Differentiated Coaching for Educators

Yesterday, during the "live case studies" activity I use in most workshops, the Intuitive/Feeling coaches reported that their initial reaction to the Sensing/Thinking case study was so negative that they had to take a break from the task to process their feelings.

It turned out that several of them had had terrible grade school experiences in a classroom similar to the one described in the case study. Their personal biases--"This classroom is my worst nightmare"--blocked them at first from seeing the teacher's strengths and potential. Even after they started the coaching process again, they found it difficult to be effective because they wanted to fix everything about the fictional teacher at once!!

My aha: Our own hot buttons can interfere with our ability to help a teacher become all they can be! I plan to reflect on my own top worst learning experiences, building self-awareness so that if I see elements of those in a classroom I can filter my own reactions and still discover what the teacher is doing right.