you do? Educational Leadership, 79(1).
Psychology Today. (n.d.). Coaching.