Whenever I have been part of a mentor training program, I have suggested that the job of a mentor should be to mentor the system because everyone in the school and district office should have a role to play in the success of the new teacher. Similarly, I have suggested that instructional coaches should play the role of coaching “coaching.” Sufficient coaching cannot be provided to teachers if coaching is only done by the instructional coach and perhaps the rarer coaching from a building administrator.  We need a culture where coaching is everyone’s responsibility and reward.

My views were reinforced in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review by Brad Johnson and David Smith. In Real Mentorship Starts with Company Culture, Not Formal Programs, they describe mentors of the moment.

They write:

“Here is the problem: Mentoring programs typically rely on single mentor-mentee matches, pairings that by nature are quite formal and hierarchical, when all the evidence shows that many employees — especially women — prefer mentorships with a more reciprocal and mutual character. Single mentors are also less career enhancing than robust developmental networks or mentoring constellations.”

I love the term ‘mentoring constellations.’ It fits what I have been trying to describe as the role of the assigned ‘mentor.’ How can I see that all the people in the system, with all the resources they have, become readily available and accessible to the new person on staff? How do I make all the opportunities that are available for connections evident to the new staff member along with a sense of real invitation to join in?

Johnson and Smith explain:

“Mentors-of-the-moment help to promote a mentoring culture where all members of the organization — especially those in the middle to upper ranks — seek opportunities in daily interactions to develop or grow junior colleagues and peers. The mentor-of-the-moment model flips the script on mentoring, from an onerous, formal, add-on obligation, to a delightful opportunity to use shorter exchanges to enhance self-esteem, self-confidence, and sense of belonging in someone junior.”

Why does this approach to mentoring work?

“The mere exposure effect in social psychology supports the value of positive micro-exchanges in the workplace in building informal and increasingly bonded mentoring relationships. Even relatively brief interactions can lead to increasingly transformative developmental relationships.”

To have such a mentoring culture means leaders need to communicate an expectation. It is another element of having a school where teachers see themselves as team members rather than franchise owners. If the students are “all our students” then I need to be invested in the success of every teacher to maximize success for all learners. I have observed the opposite in some schools where teachers are aware of a struggling new colleague and do nothing. When I asked, “Why?”  I was told that they didn’t want to interfere. I tend to call that hazing. Since I may have been left to struggle on my own, I allow the same system to continue.

Mentoring for beginning teachers and staff new to a school should communicate the existence of a coaching culture for everyone in the school. This requires leaders to model and to support teachers mentoring and coaching each other. If the school has a culture of coaching, as a teacher, I recognize that many members of the staff are available to assist me in my continuous growth and my administrator who does my evaluation can at times set aside that evaluation role and work as my mentor or coach.

School leaders need to communicate the purpose of having a coaching culture. Consider this quote from the Institute of Leadership & Management report on Creating a Coaching Culture.

“…Many organizations still view coaching as a tool for correcting poor performance. However, good coaching is about achieving a high- performance culture, not managing a low-performance one, and should not be seen primarily as a remedial tool.”

This statement also applies to mentoring. Your mentoring is driven by the strengths of the people you hired, not their weaknesses.  It’s important that principals work with instructional coaches to extend the coaching culture in a school. That culture increases the impact that the coach can have when providing feedback and reflection opportunities as well as increasing the coach’s role in being the “coach of coaching.” Anyone working in a coaching leadership role (instructional coach, team leader, department head) should be increasing the amount of teacher to teacher coaching occurring in the school.

What are your purposeful behaviors to deepen the mentoring and coaching culture in your school? How much coaching are you requesting? Comment below.

I recently provided a workshop for mentors who would be working with new (many first year) teachers to their district. Here is the opening I used to set the stage.

The old adage “Experience is the best teacher” isn’t quite accurate. “Experience, with a mentor, is the best teacher.” As a new teacher interacts with a mentor, the reflections and insights speed the teacher’s learning.  Successful mentors create conversations with mentees that generate continuous goal setting for student success that drives teacher practice and discovery. This workshop will identify, model, and provide practice in these conferencing skills. Working with eager as well as reluctant mentees will be addressed. Effective mentoring produces learning for the mentor as well as the mentee.

In an earlier blog on mentoring, I described my views that to truly support new educators mentoring had to reach way beyond the early survival issues and needs. In my thinking, a mentors’ work and time should be increasing throughout the year as the new teacher enters the ever- increasing complexity of teaching and learning.

“Most induction-year teachers are ill-prepared to cope with the mental stresses and difficulties of the classroom environment, while many school leaders expect teachers to arrive prepared to manage a classroom.”
— Natalie Odom Pough and Justin Ballenger

An article in ASCD Express, The Leadership New Teachers Need to Flourish, by Natalie Odom Pough and Justin Ballenger explores how school leaders can help new teachers develop into experienced educators who want to stay in the classroom.

“High rates of teacher attrition and a shortage of new teachers across the United States spell out a crisis for many of our nation’s schools (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, & Carver-Thomas, 2016). Multiple studies show that a teacher’s level of experience is a leading indicator of students’ academic achievement (Ladd & Sorenson, 2017; Harris & Sass, 2011).”

Pough and Ballenger highlight four important elements from their experience with two new teacher development projects:

1. Leadership development
2. Robust mentoring
3. Support for developing crucial soft skills
4. Emphasis on reflective practice

In a previous blog, Teachers’ Soft Skills: Critical to School Success, I shared Valerie Strau’s writing around Google’s findings regarding successful employees and teams: The surprising thing Google learned about its employees — and what it means for today’s students. She informs educators, parents, and students about important skills needed to increase work- place success. While STEM skills and understanding are important, there were seven skills that ranked above the STEM skills: “being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others’ different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas.”As I read through the list, it struck me that these skills are critical in having high functioning PLCs and a school staff that collaborates as a team rather than franchises.

Pough and Ballenger stress:

“Education is a people business. But standardized exams and formatted lessons give little indication about how to build rapport with students. Most induction-year teachers are ill-prepared to cope with the mental stresses and difficulties of the classroom environment, while many school leaders expect teachers to arrive prepared to manage a classroom. The truth is leaders need to be prepared to help teachers develop the dispositions and soft skills necessary to build relationships and keep students on track.

Teachers should be regularly practicing emotional intelligence skills like growth mindset, tenacity, empathy, and the capacity to diffuse tense situations with students. For example, schools can adapt character education initiatives that are typically focused on students to address faculty and staff needs as well.”

Dr. Ron Young in a blog, Foundational Skills are Soft Skills, shares a chart comparing four authors’ conclusions on foundational skills of effective teachers. He concludes,

“In the past, the skills that distinguished effective from ineffective teachers were classroom reward structure, classroom organization and curriculum. Today, the focus has moved to the quality of the teacher-student relationship. Put simply, today’s students care more about how they are treated than how they are taught. Effective teachers communicate important aspects of caring and are invested in their students’ success. There is no disputing that the foundational skills required of today’s effective teachers are soft skills. “

I’m pondering:

Are we considering the soft skills of the people being asked to serve as mentors or is more attention paid to matching the new teacher with someone with similar content?

Should time be spent examining soft skills in mentor training?

How can we help initiate the conversation about soft skills between mentor and mentee?

While reading a blog by Cristie Watson titled 9 Mistakes New Teachers Make, I was triggered to consider how mentors and instructional coaches approach the start of new relationships with teachers new to working with a coach or mentor.

Number 6 on Watson’s list of 9 is Being Afraid to Ask for Help

“When struggling as a first-year teacher, it’s tempting to hide in your room. However, helpful solutions may be right down the hall. When asking for advice from teammates, mentors, or administrators, be specific and solution oriented.  Know that asking for help doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher. Rather, it’s a sign that you’re being proactive and have a willingness to improve.”

Mentors and coaches should model coach-ability.

It’s important for the beginning teacher to discover that making him or herself vulnerable to input from colleagues is a career-long path to great teaching. It’s critical that the beginning teacher not see the mentor as an evaluator, not see the mentor holding some measuring stick up in front of the teacher saying when you meet these criteria, mentoring will be over. You’ll be accepted into the profession.

Mentors might start by having the beginning teacher coach the mentor. Invite the beginning teacher into the mentor’s classroom to observe and provide feedback. Model for the mentee the way she can request coaching from the mentor.

Coaches can work with mentors to introduce coaching and mentoring as a gift. All teachers deserve coaching vs need coaching. (The Gift of Coaching video) A mentor can invite the instructional coach to conduct a coaching cycle with her while inviting the new teacher to observe the process. Great modeling by the mentor on “how to use a coach” and valuable introduction of the new teacher to the instructional coach.

Number 9 on Watson’s list is Forgetting the Joys of Teaching.

“The difficult realities of teaching hit hard in your first few years. Standardized testing, paperwork, and extracurricular duties can be overwhelming. Learning to focus on the positive experiences can help you power through tough days. Remember why you chose education in the first place. What we do matters, and sometimes remembering that simple fact can make all the difference.”

Coaches and mentors can identify where teachers find motivation to teach. For most teachers, the motivation to teach isn’t found in the standards that students need to meet. Teachers have a passion for something that they want their students to gain from working with them. They have an outcome. They have an attitude. They have a belief system that they want their students to develop.

Mentors can begin by sharing their own personal passions and beliefs about teaching and how they manage to deal with meeting the standards while achieving those additional elements that generate a sense of power, freedom, and fun. These are often found in how they teach, or in the classroom environment they generate. I believe that meeting the standards is in effect the cost of being a teacher. If I generate learning that has students master the standards, I have the opportunity to develop the passion, beliefs, and attitudes that drive me to be a teacher.

The authors of Generative Leadership: Shaping New Futures for Today’s Schools describe a form of leading that is similar to improvisation.

“For skilled leaders, this is not an either-or choice but a both–and option.  Leading in this way is sometimes likened to an improvisational dance: The starting point on the dance floor is clear, but how the dance will go and where it will end up depend completely on what the musician plays and how the dancer responds to that music. With true improvisation, neither the musician nor the dancer is in command. Neither has planned his or her actions in advance, and the precise outcome cannot be predicted ahead of time. Musician and dancer co-create the performance in real time, guided by shared knowledge, values, and intention.”  (page 7)

Co-create….A great description for coach/coachee and mentor/mentee relationships. I love the idea of explaining to teachers that the coach’s work will come from “reading the moves” of the coachee.  Shared beliefs and values and a focus on student learning will guide the process.