“I’ve been saying this for years” — Why no one in your school is listening to you
I live the life of an instructional coach, and so I get it: it’s very frustrating to dole out recommendations, read the latest literature before you go to bed, and create resources for teachers, only to have the implemented poorly—or not at all. It’s tempting, too, to blame it on the teachers themselves. Maybe they’re not motivated, too lazy, or poorly trained in your mind, but consider this: Why would someone decide to be a teacher if they were lazy or unmotivated?
Trust, they could probably get paid more for doing less.
Instead, as coaches, we need to consider the systemic and individual factors at play. Here are a few common reasons teachers might not be "listening" to your coaching, and what you can do about it.
You’re offering suggestions—but no feedback
If you’re just telling teachers what to do, or sending them resources via email, you’re not actually coaching. Productive instructional coaching is grounded in specific, actionable, and timely feedback. Teachers need short cycles where they can address a problem of practice by implementing a new strategy or tool, reflecting with a coach as soon as possible. If the feedback loops are too long, or if teachers don’t actually know how to use these suggestions, then they won’t be successful.
And here’s the thing—if they are not successful, then they aren’t going to value your coaching. For teachers to feel that coaches are effective, they must be able to see, in real time, that the time and energy they spend in a coaching relationship is not only leading to the desired results, but making their professional life easier. Clear feedback, actionable steps, and short cycles will help you achieve that.
They haven’t (yet) witnessed your impact
Especially when establishing a new coaching relationship, I like to start with, “Let me teach your class for a few days.” Not only does this allow me, the coach, to really understand the teacher’s experience, it also helps me practice what I preach. I want teachers to take risks, make mistakes, and be vulnerable with their practice, and so I need to model that for them.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen until I get in there,” I like to say—because it’s true. Sure, I have a rich toolbox of strategies to draw from, and yes, I am good on my feet. Teachers will learn how to expand their toolbox and be “good on their feet” by watching someone else work with their kids.
I worked with one teacher this past year who shared that her students just “weren’t listening” to her. And she was right. They were disruptive, distracted, and disengaged. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t a behavior problem; it was a curriculum problem. She wasn’t adapting the curriculum to meet the students’ needs, teaching far outside their zones of proximal development. Once we adapted the lesson, engagement changed (almost) with the snap of a finger. Her ability to witness that impact made our coaching conversations powerful.
They aren’t ready
The key to any teaching, including the teaching that an instructional coach does, is knowing when you’re students are ready for what you have to say. If you give them too much—or teach outside their zones of proximal development—they will disengage or implement your suggestions poorly. We can draw upon the Architecture of Accomplished Teaching to inform coaching conversations using the following steps:
Know your teachers. Develop an understanding of who they are as humans, their current skillsets, and most importantly, what they need to be more effect and efficient pedagogues.
Set reasonably rigorous goals with them. No, this doesn’t mean simply letting them work on whatever they want. Especially new teachers need help with prioritization. But their voice matters in the process. They need to feel ownership and a sense of purpose when setting and working towards a goal.
Create a plan for implementing the goal. Make sure this plan is time-bound, and that there are clear deliverables for follow-up. Perhaps it’s a lesson plan, a new resource, or a collection of student work for analysis. The deliverables matter because they will concretize the coaching cycle—fostering self-reflection and self-evaluation.
Set a new, worthwhile goal that builds upon the previous one. Ensuring a sense of mastery matters here. Teachers need to see that their efforts are leading to sustained progress in their teaching. They need to see that these goals are making them more effective and efficient.
Remember, it’s not personal
Resist the urge to personalize all of this. If “no one is listening” to you, it’s a problem you need to solve. It might mean you need to work on relationship building, and it might mean you need to address one of the three recommendations I’ve offered. Regardless, your job as a coach is to be effective—and so it’s on you to make some changes.
