Introducing New Coaching Tools: Coaching Lenses

Transformational coaching draws from a number of theories, and while I don't want to drown you in them, I want you to gain a sense of which ones are most useful. When we're not working from a sound theoretical basis, we're just throwing strands of spaghetti on the wall to see if they stick.

In this chapter, I'll introduce a set of tools to help us think in different ways about the situations we encounter. These tools are based on theories about adult learning, emotional intelligence, systems thinking, change management, systemic (or structural) oppression, and inquiry thinking. I will introduce you to these theories and illustrate their application. These tools will be referenced throughout the book, so this chapter is meant to provide an overview and the background you'll need to make sense of them when they show up.

A Story about a Teacher Who Seems to Struggle with Classroom Management: Part 1

It was late October before Mr. Delgado, a new Spanish teacher at Turtlerock Middle School, accepted my offer of coaching support. The principal had been asking me to work with Mr. Delgado since the first week of school, when he had observed the teacher's class and left with major concerns about his classroom management skills. Since then, parent complaints were piling up, students were being sent to the office en masse, and Mr. Delgado looked miserable most of the time. However, the teacher missed our scheduled appointments and deflected my inquiries about how he was doing.

I knew that the principal had had concerns about hiring Mr. Delgado, an Afro-Cuban man in his sixties who spoke English with a British accent. He had taught Spanish for several years in a local public high school, but his former supervisor recommended him with reservations: nice guy, she said, but weak classroom management. However, unable to find another candidate, the principal had hired Mr. Delgado just two days before school started. “‘Weak’ was an understatement,” the principal shared after observing Mr. Delgado when school started: “It's chaotic in there. He has no authority, no command. They're running all over him.”

One Monday afternoon, Mr. Delgado showed up at my office door. “OK, I'll accept your offer of help,” he said. “Could you start by coming to observe me? I think you should see what I'm dealing with. Fourth period would be good.”

“Of course,” I said, surprised by his openness. Many teachers are reluctant to have me observe so early in a coaching relationship. “I can come tomorrow.”

The following day I settled into a chair on the side of Mr. Delgado's classroom a few minutes before class started. As students entered the class, Mr. Delgado welcomed his eighth graders and passed out a worksheet. “You have fifteen minutes to work on this assignment,” Mr. Delgado said in a soft voice. “Try to work alone, but if you need help, you can work with a partner.”

About eight minutes into the class, Davontae, a tall, African American boy walked in, slamming the door as he entered, muttering a string of curse words under his breath. He ignored Mr. Delgado when he was asked to sign the tardy book, he sat in a seat in the back of the class, again ignoring Mr. Delgado's reminder of his assigned seat, and he began to make loud disruptive comments: “What the fuck we doing today? This is boring-ass shit. I hate Spanish. I don't want to learn this stupid language,” and so on.

Mr. Delgado seemed to ignore this behavior and attempted to help a girl sitting in the front row. Davontae turned his worksheet into an airplane and threw it across the room, hitting another student in the back of the head.

“Settle down,” Mr. Delgado said in English, his voice barely audible above the rising din of the eighth graders. Several students began throwing paper airplanes. Mr. Delgado's voice rose a little and he called out again, “Settle down, please!” Davontae mimicked Mr. Delgado's accent, repeating his mandate in a mocking tone. Other students laughed and elaborated on the mimicry. Davontae rested his feet on the back of the chair in front of him and continued making snide remarks about the teacher. A girl in the front row shouted to her classmates: “Shut the fuck up, you idiots! I want to learn!” Davontae mocked her and she rose from her seat. “Sit down,” Mr. Delgado said to her. “What you gonna do about him, then?” she said.

“Davontae, you're going to have to leave,” Mr. Delgado said, his volume rising a little.

“I don't want to leave. Things are just getting fun,” Davontae said.

“If you cannot behave and demonstrate an appropriate attitude, then you are going to have to leave,” Mr. Delgado said. “Please take your things now and go.”

A paper airplane hit Mr. Delgado in the back of the head. A loud “Ooooh” came from the students, who started shouting about who had done it. Mr. Delgado's frustration was becoming more and more visible: his hands were shaking, his brow was furrowed. “Go, now!” he shouted at Davontae.

“Don't scream at me!” Davontae yelled. “That's disrespectful,” the student mocked.

Mr. Delgado grabbed Davontae's backpack and threw it toward the door. “Get out of my class!” He yelled at the student. “Get out now! You don't belong here!”

“Don't touch my stuff,” Davontae shouted, rising up and standing taller than the teacher. “Don't you ever touch my stuff again, or I'll mess you up. You don't know who you're dealing with.”

“If you don't leave now, I'm calling security,” Mr. Delgado said as he walked toward the phone. Davontae stood still, staring at the teacher. Several students made provocative noises. Davontae slowly wandered toward the door as Mr. Delgado stood with his trembling hand on the phone. As Davontae opened the door, Mr. Delgado yelled, “And don't come back unless you want to learn Spanish.”

After Davontae left, students settled down fairly quickly. Mr. Delgado delivered a lesson on the musical instruments of Cuba. He played music, tried to talk to the class about the origins of the music, and offered a couple dozen new vocabulary terms. He did not reach his stated objective, the sequence of the lesson seemed disjointed, and fewer than half the students completed the worksheet he gave them. Davontae was suspended.

I left Mr. Delgado's class feeling overwhelmed. I had no idea where I'd start my debrief with Mr. Delgado later that afternoon. Fortunately, I had reserved some time to process and plan in between my observation and our debrief. And fortunately, I have my massive set of tools—what I call the Coach's Optical Refractor—to help me think through what I'd observed and construct a plan for my conversation with Mr. Delgado.

I will now introduce you to the Coach's Optical Refractor and describe its six lenses. After I describe each lens, I'll apply it to Mr. Delgado's class. Finally, I'll share the questions that I created to ask Mr. Delgado, along with our debrief conversation.

A Story about a Teacher Who Seems to Struggle with Classroom Management: Part 2

“Hi, Mr. Delgado,” I said, as I let myself into his classroom. Mr. Delgado was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer monitor. “I'm glad we're going to have a chance to work together. I'm looking forward to supporting you.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “This was a hard day.”

“Let's talk about it, then,” I said. “I'm wondering if you'd mind sharing what you felt today during the time I was in here observing?”

“OK,” he said. “But I really want to hear what you thought. I don't know what to do.”

“We'll get to that, but first I'd like to hear about how you experienced today.”

“I felt very upset,” Mr. Delgado said. “I felt very disappointed in my students and in myself. I do not believe in shouting at children, even when they behave in the way that Davontae behaved. I lost control and I regret that.”

“I hear that,” I said, nodding. “I'm curious if you noticed that you were losing control?”

“I did. I told myself a few times to ignore their comments and take deep breaths. They are just young people in a difficult situation and I must not take out my anger on them.”

“Could you tell me more about how you see the situation or the problem?”

“Well, I will start by saying that I know that the principal thinks the problem is my classroom management. That's why he wants you to coach me, right? He thinks if I was stricter that I wouldn't have these problems in my class.” Mr. Delgado's tone is shifting just a bit; I hear irritation.

“It sounds like you disagree,” I said. “How do you see the situation?”

“I am not sure that anyone wants to hear my perspective of the situation,” he responded.

“I'd like to hear it. I'm here to support you.”

Mr. Delgado looked at me for a few seconds. He exhaled loudly. “Maybe you could help me to understand this management plan I'm supposed to use,” he said.

“Sure. What parts are working for you?”

“One of the problems is that I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. I was hired two days before school started and so I missed the training that everyone went to. The principal said he was going to schedule a makeup session for me, but that hasn't happened. So I don't really know what this plan is or how I'm supposed to use it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I can see how that would make it hard to implement! That seems like it is one of the challenges in this situation.”

“Yes, and it's frustrating when people keep coming to me, and they are upset by my management, and yet I haven't had the training.”

“That would be very frustrating.”

Mr. Delgado leaned closer to me. “The assistant principal even insinuated that I could lose my job if I don't improve. I told her I'd missed the training and that I wanted to learn this program. And then she told me that she'd talk to you about meeting with me.”

“That seems unfair.”

“It is. And she made it seem like if I didn't meet with you I'd be fired. I guess I was a little annoyed by that, and that's why I missed some of our meetings.”

“I understand. That's not what coaching is about—I'm not here to fix you or make you use a program. I'm really here to support you. I'm wondering if you could tell me a little about your background. I don't know much about your teaching experiences. Maybe you could share what brought you into teaching and what you feel are your strengths?”

Mr. Delgado spoke at length and with enthusiasm about his teaching background. In Cuba, as a young man, he'd taught English at the university. After he immigrated to the United States, he taught in various after-school programs as well as at the high school level. He felt that his strengths were in developing relationships with students and in understanding their lives. When he shared this, I found a way to connect it back to what I'd observed in his class that day.

“Mr. Delgado, it's fantastic that you feel confident about being able to connect with students. I'm curious what you know about Davontae.”

“I have worked hard to get to know Davontae in the last two weeks. You know he's a Katrina refugee?”

“No,” I said. I did know that hundreds of displaced families from New Orleans had come to Oakland in the weeks since the devastating hurricane.

“His mother sent him here because they are homeless. He's living with his great-uncle, who is disabled. Davontae can barely read in English. I think he may have learning difficulties. I don't know why they put him in a Spanish class.”

“Wow, poor kid,” I said. “I can see you have really started to get to know him.”

“I have. I care about that boy. I can relate to him—being a refugee, not being able to go home. I have tried to work hard with him, but I can't reach him. He needs more help.”

“That seems like something we should advocate for. I wonder if he can get counseling and other support.”

“I've been trying to get that to happen, but the system at this school is very slow, and I don't really understand it.”

“I can try to help with that,” I said. “I'm wondering about something you mentioned—I'm curious what the process is for determining who takes Spanish and why Davontae was put in your class.”

“That is a very good question,” Mr. Delgado said, sitting up, his face looking animated. “That is another thing I have been asking about. I asked the school counselor why she'd assigned Davontae to my class. She said, ‘You had space.’ I said, ‘It's Spanish 2, and he's never had Spanish.’ She explained that the only other elective for eighth graders at that time was advanced band and that the music teacher selects students who are in that class. They are students who have been in band since they were in elementary school—so they are a very special, select group. Have you ever been in that class?” Mr. Delgado asked me.

I had observed advanced band. The students were quite talented. I had also noticed that the band students did not represent the racial demographics of the school—these students, who had been in band since early elementary, drew from our city's middle class and predominantly white elementary schools. Those were the schools that, because of the fundraising efforts of the PTA, still had a music program. The middle school they now attended drew from both the city's poorest neighborhoods, which were almost exclusively African American, and from its upper-middle-class neighborhoods—which were predominantly white. The result was that although the school was 80 percent African American, advanced band had only two black students (out of thirty students total). The effect of that scheduling decision was that advanced band dictated the school's master schedule and created a de facto tracking system that cut across racial lines.

Mr. Delgado and I talked about this for a while. I was starting to get a picture of the complicated set of factors that were entwined in Mr. Delgado's “classroom management issue.” I told Mr. Delgado that I'd raise some of the systemic issues with the administration—issues of how new teachers are brought into a school's program such as the behavior management program, how students are assigned to classes, and what kinds of social and emotional support could be provided to Davontae. Then I shifted the conversation back to what Mr. Delgado might be in control of and what he could do in his classroom.

“I hear that you really care about Davontae and understand him. I'm wondering what you noticed about him when he entered your classroom today?,” I asked.

“I could tell he was angry,” Mr. Delgado said, nodding. “I noticed that.”

“I'm wondering if there's anything you think you could have tried to help him calm down?”

“I was just trying to get my lesson off the ground. I want my students to just come in, take their seats, and start working. I want them to care about their learning and be responsible for it.”

“I hear that, and that's great. You want them to be intrinsically motivated. I'm wondering, however, when a student comes into class and you can tell he's emotionally upset, if you there are things you could try in order to get him to settle into learning?”

“I'd like to try something. Do you have some ideas?”

We spoke for a while about different strategies that teachers use to defuse student behavior or help a student calm down. Mr. Delgado was open and interested. When I broached the subject of the behavior management plan that the school was using, Mr. Delgado became less engaged. He seemed resistant or reluctant to use a plan. “I just want them to care about their learning and get into it without me having to tell them to,” he said several times. I validated this feeling and suggested that his role was to help students bridge the world of the lunchroom, the hallway, or wherever they were coming from, and the learning that was possible if they settled into it.

We ended our conversation with an agreement to meet weekly. Mr. Delgado was receptive to support on lesson planning and instructional strategies. He also agreed that he'd like to learn some ways to calm himself down and not explode when students pushed his buttons (he admitted that this had happened before). But he remained apprehensive about support on the specific topic of classroom management. He agreed to attend the training that the principal would set up, but dismissed coaching in this area.

Using the Coach's Optical Refractor and the six lenses to view what I'd observed in Mr. Delgado's class raised many questions and opened many paths for exploration. Although my debrief that day revealed some of the answers and some of the factors, I knew there was still more to what was going on with Mr. Delgado. Had I not used the lenses, I might have approached Mr. Delgado and focused my conversation exclusively on management. He may not have engaged as openly with me, he may not have taken up the offer of more coaching, and I may not have been able to see the systemic implications of the situation.

As I coached Mr. Delgado that year, I continued to apply this set of lenses and questions to what I noticed in his classroom. Management continued to be an issue—students were often out of control in his room and getting into fights, and Mr. Delgado seemed unwilling to manage them. A couple months into our coaching work together, I asked Mr. Delgado one of the questions I'd wondered about after my initial visit: I asked him how he experienced being a black man teaching mostly African American children. “What's that like for you?” I asked. It was this question that finally revealed some of the core issues at play.

“I love teaching these children,” Mr. Delgado said. “My heart and soul is with them. I was like them once—perceived as someone who would not make anything of himself, viewed as a second-class citizen, as someone who would become a criminal. It is this that makes my job so difficult. I refuse to be another person in their lives who oppresses them. I refuse to be a policeman or a prison guard. I refuse to be a part of this racist system. This is what I feel I am being asked to do.”

Once he trusted me, and once I asked the questions, Mr. Delgado was very clear about why he was not invested in using a classroom management plan that he felt resulted predominantly in the suspension of African American boys. But because he was also committed to helping students learn, he struggled with this contradiction in what his job required. Over the year, he instituted some structures and learned to manage some of his students' behaviors, but at the end of the year he decided that given the current conditions in schools, he could better serve African American youth outside of the classroom. Through coaching, he had been able to explore the contradiction he experienced between wanting to serve children by being a teacher, and the personal and systemic factors that made this hard to do. He resigned from teaching and went on to work with a restorative justice organization where his work was appreciated and he felt effective.

The issues that Mr. Delgado raised about how students' schedules are determined, how new teachers are brought into a school's program, and how students receive additional support services were large ones to tackle. Within my role as a coach, I was able to raise these and draw connections between the challenges faced by classroom teachers and the larger system issues. Some of these issues were addressed immediately (Davontae's schedule was changed so that he didn't have to take Spanish 2, and he was referred to a mental health provider for services), some other issues were changed the following year, and certain other issues were not addressed. But what was essential was that the various complicated and entangled issues that manifested when Davontae stormed into Mr. Delgado's class and was eventually suspended, and the administration's perception that Mr. Delgado simply struggled with classroom management, were deconstructed.

When Will I Use These Lenses?

As coaches, we can use the lenses when planning coaching work, when confronted with dilemmas, and in reflection on our work. They can be used as they were in this chapter to analyze a complex situation. As I described, applying the lenses to guide my work helped support a teacher to find an effective place from which to serve children, helped shift a system, and helped one student have a better eighth-grade year.

The lenses are woven throughout the chapters that follow, and here's a quick map to what you'll find where. In Part Two of this book, we'll look at how these lenses can be applied as the foundation is set for a coaching assignment. As we develop trust with a client, we want to specifically look through the lenses of emotional intelligence and adult learning (Chapter Five). As we engage in the stage of exploration and learn about a client and his context, we'll take a careful look through the lenses of systemic oppression, inquiry, and systems thinking (Chapter Six). Finally, as we develop a work plan with a client, we'll look through the lens of change management, and again through the lenses of inquiry and adult learning (Chapter Seven).

In Part Three, which describes the “coaching dance”—the conversations and activities that make up the bulk of coaching work—the lenses are integrated into a coach's analysis and decision making. In this final part, each chapter concludes with a section on common challenges. These common challenges explore the lenses that yield insight into the dilemma presented.

In Chapter Fourteen, on reflection and assessment, I return to the lens of systems thinking to analyze how coaching has affected systems change.

On my website there are many additional examples of common challenges that arise in coaching and descriptions of how to apply the lenses to resolve the challenges.