We are just developing this coaching model so we need to refine it each day. Here are some of the things that we are learning about this model. By the way, it’s wonderful to finally meet people we have known only through their internet voices. This is a very happy time.
1. The use of the (Jobs for Kids) professeurs 1 and 2 has come up a lot in the work so far. I had never really noticed how often teachers get stuck between whether the house is red or blue, causing a kind of interruption of the flow of the questioning. Asking a student (le professeur) to just say either red or blue and getting out of the lull in the question in a matter of seconds is a fantastic way to not lose the flow of the questioning. Was it chill who suggested that in yesterday’s first session? I know John asked the question but who answered it? Brilliant answer and a good example of how we can work together to make this coaching model work. Then when Joe was teaching last night he applied this technique with Louisa Walker and got through the speed bump in about three seconds. It was the way the Professeur technique was meant to work! So that is one thing we have learned so far, is how important the professeur is.
2. I am so happy to say how done I am with presenting in the old model. Who ever thought of that? Like I get up there and am supposed to convey ideas and people sit there on their butts and listen. What the heck is that? Seems like teaching using the grammar translation model for all the good it does.
3. People not in the original group of 15 are feeling excluded. I don’t blame them. It is a simple problem. We are in there working and they naturally want in, yet I have to protect the original idea behind the War Room, which is that those working be able to work in an atmosphere of complete safety and trust with others whose voice they know and trust from the PLC, and who know the coaching “vocabulary”. What to do? I don’t know. On one hand I could throw open the doors to the sessions, but that would blow away the safety (and focus) of those working. But might those working be able to work and still have observers in the back of the room, with the 15 PLC people all sitting in the front? As long as Kramer isn’t in the observing group eating jujubes? I don’t know the answer to that one yet. Ideas are welcome in the comment fields below. I would rather have that conversation here so we can not lose a minute of direct coaching later today. This leads us to the big issue of conservation of time:
a. Only three people have worked so far and it’s Wednesday. To address that, today I will try to limit all sorts of open discussion. What happens, and this is so obvious really, is that we start intellectualizing. And there is a place for that, perhaps here on the blog in the comment fields below? Those with a question can write their questions below and then those not here can get in on the discussion and add in their ideas. Let’s try that. Angie gets this the most. She gets it more clearly than anyone that if she is to get the most from this week she will have to work all the time and that is what we have to do – let people who want to work do just that. So my plan for today is to be in the War Room at noon as usual and stay there until 4:30 and then we will reconvene at Louisa Walker’s (2023 Marriot) at 5:30. There will be a space problem so those first in get to stay and if there is no room we can’t do anything about that. People in the War Room, those original 15, need to be on time so that we don’t have to kick anyone else out who may be there early. It’s just a space problem. Order dinner out, that’s what we did.
b. We are going to employ two new coaching ideas today and see if they work, because the time is so valuable. The first idea I am calling Pop Up Coaching. That is Carly’s idea. We say the idea in the exact moment it happens, the person stops teaching and listens to the coaching point, rewinds five seconds, and makes the fix and goes on with the lesson. So if a person gets to a point where they need help, it’s like pop up grammar and keeps us from intellectualizing the point and disturbing the flow of the questioning that the teacher is trying so hard to do. The second new coaching idea is to limit questions to the last ten or fifteen minutes of each work session.
So with that in mind the schedule for today is:
B101 North High School –
12:00 noon – 12:40 – Pop Up Coaching
12:40 – 12:50 – Pop Up Questions – question has to be asked and answered by whoever is answering it in under one minute.
12:50 – 1:00 – Break
1:00 – 2:25 – Pop Up Coaching
2:20 – 2:30 – Pop Up Questions
2:30 – 2:40 – Break
2:40 – 4:20 – Pop Up Coaching
4:20 – 4:30 – Pop Up Coaching (overflow questions you have to ask on the PLC below)
5:30 – 9:00 – Pop Up Coaching (Marriott first come first served until space runs out)
If any of the 15 teachers in the War Room want to add ideas to the question of letting people in to the back of the War Room in all those chairs, please comment on that below. There are younger teachers who would really benefit from seeing people like Angie and Carly and Joe work. By the way, Joe was really seeing eye to eye with his audience last night. There is more to that pun than meets the eye, eye might add.
We also need a scribe to take notes to later share with the PLC members who are not here, and we have to figure out the video thing for the PLC as well. So far, it just hasn’t felt right to video this work. The teacher is just so “out there”. The work Angie and Carly and Joe have done so far has been amazing. It’s like they are seasoned pros at it but to video it I don’t know. We’ll decide today. That said, I would like to add that I’m glad for all who have sent those videos in here over the years. They are not polished products, nor are they the best representation of our work, which is hard for our egos to embrace, but I can say that I have heard many comments about how valuable they have been and I can see how that is true in watching Angie and Carly and Joe teach. Also those three are from the Northeast and I think two of them have been to the Maine October conference where they obviously learned a ton. So I can with happiness that the intent of the videos here has been met, to convey ideas via images about how to do this. That is so obvious in what I have seen from the three who have worked so far. I never thought I would be able to say that the video piece on the PLC has been a proven training success but now I can say that.
Further refinement of the War Room model to happen later today. I have to say, I’ve waited all my teaching life for times like these with my colleagues. These are some seriously fine people.