The implementation of instructional coaching in our K-12 schools as a professional development tool to improve teachers’ instructional practices has become nearly ubiquitous over the past two decades.
The empirical evidence provides support for the positive impacts of instructional coaching. For example:
Although there is great complexity and differences in the various coaching models, there is also great variability in the willingness of teachers to work with a coach to change their instruction.
Regardless of the instructional coaching approach or model, not all teachers are receptive to coaching. This is due to numerous factors. But the fact is some teachers prefer not to engage in the coaching process, which demands communication, collaboration, and change.
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Change is a particularly difficult process for teachers, and instructional coaching requires teachers to address changes in three broad ways:
As noted above, coaching is a highly collaborative process in which coaches and teachers have a shared goal. Together, they define their work and how it fits into the larger school schema.
Many studies have indicated that teachers can be highly resistant to entering into such a relationship, with their resistance manifesting as either overt or covert behaviors.
Musanti and Pence believe that coaching resistance is the result of “a long tradition of isolation within the classroom walls deeply instilled in school culture. When this tradition is disrupted, teachers feel exposed, vulnerable, and powerless.”
Even though skilled coaches may help a majority of teachers warm up to coaching, there is likely to be a core of teachers who remain unwilling to engage in coaching in a meaningful way. For them, additional options may be required.
When teachers exhibit overt or covert resistance, they may be viewed as a “tough crowd” and may generally be resistant to many professional development activities, such as instructional coaching.
But the fact is human beings hardwired to resist change. For example:
Rosabeth Moss Kanter with Harvard Business Review posits there are 10 reasons people resist change in the corporate world.
These reasons can be directly applied to the educational environment and the instructional coaching scenario. By understanding these reasons (as outlined below), educational leaders can proactively mitigate teachers’ resistance to instructional coaching.
Loss of control relates to autonomy and agency, as resistant teachers also express an exaggerated need to maintain “professional autonomy and independence.” Thus, resistance to change for some can be understood as an expression of teachers’ professional and intellectual freedom and personal agency.
Additionally, some teachers have deeply held beliefs or professional commitments that are at odds with the proposed instructional coaching changes — what is referred to as principled resistance. Potential change coming from an outside source may threaten a teacher’s sense of self-determination.
Change can sometimes feel like jumping off a diving board with a blindfold. As the saying goes, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”
We fear the unknown.
Some people can cognitively create scenarios that exacerbate the natural fear engendered by uncertainty. This fear may make resistant teachers say and do things they would not normally say and do. It shows up as opposition, confrontation, or unwillingness to engage in coaching.
Often you will hear people in organizations respond to information about coming changes by saying, “Why didn’t we know about this earlier?”
The decision to implement a coaching program and then suddenly communicate this to teachers — who were given no time to prepare or process the change for the consequences — will, unsurprisingly, engender resistance.
One of our SchoolMint Grow clients, Explore Schools, used a slow rollout to successfully implement their coaching program across their charter network.
You can learn more about establishing a culture of coaching in our previous article, It Starts with a Sticky Note: Building a Coaching Culture in Your School.
Teachers are highly variable in their attitudes toward growth and change.
Resistant teachers, according to Zimmerman, are especially reluctant to change when they “do not believe a change is needed, are reluctant to change their routines, view past change as unsuccessful, perceive change as a threat to relationships with colleagues and school leadership (e.g., principals), or feel their expertise would be undermined by change.”
When we implement an instructional coaching program, some things are inevitably going to change, and change is meant to bring on something different — but how different?
We are creatures of habit. Routines become automatic, but change that is too dramatic creates great unease. Too many differences can be confusing, and people will wonder how all the changes will impact their lives.
Check out this previous article, 4 Steps to Implementing Teacher Coaching in Your School, for tips on successfully implementing a new coaching program.
Depending on the school, teachers who teach in the “old way of doing things” may be defensive about changes. The implication to these staff members is “The way we have been teaching is not working.”
When change involves a big shift of strategic direction toward coaching, teachers who supported the previous direction may fear they must have been wrong all along.
In most cases, coaches do not evaluate teachers. However, there is still an underlying belief that the coach has greater expertise in important areas of subject matter and pedagogical practices.
Thus, a dynamic is inherent in the relationship such that power and identity come into play and can affect how receptive a teacher is to being coached.
Although different coaching models are being practiced in schools today (i.e., directive, dialogical, facilitative) relative to the structure of the teacher and coach roles, “by definition, the teacher–coach relationship invokes coaches as holding expertise relative to the practitioners with whom they work.”
Teachers involved in instructional coaching are exposing their professional skills in a very open manner during the instructional coaching process.
Coaches typically observe teachers instructing students, managing classrooms, and creating lesson plans. Teachers may resist change here because they feel they may be exposed as not being competent.
They might express skepticism about whether coaching is really an improvement, but deep down, they are worried any skill deficits they have will be exposed.
Watch the video below to learn how coaching happens at Athur Ashe Charter School in New Orleans, Louisiana:
This cause for resistance is very much universal, and the unavoidable fact is that the change of implementing an instructional coaching program and fulfilling the requirements of quality coaching is indeed more work for everyone involved.
Those responsible for designing the program and implementing it are often overloaded. This certainly adds new things to teachers’ workflow, and leaders must be sensitive and cognizant that they simply may not have the personal “battery power” to implement coaching effectively at this time.
One common phenomenon observed in districts is initiative fatigue.
With initiative fatigue, educators face new, transformative initiatives on a regular basis. They may feel as if they simply do not have the energy to engage in “one more thing.”
When implementing any initiative in education, it’s critical to understand the linkages with other ongoing initiatives. Teachers often ask how this initiative dovetails with other initiatives, and the resistant teacher may view instructional coaching as interfering with other important work.
This is when teachers start to push back, rebelling against changes they had nothing to do with that interfere with their own preferred activities.
Similar to throwing a pebble into a pond, change creates ripples that move across the institutional pond in ever-widening circles. These ripples can disrupt much other work in unintended ways.
Veteran teachers may have been part of past program implementations that were not entirely successful. These historical failures, at least in the minds of the resistant teachers, open the possibility that a new instructional coaching initiative will follow the same course.
Some veteran teachers also take the stance when a new program is implemented that this too shall pass as each new administration tries to make their mark on the institution with the next great transformative change.
Additionally, some teachers may hold personal cynicism toward administrators based on past interactions. This can create quite negative emotions and engender resistance. Old wounds reopen, and they remember historic resentments — sometimes going back many years.
Each teacher enters the teacher–coach relationship with a unique conception of the coaching role and relationship with their coach, and they may hold entirely different expectations for their coaching relationship than the coach does.
For example:
Coaching models generally approach resistant teachers as those with whom coaches need to expend more effort and time on to eventually establish a trusting, productive relationship.
In terms of matching coaching models with teachers, one schema outlining the approaches to coaching has been developed by Dr. Jim Knight.
The facilitative approach encourages coaches to share their ideas openly by listening with empathy, paraphrasing, and asking powerful questions. This approach is a somewhat passive role.
The coach does not share their expertise or suggestions with respect to what a teacher can do to get better. Instead, they keep their ideas and knowledge to themselves.
At the other extreme is the directive approach. The coach is viewed to have special knowledge to transfer to the teacher, and the coach helps the teacher master the special skills.
The coach gives advice, and the relationship is similar to a master/apprentice relationship.
Between the facilitative and direct approach rests the dialogical approach, which has aspects of both the facilitative and directive.
The coach asks powerful questions, listens, and collaborates to set goals. The coach does not withhold their expertise but falls short of giving advice. The dialogical coach helps teachers look at what research has identified as effective teaching strategies.
A study by Jacobs, Wang & Boardman (2017) examined a group of teachers who were resistant and found two broad manifestations:
Jacobs, et. al. suggests this indicates that program buy-in and resistance to coaching are independent phenomena and should be addressed separately by coaches and school leaders.
This also indicates that the 10 reasons that teachers might be resistant can also be categorized as lack of buy-in or resistance to coaching, each of which require different approaches to ameliorate.
Interested in learning how a teacher coaching platform like SchoolMint Grow can accelerate teacher growth in your school/district?
To see SchoolMint Grow in action for yourself, let‘s talk. Click to get in touch with one of SchoolMint‘s instructional coaching experts.