How to talk so teachers listen…

a reading which will go on CD 2 for workshop 3

 Reflect and focus…
• What are my biggest questions about my
practice as a tutor teacher?
• What do I want to learn more about?
• How do I hope such learning would improve
my practice?

Refer: CD 1 York-Barr
 It’s about me… ‘reframing’
• How might I think about this situation
differently?
• What am I not considering?
• What judgements and assumptions are
blocking alternative ways of seeing this
situation?

Refer: CD 1 York-Barr
Refer: CD1 York-Barr
 Your skills as a ‘mentor’
• Developing trust • Being present
• Listening actively • Clarifying
• Empathising • Being succinct
• Asking the ‘best’ • Giving feedback
questions

Reflect on your ability

to go about using
these…
 Our focus with you as Tutor Teachers
• Mentoring is not induction, but it may be a key strategy of
induction.
• An induction program enhances, but does not take the place
of, a mentoring programme; nor should mentoring take the
place of induction.
• Good mentoring often grows out of an induction program that
is more about ‘survival’ and’‘laying foundations’ for new
teachers.
• Induction often works effectively with a designated ‘buddy’
 Reflecting on..
 A‘ buddy’ provides’ friendship and personal support,
particularly a shoulder to cry on when things don’t go well….
 Mentoring is more professional – a critical friend focusing on
reflective practice.’’
 A buddy is someone you can go to for a whinge, like the
teacher next door; a mentor is someone who can take
away a lot of the emotion, and help you reflect on what
has happened.
 Mentoring will often require the use of coaching and
counseling techniques, but differs from both.
 Reflecting on…
 A coaching relationship is more limited in its scope and will
often focus on the development of particular work skills and
the acquisition of knowledge.
 Coaching is usually short-term and performance-oriented. A
person may share a coaching relationship with many people.
 Counselling in the work context is usually short-term – it is a
transaction with a developmental and corrective objective.
Even though counselling is usually a friendly encounter, it
differs from merely a ‘friendly chat’ because there is a change
imperative.
 Avoid criticism
 Criticism rarely helps people to feel better or be more confident or self
motivated.
 For that reason, we learn about techniques and tools to provide
innovative methods to focus on the future and to avoid criticism, even
when we are making an urgent intervention.
 Why avoid criticism? Criticism is related to the past, about which we can
do nothing that is very useful. Criticism takes people backwards and
makes them defensive and less likely to be confident, creative risk-takers.
 Criticism undermines relationships, shared professional identities and
trust. When criticism is mixed with acknowledgements, the good news
gets lost and similar good messages are less likely to be received with
trust in the future.
 Understanding needs and emotions

The basic needs that are operating in the context of the

mentoring relationship are:
• the need to feel safe
• the need to belong and to be acknowledged
• the need to feel good about ourselves and well regarded by
others
• the need to have freedom to grow and to contribute.
 Conversely, when it is perceived that these needs are under threat, people
tend to respond in predictable ways – becoming anxious, defensive and
self-focused – that are counter-productive to building strong relationships.
 Making the mentoring relationship safe is a key role of the mentor.
 Why reflection..?
• The main objective is to ensure a more
accurate and relevant understanding of a
situation . . . to produce effective, relevant
action which will facilitate the occurrence of
more desired and effective outcomes. Barry
Bright, 1996.
•
• Reflective practice is as much a state of mind
as it is a specific set of activities. Joseph
Vaughan, 1990.
• Trust is perhaps the essential condition needed
to foster reflective practice in any
environment. If the reflective process is going
to flourish in an organizational setting, the
participants must be confident that the
information they disclose will not be used
against them – in subtle or not so subtle ways.
Osterman & Kottkamp, 1993.
• Thinking together implies that you no longer
take your own position as final. You relax your
grip on certainty and listen to the possibilities
that simply result from being in relationship
with others – possibilities that might not
otherwise have occurred. Isaacs, 1999.
•
• The student ( B.T) cannot be taught what
he/she needs to know, but he/she can be
coached . . . . Nobody else can see it for
him/her, and he/she can’t see just by being
told. Donald Schön, 1987 (adapted)
•