All text is © Martin Richards, Sweden 2022 unless otherwise stated. (2)
Who is Martin Richards? Martin was trained at an experiential PCGE, Post Graduate Certificate of Education, teacher training course at Sussex University, UK, to be a Mathematics Teacher. He taught at a Secondary School in the UK and a Primary School in Sweden before he became an independent English trainer in Sweden. He was trained by CTI, the Coaches Training Institute, to be a Co-Active coach, gained the CPPC, Certified Professional Co-Active Coach certification and the ACC, Associate Certified Coach, credential. For a time, he was a teacher at an International School where he combined teaching with coaching. As part of his volunteer work, Martin has delivered inspirational talks to teenagers called ‘Choices to be proud of”. During the final phase of his coaching career, he coached educators in Sweden on behalf of the Swedish education authority. After he retired, Martin re-wrote and re-published, 'The Coach in the Classroom' and 'Coaching Conversations' under new titles. (3)
This book was written to support teachers who are increasingly expected to adopt a “coaching approach” in their work. The author is an experienced educator and certified coach who wishes to share his experience and joy of coaching and leading training courses for teachers. The coaching approach is borrowed from the coaching world, where the skills of listening and asking questions are founded on the deeper skills of self-management, curiosity and non-judgement. The coaching approach has a broad range of applications. It can, for example, apply to how teachers receive professional support and guidance from the educational leadership team. It can also apply to speaking with students and their parents about motivation and academic progress. Using the coaching approach eases the educators’ task of observing colleagues' lessons and having their lessons observed by other colleagues. The coaching approach applies most strongly to giving and receiving supportive feedback from colleagues. In this book, readers will learn how educators co-create their working relationships, observe lessons during the (4)
effectively as possible. The storyline of this book follows two course leaders as they design and co-lead a coaching approach training course for teachers, specifically lesson observation and feedback. The story includes the sequence of presentations and activities that engage teachers in adopting the attitude, mindset, tools and skills associated with a coaching approach. This book contains dialogues of what is being thought and said, including the co-leaders' thoughts and feelings as they plan and carry out their work together and their demonstrations of coaching with authentic exchanges between the coaches and the teachers being coached. All of the events are fictional. (5)
Don't tell. Show. How can you inform teachers about a way of thinking, being, and behaving that will make their lives much easier? How can you convince them that this way also brings deeper and richer rewards for them and everyone they work with? Not by telling them, that's for sure. The story in this book aims to show, through dialogue, what it feels, looks, and sounds like to use a coaching approach to teaching. In this story, the two leaders, Rick and Sandra, will conduct a presentation and workshop that is designed to change the way teachers work—without telling them what to do. Instead, they show teachers what to do by doing it and involving them in the process of discovery. Rick and Sandra will model the change they seek. (6)
(7)
What You Pay Attention to Grows. Despite near exhaustion from the Scandinavian hibernation months of November through January, the freezing rain and the icy blasts of an early-February morning are not going to prevent Rick from arriving on time for his meeting with Sandra. She's Rick's favourite coach, and they have decided to meet for coffee, or fika as they say in Sweden. He gets the tram. It takes twenty minutes to get down town. This is the way to travel in Gothenburg. As soon as the tram doors open, he hops off and scurries across the tramlines as quickly as he can, aiming for the opposite platform. Three beeps interrupt his flow. He stops in the middle of the tracks, takes out his smartphone, and reads a message from Dorothy, the head of a nearby college: Can you give a workshop on lesson observation and coaching feedback? One day only. Cost? (8)
thought, half-aloud. A triple clang of warning bells stings his ears and makes his heart jump. The approaching tram brings him back to a dangerous reality. He is about to get squashed. He leaps for his life to the opposite platform. Safe from the tram, he tucks his smartphone away and shoulders through the lines of grey-faced commuters struggling against the endless cold and repetition of work, work, work, on their way to more work, in the other direction. Many of the commuters have just eaten a hasty breakfast at the very café that is Rick's destination. Rick is on his way. He may have freed himself from the drudgery of work, but not from the effects of the cold climate. He pulls his overcoat tighter around his chest, with one hand he holds onto the brim of his hat fluttering in the wind, with the other he grabs his scarf flailing about his neck. His steps do not hesitate. He mentally imagines his footsteps leading to the meeting place. He calculates that he will be almost exactly on time. Rick mutters to himself that his life mission ”to change the education system” is going to cost him his life one (9)
Fleepit Digital © 2021