Barriers to successful mentoring and coaching in schools

 

Mr Walter J. Cole Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia

 

I guess it's stating the obvious that schools are busy places. And I guess its also stating the obvious that time is the least available resource in a school. And to complete these obvious statements, mentoring and coaching both require a great deal of time if they are going to be successfully applied in practice. The other important issue is the quality of the mentor-coach.

Coaching requires a particularly high investment in time as it requires time to plan, coordinate, implement and evaluate. We cannot deny that pedagogical skills have been distinctly lacking for many teachers in a system that has been under the impression that the best pedagogical tool is knowledge of subject area, especially in secondary education. The coach is not a trainer but a stimulator of reflection about practice. Even football coaches have trainers so that they, the coaches, can focus on strategy and motivation - on ‘big picture stuff'.

With current workloads relating not only to teaching loads of both classroom teachers and executive staff, but the work required in developing personal pedagogical skills and developing reporting, assessment and evaluation strategies that are valid and reliable have taken their toll on an overworked system. Furthermore, constant never-ending curriculum changes have added further to the exhaustion.

Where does one find the time to mentor or coach? Teachers are struggling to find time to even breathe! And senior executives who have far less or no teaching load are fully employed administering the school, leading and/or managing the changes that are occurring, planning the future directions with all stakeholders (staff, students, parents, school councils, communities), and so on.

Another barrier is the threat of supervision in schools. And that threat is seen as real, especially in a system that requires clinical supervision for an annual reporting process on efficiency of staff. It does not matter what form that supervision takes; teachers will always feel threatened when someone is coming to see their practice, either inside or outside the classroom, in order to make a report on their efficiency.

Well, clearly, if the system wants better teachers, it has to put more than just training into potential mentors and coaches! It firstly has to change the culture of purpose and outcome of any sort of supervision. The ultimate purpose of supervision has to be to learn and to teach, both for the supervisor and the person being supervised.

Supervision must be a shared and caring experience and requires time, patience, enthusiasm and dedication to the process if it is to be trusted and effective. Its aims need to be clearly espoused and negotiated between the individuals involved, and therein lie some of the barriers. The euphemisms used by the system and the underlying hidden agendas are not conducive to the mutual trust required.

Past experience has shown that imposed supervision is an abject failure because the atmosphere is tense and the parties involved will not be able to acquire the necessary professional closeness required for the process to be honest and effective. It is interesting to note that very effective mentoring often happens on an informal basis between two colleagues, and this can even lead to some informal coaching. The real reason for the success is that there is no threat if it fails and the honesty in discussions about teaching practice is real and open.

So what is the difference between mentoring and coaching? And why are the two closely linked? Well, I see mentoring as the process of using one's professional experiences as the basis of discussion and sharing with a colleague, who raises issues with the mentor.

‘Mentoring not only introduces teachers to a new method of teaching but also helps teachers evaluate their own experiences, helps teachers see teaching objectively, and supports teachers in goal setting. However, to make mentoring successful, the mentors must follow certain guidelines, such as complimenting the teacher on (his)/her skills, allowing the teacher to learn at her own pace, expecting high quality work, and asking open-ended questions.' (1)

I see coaching as observation-based, with the coach observing the person requiring the coaching after some area of personal practice needing development is agreed upon. The coach then demonstrates ways to develop the practice to a stage where his or her protégé feels more confident and comfortable about it.

‘The coaching must be done within a safe and professional development culture (Fullan and Hargreaves, 1996) and the learning should be deep, rather than shallow. Teachers will increasingly become skilled reflective practitioners (Smyth, 1998) and the development will be ongoing (Hill, Hawk and Taylor, 2001). The research on transfer of training tells us that the qualities of the trainer, the programme and the nature of the follow-up are all important (Sweeney, 1999; Ottoman, 1995, Joyce and Showers, 1996). Showers, Joyce and Bennet (1987) state that, for a complex model of teaching, a strategy needs to be used about 25 times before it becomes embedded in practice. Whatever coaching model is adopted, it must be achieving the best outcomes for students that drive the decisions. '(2).

In a program designed for the professional development of teachers of reading using coaches and mentors, the following introductory statement was made about the principles behind peer coaching:

‘One program places students working on doctorates in curriculum and supervision with classroom teachers as peer coaches. Two principles support this program: The design and implementation of the program emphasizes the "role of the teacher as the key instructional decision-maker for his or her classroom" (Hillkirk & Nolan, 1990, p. 7). In direct opposition to a training model, "the reflective coach's role would be to support and foster the teacher's self-analysis and reflection as objectively and non-judgmentally as possible" (Hillkirk & Nolan, 1990, p. 7) '. (3)

Some strategies that can be used to develop coaching skills are discussed in an article by Stephanie Feger, Kristine Woleck, and Paul Hickman, titled ‘How to develop a coaching eye'. (4) This discusses strategies to skill the coach in performing the task successfully.

And clearly, the two roles of coach and mentor are mutually bound together and require this atmosphere of total mutual honesty and trust.

Further readings on mentoring are available all over the internet. One particularly good site for many readings is the Mentoring Leadership and Resource Network (MLRN).. (5) The ‘ Articles and Archives ' section has numerous readings for the interested, based on actual mentoring experiences.

We all know there are inefficient teachers in our system, although they are scarce. It is in both the inefficient teachers' and the school's interest for them to leave the system. It is therefore much more important for schools to be honest with student and beginning teachers. Teachers and supervisors need to be very honest with people entering the system. If a person is not able to demonstrate the basic personal skills that all good teachers have, then they need to be assessed that way. That is, when clinical supervision is vital! It is much more dishonest to tell a teacher who has been in the service a number of years that his or her practice is not up to scratch when it has not been up to scratch from the very beginning and the teacher has been allowed into the system because the early supervisors have been unwilling to make a hard decision.

Well, the biggest investment needed in a system that is relying on schools developing their own staff on site is the luxury of time, and sufficient time to do the job properly. That time needs to provide relief to do all of the preparatory work, to develop the necessary atmosphere and provide the mutual time and space to see the task through.

The role of executive is to nurture the process. There are too many good classroom practitioners who have the necessary skills and who are not executive to think that only executive are the pedagogical leaders. In fact, some executive need to be coached and mentored in their own pedagogical skills.

The most amazing thing can arise from a school that develops a culture of mutual assistance based on honesty and understanding. The school becomes a great learning centre for both students and staff. The morale in the school flies high as the teamwork grows and the culture changes.

The greatest blockers to its success are those who have nothing to contribute to this atmosphere of mutually supported learning. Usually these people have a gross misunderstanding of their role as teachers and of the students as learners. And worse still, they lack respect for their actual role as teachers and learners, their important respect of the role of students and how they fit into the scheme of things, often believing that the way they operate is the only way possible, being totally inflexible and actually feeling threatened by a change in their practice. And so these people will not only provide walls and barriers to any cultural change but will actively work towards subverting the attempted changes in culture, usually in an underground way.

These are the people who will make or break any attempt to change what is done in schools to improve pedagogy. Reducing and isolating the level of their influence is one of the keys to success. The size of their support base is also important as it could be this group that is, in fact, setting the directions of the school, rather than the school leadership team, and it needs to be eroded, disempowered and rubbed out. The erosion process needs to be one of developing successes with the change process, involving non-influential group members in the change process itself and its successes, with a view to reducing the support base of the blockers.

However, the process can be long, frustrating, exhausting and tedious. Unfortunately, this may erode the very time you need to attain the necessary change and improve teaching and learning practices in the school. These staff members are as dangerous to teaching as inefficient teachers, as they prevent the very actions required to make schools better places for students to learn in, and for teachers to actually teach in, rather than deliver.

Mentoring and coaching are exceptional tools for pedagogical skills development in all teachers. No teacher has the complete skills handbook. Furthermore, they are also exceptional tools in the development of executive at all levels. Principals are developing their own network of mentors and coaches, often involving principals at nearby schools. Certainly, in rural New South Wales, especially in the more remote areas, the principals' network is alive and well, in my experience. Through the principals associations, a strong network exists, is ideal in allowing the formation of ‘buddies' and is totally non-threatening. Phones and visits are regularly used to discuss practices and procedures.

This networking is more difficult with teaching executive, as their students also require a large proportion of their time. However, there are personnel within the school who can be mentors and coaches. Most schools have middle executive teams and the coach and mentor can come from this team if there is time provided and the expertise is willing. The principles of non-threatening, honest and trusting professional relationships are still paramount for the process to be effective and successful.

One other issue is who the appropriate mentor-coach might be. This, in itself, provides difficulties, as to impose this role on anyone is also likely to result in failure. The mentor-coach must be willing and motivated for the role, enthusiastic even. But most importantly, the mentor-coach needs to be a skilled and successful practitioner who can articulate the skills needed and who can sensitively but assuredly work towards their successful development. Most of all, the mentor-coach needs to be able to successfully teach teachers - not just students.

In conclusion, the greatest needs for a system to include successful mentoring and coaching are time and resources, honesty, trust, enthusiastic people with great people skills and teachers of teachers. The greatest barriers are the lack of any of the above and a belief that pedagogical development is not important, and the barriers that this belief creates. These are huge issues, ones that cannot, and will not, be solved in the short-term or by just pouring in a few dollars in hope. They require long-term strategic planning by the system and by schools, so that all the issues are covered and all the processes are in place to overcome the barriers. Sadly, politicians who drive the education budget usually want a quick fix and rarely understand what is really happening in schools. So the real formula for success has to include political will, backed by appropriate levels of funding and genuine, non-threatening, ‘hidden agenda free' systemic support.

References

Kelly, Daniel, Mentoring and Coaching Teachers, www.garesa.org/_disc21/00000047.htm.

Hawk, K & Hill, J (2003). Coaching Teachers: Effective professional development but difficult to achieve, AARE/NZARE conference, Auckland, www.aare.edu.au/03pap/haw03086.pdf.

Elementary Literacy, Professional Development for Teachers of Reading, Coaching and Mentoring, North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, www.ncrel.org/litweb/pd/coaching.php.

The Mentoring Leadership and Resource Network, www.mentors.net.

Feger, S, Woleck, K, & Hickman, P. ‘How to Develop a Coaching Eye'. In JSD, Spring 2004 (Vol. 25, No. 2), National Staff Development Council, www.nsdc.org/library/publications/jsd/feger252.cfm.

 

Mr Wal Cole was a principal who started his career in 1973, as a mathematics teacher, in New South Wales, Australia. He retired in 2004. Mr Cole was a qualified metallurgist and, in order to ensure that he had all the necessary credentials, successfully completed a mathematics degree at Macquarie University by correspondence. It was while he was a curriculum consultant that he learnt about teaching and learning styles and realised that his personal journey in teaching was really about pedagogical skills. From that time, he worked continuously trying to have teachers understand the importance of improving these skills and then applying them successfully in the classroom, in order to maximise the learning outcomes for their students.

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