If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.
Fred Devito
Particularly recently, ‘coaching’ has become a term I am increasingly both and familiar and fascinated with. However, the more I have become educated and immersed in theory, and most importantly exposed to experiences (both accidentally and deliberately!) the more I have found myself continuously curious; particularly regarding what it is or is not. Figuring out and making sense of the coaching spectrum is a job of work in itself. From instructional to professional, I am still not 100% certain with where I am instinctively either situated or most comfortable with, and neither do I really think it matters. I have instead come to wonder whether this is contextual, subjective, and possibly for some, even contentious. However, what I have noticed, from some very early experiences within the realms of coaching, are some complexities, and consequently some considerations.
Complexities?
It doesn’t take long to bump into the numerous perspectives of coaching potentials or case studies telling stories of what different organisations have made coaching to encompass for them. In some instances, you have coaching viewed as CPD, a consequence of it being recognised as both effective and good value money; however, for others, it has evolved into a vehicle to support staff wellbeing. Herein lies for me, a sizable complexity. Can you something that falls under the category of a tool to better the mental health and wellbeing of your teaching team, also be headed under the category of CPD?
Whether we like it or not, the term CPD evokes a certain mentality, or even expectation that the facilitator is the expert. An assumption that new knowledge is going to be simply ‘given’ to you. I am not defying that fact that coaching is absolutely built upon the adventure that is the acquisition of new knowledge. However, what I am drawing attention to is how this journey of learning is not quite as linear as that, which typically formulates from traditional CPD. This shift away from the idea of being given the answers also challenges the belief that organisations have experts who live in ‘pigeon holes’. As soon as you start defying this belief and celebrating the strength of your entire teaching community, you begin to foster a culture where educational empathy becomes engrained. People will increasingly feel comfortable to not just simply prove, but most importantly improve themselves, detached from both the fear and risk of judgment, should this pursuit go off-piste.
This leads me to have noticed another stark contrast, in terms of coaching being simply categorised as CPD, returning to the role of the facilitator. This especially stands out to me if and when you look at the most organic realms of the coaching spectrum, in and around professional coaching. It is here there evolves this notion that the coach is not the expert, but a ready, able and willing global listener, armed with their questions to support the coachee in evoking their own answers; it is a very personal pursuit. I think it is this ‘personal pursuit’ that shifts coaching away from traditional CPD as we typically know it. It is absolutely a journey of learning, and very much about professional development, but isn’t it a wonderful thing that no two coaching conversations will ever be the same, and equally will probably never lead to the same outcome? That each coach and coachee collaboration will go on a different adventure, ending in innovative outcomes. That this journey of learning is reciprocated between the two roles, moving flexibly throughout. This is why I believe heading it simply as CPD, risks ignoring the inevitably personal nature and the persistent motion that is a coaching conversations two-way street of learning.
So if not situated as simply CPD, what else? Returning to my second consideration, well-being, which I believe has been touched upon, incidentally throughout that previous paragraphs. Regardless of the opinion of whether it is or is not, just CPD, coaching conversations inevitably put the ‘professional’ in the heart of this pursuit of ‘professional development. I think coaching perpetuates this culture of ‘can do’ and creates an ethos care that ultimately resonates with what goes into someone giving you their time to coach you. The outcomes are often unavoidably feel good. However, in terms of making it a vehicle for wellbeing, we can’t ignore the ‘how’ or ‘if’ we can facilitate this in the busy world of teaching and learning, whereby often time for teacher’s learning is typically tight.
Considerations?
An obvious initial thought is this: whatever coaching is carefully crafted into for your community, it needs both time and space. I think for me simply sticking it to CPD poses risks it becoming something which becomes a ‘done to’ and ‘taken from’, rather than ‘contributed to’ and ‘done with’. I think that developing a community of coaches, rather than creating coaching roles could give it longevity, as it will help everyone see both sides of the story, whether that be coach or coachee. Finally, something I do believe is that it is both bold and ambitious, but pertaining to be professionally powerful and a pursuit worthwhile.