In 1965, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote a track which Lennon deemed to be one of his most honest works of all time — Help! Much has been written about the song since, however one element remains true throughout – simply that it’s okay to need help.

The concepts of setting goals, coaching and mentoring have been around for many years. Whether you’re a fan of the SMART Goals, GROWTH Coaching or simply someone who has enjoyed high-quality mentoring and guidance, you will be aware of the value of seeking support.

Over the last decade I’ve been fortunate to be part of all of the above, as well as in-school coaching and some great critical friendships. Some experiences have been life changing, shaping my thinking and practice, while others have been dictatorial and the only outcome has been to push me further away from the intended target. You see, there is a fundamental difference between coaching and mentoring. Likewise, there is often a tremendous difference in outcome when allowed to select your own coach or mentor as opposed to being handed the connection to a colleague. My aim in this post is not to criticise practices, it is simply to bring clarity to the differences you may experience and perhaps guide you into making an informed choice in the future.

Coaching

A good coach is worth their weight in gold. You go to them with needs and specific skills and their role is to focus on getting you to the place you’ve identified you need to be. Coaching is often described as being ‘future focused’ in its nature. It’s a role that aims to move you forwards through a journey of discovery and supports you in taking risks. In the sports world, the coach is there to get results, drive the team forward and keep momentum going. A good coach listens and reacts to situations; however, their focus is forwards, fixed on progress and achievement.

Choosing a coach may or may not be the responsibility of the person coached. Often, when new to a staff or establishment, there hasn’t been time to identify the skill set of colleagues and so asking someone to choose their coach specific to a goal is like putting a pin in a map to choose your holiday destination- it could be amazing, or you could end up in the middle of a conflict. In this situation, seek the advice of peers and leaders. Express your goal and simply listen to their recommendations. However, what if you’re not new to an environment? You’ve identified a goal area and the person you feel could help you. Now what? Personally, I’d stop and check before diving in. Why have you identified this person? Often, we slip into the notion that we need the person who is best at something to show us how to do it. But is that what makes a great coach? Was Sir Alex Ferguson (English football’s most successful manager of the last 30 years) the greatest football player of all time? Regardless of what you think of him, he is one of the most successful coaches in footballing history. Not because he was a gifted player on the field, but because he knew how to get the best out of his players. So, you see, the best on the field may not be the best at showing others.

Lastly, and arguably firstly, there is a need to identify what sort of coach you feel you are looking for. Are you looking for an instructional coach, someone who helps you focus on practical strategies for engaging students and improving learning? Or perhaps a peer coach to help you collaborate and reflect, guiding you through solving specific problems? For some you may even be seeking a life coach, helping facilitate you towards a better whole person space to feed into your teaching career.

Whatever your decision, you need to start with your why. At the centre of any form of coaching is change. Before you choose your coach, you need ask yourself why you’re choosing to change. From there, what you want to achieve will flow and a coach will simply help you find how you’re going to get there.

Mentoring

Finding the right mentor can be extremely difficult. Rarely does the relationship instantly click into place. A mentoring relationship is built on trust, something that needs to grow and be nurtured. To me, the relationship between mentor and mentee is closer than that of coach and coachee. The sharing is deeper, the past is reflected upon more and used to inform the way forward. Like coaching, mentoring can focus on goals to move forward, but from my own experience, those goals were fluid and open to change. They often had open terms and were not constrained by time pressures. My mentor guided me through refining them, prompting me to return to them if I strayed too far away (as I very often did) and simply helped me find perspective.

Unlike coaching, mentoring is often described as a two-way street. Whereas a coach helps you navigate a path in the same direction, a mentor not only helps you move back and forth along the same road, they also facilitate the exploration of different avenues. Whether through their experience or reflection upon your own, a strong mentor will not only guide you towards your goals, but also show you the journey you’ve undertaken to get there. They help find you clarity and strength through a deep, trust-based relationship. And lastly, a good mentor will not simply spoon feed you the answers you’re looking for. They will challenge you, take alternate perspectives and lenses, pushing your thinking around a situation beyond the impact on you and help you shift your mind-frame. E.M. Forster once said, ‘Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.’

Which one do you need?

 The only person that can truly answer the question of which one you need is you. The challenge is identifying the difficulty you are facing and working out what it is you need to do to overcome any barriers. If you can see how you could potentially move forward, then perhaps a coach is what you need. If the fog has well and truly set in, then perhaps a mentor could be the way forward. One thing is for sure, they are NOT one and the same thing. In asking an experienced principal for her thoughts this morning, she replied ‘I see a mentor as someone who works more closely, a coach is more a facilitator. They both help you solve problems.’ She continued ‘A coach is potentially working from more of a model, whereas a mentor will work within the context a person finds themselves in. Regardless of the situation, it is easy to fall into spoon-feeding a coachee or mentee. It is the level of emotional investment and the understanding of the width of the picture that makes the true difference.’ What my principal colleague expressed is echoed clearly in a University of Waikato booklet from 2011:

“The word ‘mentor’ has become widely used in organisations and in a range of professional contexts. The term is often used synonymously with the related concepts of coaching and supervision, but while the mentoring relationship may involve elements of both of these activities, the role of mentor is generally broader and less specific than either of these terms suggest.’ (Spiller 2011)

Although value must be placed on both professional coaching and mentoring, the latter must take place in a safe and secure environment. The conversation should form as a direct response to the needs identified by the mentee. Unlike coaching within a goal-focused model, it means the direction is not a foregone conclusion. The journey will ebb and flow, grow as the learner grows and evolve as the depth of both trust and knowledge deepens.

For those who are unsure, there are a wealth of resources available to you online to help you make your decision. A short read for clarity is available here, via recruiter.com and is well worth 10 minutes of your time.

As someone who has experienced both sides of both roles, each has their place. They remain strong avenues to explore and help guide your practice, no matter where you are in your career. As a mentor, I relished the opportunities to drill down into people’s practice and bring out their ‘why’- creating strong lifelong bonds with other professionals that fed my knowledge and perspective as much as I hope they fed theirs. When coaching, the security of having a model and steps to work through were a genuine positive. Knowing the order and being able to check in with a colleague, using the same language and the same level of understanding made tracking progress towards a learning area very easy. From there it was often just a case of making it visible and embedding within an appraisal process.

The education sector continues to be an evolving field of exploration. Having access to services like UChoose, CORE Education’s mentoring service, helped my own professional growth in ways I never thought possible. My mentor, Rebbecca Sweeney, guided me through the minefields, helped me find perspective and sometimes just gave me the straight answers I needed. From a purely personal perspective, in my mentor I have found not only someone I trust to guide me and help me grow, but someone I now call a friend.

References

Spiller, D (2011) Mentoring Teaching Development | Wāhanga Whakapakari Ako University of Waikato, New Zealand

Image Acknowledgements:
Help image by Nick Youngsen under CC BY-SA 3.0
Coaching Baseball image by KeithJJ under CC0 Public Domain

I have been a member of Facebook for longer than I have been in New Zealand. I have had a wonderful, career-defining seven years in Aotearoa and continue to love it with as much passion as the day I arrived. It has been seven years of pedagogy, intense learning, and exploration. However, I have been part of Facebook, posting, sharing and connecting since 2006. It has become part of my everyday existence, checking my feed and catching up with friends all over the world. If anything, I feel more a citizen of Facebook, than I do any country I am from or have lived in.

Why?

Although I hold a UK passport, I’m not really part of the system anymore. Of course, I remain proud of where I come from, and happy to laugh when declaring myself a ‘Pom,’ but when you do not live the experiences, you never really feel part of them.

Likewise, I’ve only been in New Zealand for seven years. I do not hold a New Zealand passport, nor am I a full citizen of this country. I’m proud to be associated with New Zealand education and New Zealanders, a people who have embraced me into their culture and whānau, however, I am not really a Kiwi.

I feel very much as a citizen of the real world, but perhaps more importantly, a citizen of Social Media. So, if I don’t really ‘fit’ as a citizen of the United Kingdom or New Zealand, what am I left with? Seven years on Twitter and 10 on Facebook, connecting, collaborating and sharing with people from all over the world.

As I hit my mid-thirties, I remind myself that I am not a digital native- a wonderful noun, defined as:

digital native
noun

1. a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology and so familiar with computers and the Internet from an early age.
2. “the digital tools that are reshaping our economy make more sense to young digital natives than to members of older generations”

I, like many of you, remember a time before the Internet, when email didn’t exist in the mainstream, and long before the days of Skype. I most certainly do not look back at those times with a rose tint. Technology has not only made my life easier, it has enabled me to connect with friends and family ‘back home’ effortlessly. However, this has been a process of growth and adoption, pushing boundaries, and learning from online mistakes. Throughout, Facebook has been a constant. Not native, but still, very much at home in a digital world.

There is certainly a distinct difference between being at home in a digital world and being digitally native. And so, I think of the students we work with every day. Those who have been on social media and using apps like Snapchat for as long as their memories can recall. In 2011, ABC News reported estimates of 7.5 million Facebook users under the age of 13-years-old, with almost 5 million under the age of 10. What’s more alarming is that these figures come from a survey of just 20 million users under the age of 21 in the United States. This equates to 37.5% of users on Facebook being underage. My point is that guiding the use of social media and the many associated challenges, does NOT just fall into the realm of secondary teachers, it’s everywhere.

We are operating in a world of digitally native students. Just recently, I watched a SoulPancake clip on Youtube. It opens with the following:

“Our generation is stuck in this unique position of trying to create ourselves. As if growing up and making sense of the world wasn’t enough, we have this second space where we are forging our identities. One where no generation before us has set the rules. I am as much a citizen of Snapchat as I am of New Zealand.” (Soulpancake 2016)

It is this mind frame we cannot ignore. The sense of belonging felt by the learners of today towards online communities is equal to, if not greater than, their sense of belonging to a country. Coupled with the global transience of people, many of the students we teach now simply do not have the same affinity to their country of birth, because they no longer live in it! Many teachers I have spoken with recently struggle to understand this. How can a student feel such pride in being part of an online community? But they do.

Social media is the norm

We are gradually moving into a time of communication and interaction via social media becoming the norm. A small town in Granada, Spain has dropped their traditional customer service in favour of interacting via social media.

“Around the world, governments and citizens are engaging on social media. For instance, the town government in Jun, Spain has famously ditched its traditional approach to municipal customer service and replaced it with Twitter interactions.” (Toscano 2016)

They are not alone. Post Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast United States, Twitter became an essential lifeline for those waiting for emergency announcements and information as to how to stay safe.

Whether it’s celebrities, TV show accounts, or popular online personalities, our students of today rely heavily on their interactions with social media. As they tackle the minefield of social development and interactions, they crave information to keep up with their peers. And so, it’s logical that they turn to social networking to achieve this.

Social media as a laxative for the brain

Surely, it, therefore, falls to us as educators to instill the same offline boundaries into the learners of today?

Quite recently, I heard Dane Baptiste (a British Comedian and writer) describe social media as a ‘laxative for the brain.’ For the first time, my social media and networking world stopped to reflect on what I’d just heard. With the recent US election overflow on Twitter, I realised very abruptly that he was right. Please do not misunderstand me. This didn’t mean for one moment that my love of online connections, collaboration, and sharing dwindled in any way. However, scrolling the rhetoric and diatribe from both sides of the electoral parties, it is easy to see why such a metaphor works. The ‘flamers’ were all too apparent. Their conviction and language use appeared to often be without forethought or reflection, and the conversations often spanned multiple time zones and countries. Digging in a little deeper, it immediately became obvious that much of the internet noise was not coming from 13 – 25-year-olds, but from those who could be judged to know better. Is this the message we want to send to learners and social medias of tomorrow? The evils and perils of online interaction will always exist; however, the Key Competencies must be extended to online interactions and behaviour. If we cannot manage ourselves and relate to others effectively, the hateful noise will simply never cease.

Finding the balance

Whether you see social media use as a problem or an incredible resource, there can be no denying that it is firmly entrenched in our society. Learners of today value their online interactions as highly as their offline conversations. Our role as teachers and educators has never been more crucial in helping them find the balance, behaviour, and beauty that exists in all their lives.

Sources

Soulpancake. 2016, Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZAkZ4TzSEA

Toscano, James. 2016, Retrieved from: http://theconversation.com/does-social-media-help-the-government-citizen-relationship-depends-who-you-ask-58481

Recently, the news has been awash with wonderings and reports of schools going online as a way forward. As a modern learning pedagogy enthusiast and someone who believes in strong technology use within the classroom, you would think I would be fully behind the announcement. And I am. But, we must not lose sight of one of the most fundamental elements of learning. The very best piece of technology a student will ever have access to is a good teacher. The context of the drive to establish communities of online learning has perhaps been lost in the responses to the original announcement. Here we are faced with the opportunity to respond to the ever-changing needs of students, and keep them entirely at the centre of learning. We know that technology is not the silver bullet. It is often described by those less inclined to use it as ‘being as effective as giving a fish a bicycle’. But, is this the real picture? Once the engagement with the device as a shiny object has subsided, we can really begin to unpack just what learning with digital technology can do for our learners. The key areas are perhaps summarised best by the Woolf Fisher Research Centre’s ongoing research with a progressive cluster of low-decile Auckland schools.

• Engagement
• Powerful teaching conversations
• Complex tasks
• In-site and on-site support
• Connections and visibility.

These areas have become known as the ‘five affordances of digital technology’ and stem from over three years’ worth of professional research into the use of technology to accelerate student progress and achievement.

Very recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to unpack the affordances with a group of senior teachers and school leaders. All of these are currently in the second year of a three-year supported programme focused on raising student achievement and making accelerated progress. This is underpinned by a shared cluster pedagogy and a base of visibility through access to technology.

Engagement

After the box has been unpacked and the glow of the device has subsided, what is left? Just how can using an internet-enabled device in a well-organised 1:1 programme add to student engagement? We know that intrinsic motivation stems from learning that has high levels of interest or opportunity to explore curiosity (Woolfolk-Hoy and Hoy, 2009), so, perhaps the first area to unpack with regards to engagement is authenticity. Having access to the wider world and the understanding that a piece of work is not finished when it’s handed to the teacher, means that students have the opportunity to engage with an authentic audience. In context, this could be as simple as preparing a speech on world poverty and famine. Previously, the student would write and present the speech to their peers, and then receive their feedback before moving on to the next topic of study. Having an internet-ready device opens up a world of possibilities. The speech can be blogged for others outside of the school to see. It could be recorded and shared via a multitude of audio and video hosting platforms with the intention of reaching those who can actually make a difference. Just recently, this very scenario happened. An intermediate level student shared their writing about equality and the lives of refugees to their blog. The post was automatically tweeted by the cluster account and within an hour had been read and retweeted by a small human rights organisation based in Europe. The connection came to life and the writing had, very quickly, gone far beyond the walls of the classroom. This example alone feeds well into some of the other areas felt to be related to student engagement. The writing had been completed both in and out of the classroom, researched using sources from across the globe, and curated for relevance. The learning had become relevant, meaningful, and powerful; engagement was simply a wonderful by-product.

Powerful teaching conversations

Something New Zealand teachers do well is conferencing with students. Since moving to NZ over six years ago, I have been shown the value of purposeful, powerful teaching conversations between students and teachers. So, how can digital technology improve something that is already very strong in many learning institutions? Having access to learning via a device means that students have the opportunity to learn anytime, anywhere, and any-how. They continue their journey on a ubiquitous platform of lifelong education, underpinned by the access their device affords. Both the student and teacher have this access. Teachers in 1:1 environments have the opportunity to comment, unpack, and question student learning without being constrained by the ten-minute window to talk during the working day. When that face-to-face window finally comes around, the conversation has already begun online (through commenting and collaboration) and can be instantly focused. Simply recording the conversation with an audio tool means the student can return to it at any point and listen again to the feedback and discussion around their learning. The face-to-face, human interaction is not lost, merely extended.

Complex tasks

Aside from not being limited by the space on the page, students have the opportunity to evolve their learning based on their understanding of an authentic audience. As they begin to explore blogging and publishing online, there is a need to think about what a ‘global audience’ really means, and how it can affect their outcome. We know that students learn in a variety of ways. Having access to multiple tools, with the expert guidance of a skilled teacher means that learning does not end when the work has been written and edited. The ‘final piece’ can now be presented as a piece of a much larger puzzle, showing research, conversations, editing, commenting and alternative ways to present- all feeding a multimodal learning outcome for an audience to interact with.

Something else that needs to be considered is ownership. Student engagement is known to be higher when there is a feeling of ownership of the learning that is taking place. Students who understand how they learn are able self-scaffold their learning, increasing or decreasing its complexity to suit their needs. Under guidance, this can not only increase the complexity of learning taking place, but also tailor or differentiate it to a self-selected level and add considerable value.

In-site and on-site support

In placing learning onto a visible and accessible portal, students are able to access it at a pace and time they feel most comfortable. Most teachers I meet have become experts at planning the tasks and steps needed in order to achieve a predetermined final outcome. However, for those that learn differently, having access to ongoing learning both in and out of school hours, coupled with a strong grasp of how to access information, there is the possibility to learn around an area and build a much wider understanding. Potentially, students are able to develop a clearer perception of themselves as a learner and apply this to future situations, without the need to have the processes carefully constructed by a teacher. They are able to take responsibility for accessing the methods that they have found to be successful and use them when confronted with new and unfamiliar contexts.

Connections and Visibility

Perhaps the most obvious affordance of digital technology is the ability to connect and make learning visible. As a teacher, there is the opportunity to share planning, activities and learning outcomes via a class portal. Not only are parents and caregivers able to see this and provide support, but also other teachers and colleagues, who are able to adapt and extend the ideas to meet the needs of their own learners.

In making their learning visible, students are able to make their learning ‘real’ and purposeful. The new connections have the potential to drive learning to a level well beyond the initial plan. Sharing authentic writing and learning via a blog allows students to develop meaningful relationships with students from the classroom next door just as easily as with students from a classroom halfway across the world.

Bringing technology and digital learning into the classroom must never be about learning the tool. While understanding how to use a device effectively remains important, the learners of today already have many of the skills needed to navigate the online world as a consumer of information. As 1:1 device rich environments grow, we have a real chance to make today’s learners creators of knowledge and information for their peers of the future.

Whatever your view on the use of technology in schools, the fact remains that technology on its own cannot accelerate student progress and achievement. Without a teacher with strong pedagogy, the fish and bicycle scenario remains. With a teacher with strong pedagogy, the possibilities, in my humble opinion, are limitless….

Further reading and watching
Woolf Fisher Research Outcomes — Manaiakalani Outreach 2016
What is an affordance and can it help us understand the use of ICT in education? — University of Warwick 2010

References
Woolfolk-Hoy, A., & Hoy, W. K. (2009). Instructional leadership: A research-based guide to learning in schools. (3rd ed.) Boston: Pearson

“Emotional invalidation is when a person’s thoughts and feelings are rejected, ignored, or judged. Invalidation is emotionally upsetting for anyone, but particularly hurtful for someone who is emotionally sensitive. Invalidation disrupts relationships and creates emotional distance. When people invalidate themselves, they create alienation from the self and make building their identity very challenging.” (Hall 2012)

I’ve written previously about validating resistance and the importance of taking time to listen to colleagues with differing viewpoints. All too often, in the busy world of leadership, it’s easier to use personal experience to inform, connect, and make decisions, rather than take the time to unpack challenges thoroughly. But, what if the personal experience is at odds with the emotions being displayed by a colleague? What if they’re reacting to something in a way you wouldn’t because you have a much different experience? There were many times throughout my teaching career in schools where I was called upon to support a colleague. Often, displays of emotion were heightened and irrational thinking had taken over as the cortisol levels rose, forcing my colleague into a stress response. In this situation, a good leader could be said to be one that listens, analyses, and offers support in order to move the colleague forward. However, I wonder how many times leaders have found themselves in the position where they are judging a colleague’s reaction to a situation, rather than stepping back in order to connect and problem solve collaboratively. Here’s a scenario:

Teacher A (a Beginning Teacher) is upset about the behaviour of the students she teaches. There has been a notable decline since the beginning of the week, due to lack of outdoor time and disruption of the calendar because of inclement weather. Her students are making choices that seem to show they do not value the learning or the learning environment. Teacher A is visibly upset and harbouring a growing feeling of failure. She turns to Teacher B (a senior teacher with many years’ experience) for support.

Pause and take a moment to ask, what you would do in this situation. How can you reassure your colleague without over-sheltering her from some of the hard truths she has yet to learn? As an experienced professional, it certainly crossed my mind that it was not something that Teacher A needed to be or should have been particularly upset about. It is common for student behaviour to decline when outdoor time is limited. One of the first expressions I found myself thinking was, ‘stir-crazy.’ But is that okay? Is it right for me to dismiss the feeling of my colleague because she is disappointed in the choices being made by her students, when my experience tells me it’s common? Of course not. Whether I, as a leader, would be upset by the same scenario is not particularly relevant. The fact remains, she is, and has turned to me for support — not to be told it’s ‘one of those things’ and to ‘brush it off.’ Furthermore, other issues the teacher may be experiencing are not being taken into account. For example, it’s the middle of the second term and she is a Beginning Teacher in her first year at a new school. She has also just finished writing reports for the first time in her career, and feels like she has had to rewrite them all after peer review. Everything is new, each inquiry, each topic, each success and failure. She is well within her rights to be utterly overwhelmed.

Although we choose to lead in different ways and by using different leadership models to inform our practice, there are many simple strategies we can draw from.

Listen — Let them vent and let them speak freely. Sometimes our colleagues just need to let off steam and share their frustration. Offer nothing but your thanks for their honesty.

Ask yourself what they are saying and whether it’s what has really upset them — Often, we begin to share our frustration with a situation, but it is merely the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’, masking several other issues that, given time, may rise to the surface.

Do not invalidate — You may have been through a similar experience and survived, but dismissing their emotions as unnecessary, or, offering an ‘it’ll-be-fine’ response could be detrimental to the moving forward process.

Wait — Do they need you to actively help them in this situation or simply listen? Instead of leading in with, ‘Well, this is what I’d do…’ ask ‘Would you like some advice or help with this?’ Allow them to make the decision to take the next stage of help.

Phrases like, ‘In my experience,’ and, ‘Well, I would do it like this,’ are sometimes fantastic in helping a colleague or friend move forward. But just how easily we forget we were there once, too. For some, it was many years ago; for others just a couple, but all of us have felt the overwhelming feelings associated with unfamiliar experiences in a high-stress environment. Pause, listen, validate, and wait…

References and Further Reading

Hall, Karyn. “Understanding Invalidation”. Psych Central.com. N.p., 2012. Web source.

Image sources:

•  Discussion: From Pixabay.com CC0 Public Domain
• Children walking together: From Pixabay.com CC0 Public Domain