A single, well-crafted question from an instructional coach woke me up from the dream that my students owned their learning. At that time, I could create standards-based lessons with good criteria-referenced assessments and structure a work-focused writer’s workshop. My classroom was a place where students had fun and were compliant, but on their own, they didn’t know what to do next. My writing scores were flat, and I couldn’t figure out why. Students loved being audiences to each other’s essays and narratives, yet their skills remained stagnant. The students needed me for each step. I didn’t realize that the success criteria for each stage were only inside my head, not theirs.
The profound question that changed my teaching came in the fall of the year I returned to the classroom. I was coming off a successful stint as a school principal and a nationwide consultant and returned to the classroom to see if I still had the “chops” to reach student learners. Specifically, I wanted to know if I could achieve the student learning results suggested by the research I’d been promoting on the road.
My coach was late to her weekly observation. When she arrived, she signaled to me urgently from the door.
“I’m sorry, but I have to reschedule,” she whispered as I approached.
She looked over my shoulder. “I got to go, but before I do, I’ll leave you with one question. Why are all your student’s hands raised while you aren’t with them?”
“Huh?” I replied.
“Turn around,” she said, “I’ll leave you to think about that.” And with that, off she went.
I stood in the doorway and looked at my class. All of them had a hand in the air. Each lacked the confidence to take the next step with their writing without me. I’d been so focused on the instructional behaviors that I forgot to stand back and observe the resulting student learning behaviors. I’d made all the right moves in creating a standards-based lesson with a criteria-based formative assessment. Except my students still didn’t get it. The number of hands in the air proved this. I wasn’t teaching them to write; I was teaching them to be helpless.
I stopped and went to the front of the classroom. Laughing at myself, I called them together.
“You know, the fact that all your hands are in the air suggests I’ve been unfair to you all.”
They looked quizzically at me.
“I shouldn’t be the only one who knows the next step. You are all smart, hard-working, and curious. I can do better.”
I know many of them had no idea what I was saying. But, I noticed the tension in the room vanish. They were shifting from an awful sense of helplessness to warm curiosity.
I was growing at that moment too. I realized I was trying to control every step in unison to ensure a good product from each of them. They had to see the next steps for themselves. They had to have clarity on the next tiny step and be free to try it, mess up, revise it, and try again - all on their own.
Over the subsequent weeks and months, my class and I examined exemplar writing samples for each type of writing we were learning. Through dialogue, small group discussions, and fascinating, friendly debates, my fourth graders created model writing examples to demonstrate how a particular skill evolves toward the standard. We even made “Watch Me Grow” charts that students used in writing and for their math work. It was fun; more importantly, they owned each step they took.
That year, I had an enormous and impressive bump in my writing scores and, interestingly, a giant leap in their reading proficiency. While I can’t prove the link directly, I can say my students “lived like writers” daily. We celebrated sentence transitions, word choice, and sentence structure and dove deep into word entomology. All because I let go of needing to be the answer for them and instead trusted them to provide solutions for themselves.
I always cried when every class left my room on the last day of school, but that year in the minutes the room was silent for the summer, I was a mess. With this class, we grew together. I am still in touch with many of these fourth graders, now adults.
Looking back, I realize that a single, profound question from a skilled instructional coach transformed my career. However, I learned much more than how to help students own their learning. I learned never to underestimate the power of leading through a great question.
Chris Briggs-Hale
Professional Coach
https://waterfalllearning.com/
Chris Briggs-Hale:
Chris Briggs-Hale is the CEO of Waterfall Learning, LLC, and a Certified Professional Coach. He served public schools for 30 years, 15 of which were as a principal. Chris served as a Senior Consultant for McRel and Marzano and Associates, a site visitor for the National Schools of Character Award (Character.org), and was a Board Member with Eunice Kennedy Shriver for the Community of Caring in Washington, DC. Chris has consulted for schools extensively across the United States. He is the recipient of the 2013 Red Cross Community Hero Award, the 2004 Sally K. Lenhardt Professional Leadership Award from Lesley University, the 2004 Community of Caring National Administrator of the Year, and the 2013 Community Service Hero, American Red Cross, Colorado Springs.
Chris graduated from Bates College and received his M.Ed. from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, and a Principal’s Licence from the University of Denver. Chris served as a Staff Assistant at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University before entering the public school system.
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