At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the past year has been rough. Really, really rough. While we’ll hopefully turn the corner amid the COVID vaccine rollout, the pandemic effects continue to ripple far and wide, and we’ll live for the foreseeable future within the long shadow of COVID-19. It’s normal and healthy to feel and process our pain, mourn our losses, and even miss the days prior to our current chaos, knowing full well that in many ways, things will never quite return to what we once knew. And specifically, within the world of K–12 education, 2020 was a year of jarring fits and starts, incredible perseverance, and downright scrappiness in the spirit of doing what’s best for our kids.
I am a true believer in the power of coaching. I have previously written about the need for teachers to embrace this practice with a growth mindset and shed any negative stigmas attached to instructional coaching in order to realize its potential to improve our craft.
Now, I’d like to consider the impact of a leader’s role in the coaching process.
I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Melvin Love, principal at Oxmoor Valley Elementary School in Birmingham City Schools in Alabama. He shared some firsthand experiences from his role as an instructional leader. In our conversation, he touched on the collaborative and supportive nature of instructional coaching, the importance of strong teams and, above all, the necessity of trust.
Read the conversation with Dr. Melvin Love here.
“The biggest thing in establishing trust as an instructional leader is that you must have a vision…and that vision needs to be carried out.”
– Dr. Melvin Love