Coaching and mentoring 2006

 

Mr Ken Avenell Australian Council for Educational Leaders Queensland, Australia

 

‘Imagine that you aspire to be a mountaineer. You have a new pair of boots, a tent, a backpack, and endless enthusiasm, but you have never so much as climbed above the tree line. There are two ways to get into it. You could practice with somebody who has lots of experience and the ability to share it. The other way is to be taken to the base of Everest, dropped off, and told to get to the top or quit. If you don't make it, your enthusiasm disappears, and you seek ways to avoid similar challenges in the future.'
(Wilson, 1999)

Too often, teachers find themselves alone at the bottom of the world's tallest mountain, or stuck in a cleft half-way up, and it's as hard to go up as down. So they stay stuck, not wanting to be, but not knowing how to go on.

We can all name a person who has had a significant impression on our professional life, yet often that person was not in a position of authority in relation to us. These persons were often our peers and validate the observations of Jackson (2004) that teachers learn most from other teachers. Such a person of influence on us is a peer mentor.

Ingvarson (2004) identifies deep cultural norms of privacy, hierarchy and territory in teaching, which mitigate against the changing of teachers' practice. Ingvarson, citing the work of Seashore, argues for a refocusing on the formation of professional communities, with the following features:

• reflective dialogue;
• deprivatisation of practice;
• collective focus on student learning;
• collaboration;
• shared norms and values.

Nearly every teacher I know is deeply committed to their students yet they often feel too overwhelmed by the demands of their classroom to be able to make significant changes in their teaching practices. Jackson (2004) advises that establishing peer mentor relationships can encourage teachers to open up and experiment with different strategies in their classrooms, in a context that is relevant and meaningful. To do this, we must accent:

• shared beliefs and understandings;
• interaction and participation;
• interdependence;
• concern for individual and minority views;
• and meaningful relationships (Westheimer, 1999).

This is so we have a group of people who take an active, reflective, collaborative, learning-oriented, and growth-promoting approach toward the mysteries, problems and perplexities of teaching and learning (Mitchell and Sackney, 2000).

Successful coaching and mentoring programs are a combination of observation and discussion, small group interaction, reflection and focused conversation. Action learning through videotaped practice sessions, self-observation, peer feedback and one-on-one feedback are logical extensions. Emphasis should always be on building the relationship and making immediate links to on-the-job applications. The coaching sessions are designed to establish and achieve clear goals that will result in improved effectiveness.

A good mentor helps develop clarity of purpose and focus on action. A mentor should help individuals to identify and make specific behavioural changes and leverage strengths to become more effective, whilst identifying developmental needs.

Peer mentoring is not about supervision. It is about building a sense of community through a culture of trust and respect for each other's strengths and expertise. It is a way to observe and share our rich array of teaching experiences. The primary activity of peer-mentoring is to share teaching experiences and then to reflect with one another. The way we teach and work is often accepted by us as 'ordinary' or 'nothing special', yet others always learn something through observation and discussion to add to their own teaching. Peer mentors aren't experts or gurus. They are teachers like us, but with a different set of experiences.

Mentors don't manage; they guide reflection and discussion around challenges that teachers identify in their own classrooms. True peer mentors act as critical friends who help us grow by seeing things from a different perspective. Although mentors can, and should, be encouraging and supportive, the ultimate goal often is an enhancement of classroom practices and not a validation of existing practices. Peer mentoring is not evaluative, hierarchical, judgmental, prescriptive or a quick fix.

Peers as critical friends are good listeners who help others sort out their thinking to solve their own problems and make sound decisions. They ask provocative questions that help define expectations, intentions, actions and outcomes. Such dialogue helps others grow professionally in ways that reading, conferences, or workshops cannot. Critical friends avoid:

• being negative (they are advocates, not critics);
• any conflict of interest or values, and any personal agenda;
• dishonesty and vagueness in their responses;
• being judgmental.

Lasley (1996) argues that the crucial characteristic of mentors is the ability to communicate their belief that a person is capable of growth and of accomplishing great things in the future. Rowley (1999) notes that a good mentor:

• is committed to the role of mentoring, although mentoring can require significant investments of time and energy;
• accepts others without making judgements;
• recognises each mentoring relationship as unique and adjusts to meet individual needs;
• is a model of a continuous learner and about their own search for more effective solutions to their own problems;
• communicates hope and optimism, whilst sharing their own struggles and frustrations and how they overcame them.

Coaching and mentoring are highly effective ways to build organisational and individual capacity, but few people understand its finer points. A sophisticated mentoring program emphasises the building of skills and also enhances initiatives aimed at managing change, and fosters a climate of organisational learning. Some broad caveats for mentors are listed here.

• Find a time and place free from distractions. It is important to be focused and clear.
• Do not set the agenda for the coaching session yourself. Ask the coachee, ‘What do you want to make sure we accomplish by the end of our session today?'
• Do not prepare your response to the coachee's comments while he or she is talking. Listen and learn. Be genuinely curious and solicit the coachee's viewpoint.
• Explore areas where non-verbal behaviours do not match the words, or where it suggests there may be other feelings behind what is being said. Don't ignore non-verbal messages.
• Use the coachee's behaviour in the coaching relationship as a likely indicator to the same behaviours as he or she displays elsewhere. The coaching session serves as example of the coachee's behaviour or style.
• Emphasise your relationship with the coachee, rather than the task or solution. Accentuate the collaborative nature of coaching by doing more asking than telling. Encourage the coachee to own the problem.
• Encourage the coachee to take others' perspectives of the situation. Don't allow the coachee to be limited to only one perspective of the situation or problem.
• Do not allow your first step to be giving the coachee advice based on your knowledge and experience. Offer advice only if the coachee is ‘stuck' or if, after the coachee has done some problem-solving, you have additional information or insights that may help.
• Don't emphasise the negative or work exclusively on the coachee's development areas. Acknowledge the coachee's strengths and what is going right. Help the coachee apply his or her strengths to address problems or challenges.
• Don't provide premature or false reassurance. Do challenge the coachee to provide alternative strategies and also help develop ‘stretch' goals, and compare outcome to goals.

Effective mentoring is a skill requiring experience and training (Conroy, Williams & Martinez, 2004; Crowley, 1998; Department of Education Science and Training, 2002; Hatton & Harmon, 1998; Ramsay, 2000), with careful selection and adequate time allocation for the task and suitable acknowledgement and regard for their work.

Successful peer mentor programs inculcate formal training as a prerequisite to mentoring. It is unreasonable to expect a teacher to commit to a role that has not been clearly defined; hence the best mentoring programs provide specific descriptions of the roles and responsibilities of mentor teachers. A successful mentoring program identify the characteristics of effective mentors, selects a pool of individuals who meet these standards, and establishes an optimal set of priorities for matching mentors with their protégés.

Mentoring is not an enterprise for those who prefer to work alone, either as individuals or as organisations. It requires partners. This is the sine qua non of an effective program. From the placement of first-time teachers, to finding time for mentoring, to strategies to fund programs, to issues of confidentiality, to the policies that assemble the nuts and bolts of programs, mentoring works well when everyone with a stake in its outcomes is fully involved in its planning and implementation.

Data from the United States National Center for Education Statistics (1999) dramatically demonstrate that the efficacy of mentoring is linked to the amount of time that a mentor and protégé work together. Only 36% of protégés who work with mentors ‘a few times a year' report substantial improvements to their instructional skills. That figure jumps to an impressive 88% for those who work with mentors at least once a week.

The expectations of confidentiality of mentoring should be clearly and carefully discussed. Many mentoring programs include formal memoranda of agreement in which those involved consent to keep confidential all proceedings between mentors and their protégés. The intent of these agreements is to encourage people ‘to share their inadequacies with a colleague whom they trust. They need to be confident that the dialogue they have with their mentor is safe and secure and that they will get nurturing and supportive feedback from that mentor'.

The importance of collegiality cannot be overestimated. Mentoring programs leave an imprint on the dynamics of a school.

‘ … person is a person through other persons – I am because we are.'
(Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

References

Brownhill, S, Wilhelm, K & Watson, A, ‘Losing Touch': Teachers on teaching and learning', In Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, March 2006, vol. 34, no. 1, pp.5-26.

Conroy, F, Williams, C and Martinez, K (2004, April) ‘Mentoring New Teachers: Changes and challenges', Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans.

Crowley, R. (Chair). (1998). A Class Act: Inquiry into the status of the teaching profession, Senate Employment, Education and Training References Committee. Canberra: Senate, Commonwealth of Australia.

Department of Education, Science and Training (2003). ‘ Australia 's teachers: Australia 's future. Advancing innovation, science, technology and mathematics', main report, Committee for the Review of Teaching and Teacher Education. Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training.

Department of Education, Science and Training (2002). ‘An Ethic of Care: Effective programs for beginning teachers', Canberra: Department of Education, Science and Training.

Hatton, N. and Harmon, K. (1997). ‘Internships within the teacher education programs in NSW: A further review of recent Australian and overseas studies', Sydney: Faculty of Education, University of Sydney.

Hatton, N., Watson, A., Squires, D. and Soliman, I. (1991). ‘School staffing and the quality of education: Teacher stability and mobility', In Teaching and Teacher Education, 7, pp. 279-293.

Ramsay, G. (2000). ‘Quality Matters. Revitalising teaching: critical times, critical choices', Report of the review of teacher education, New South Wales, Sydney, NSW: Department of Education and Training.

 

Mr Ken Avenell is President of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders. He works and resides in Queensland, Australia.

Join the online discussion for all supporting papers from Monday 19 June to Sunday 26 June 2006.