Educational Coaching: A Partnership for Problem Solving - Personal Reflections Part 1

I discovered this book in one of the multitude of educational e-mails that trickle/flood into my in-box. I'd received some negative feedback about professional development sessions last school year, so I was keen to explore some other options. I asked a colleague if she would be willing to bring it back from the US for me. She agreed, and so the book was ordered and delivered. Sadly, it nearly didn't make it, when luggage got lost/damaged in transit. Happily, it did arrive, somewhat battered, but still readable. I process new content better when I write about it, so here comes another series of "Book Reflections". 

Chapter 1: Coaching 101

This chapter asks and answers three questions: What is educational coaching, how does it differ from other forms of professional development, and what qualities do coaches need?

The author gives the following definition of educational coaching: "Educational coaches partner with teachers for job-embedded professional learning that enhances teachers' understanding of students, the curriculum, and pedagogy for the purpose of solving problems that impede teacher success and pursuing interests that enhance teacher success. (p.6)"

As I read that definition, it boosted my confidence, as it reminded me that my role isn't to be the "expert" but more to support exploration of a variety of ways of meeting the needs of teachers and students.

While I like to participate in educational conferences and similar events, I also know that I learn best by "doing". The coaching model outlined in this book will help me help teachers learn by doing, and by enhancing what they already do well.

The question of the qualities coaches need is answered using the acronym CAT. Those three initials stand for
Connectivty,
Acceptance, and
Trustworthiness.
These qualities of a coach fit beautifully in the relational model that is at the foundation of education at East-West International School. Just as students learn best in the context of good relationships, so too do teachers. Building those relationships isn't something that comes easily for me, but it is something that I want to excel in. Therefore I'm going to be taking the advice of one of my other summer reading books, and making the effort necessary to change people's perceptions so they know that I am for them, and that we are learning together. Listening and asking questions and then listening some more are going to be key to the success or failure (but I'm not interested in failing) of my forays into coaching.

Just before the end of the chapter, the author draws a comparison between educational coaching and sports coaching. She likens educational coaching to "developmental coaching" where the goal is to help individuals grow - it tends to be more supportive and softer. I know that's the kind of coach I want to be.

That's it for this chapter. Stay tuned for more reflections in the coming days/weeks.

Summer Reading #2 - Kindness

The second book that I read this summer was definitely written for adults, but still easy to read and practical.

This book had two sections. The first part was "Being Kind to Others" and the second part was "Being Kind to Yourself". A lot of what was in this book was not new to me, but it's a topic that's worth revisiting every now and again. With chapters in Part 1 like "Go Out of Your Way to Make a Difference" and "Be Kind When Others are Rude and Inconsiderate", I definitely picked up a few tips to help me with my goal of being more relational and having teachers see me as a good communicator.

The second part is something that I've always struggled with. The perfectionist in me finds it pretty easy to be down on myself when I stuff up, so these three chapters: "Don't Be So Hard on Yourself; Be Kind", "Kindness When Your Life is Really Difficult", and "Feel Good About Yourself, were definitely worth reading (and probably rereading as well). This year I need to not only work on being kinder to others, but I'm going to start being kinder to myself, initially by keeping work to work hours (even if still means 12 hours from when I leave home to when I arrive home, including a 30 minute walk in the mornings).

So am I happy with the purchases I made in Singapore's Changi Airport? Definitely!

I'm going to finish this post with a quote from the back cover of the book:
"One small act of kindness can change a person's life, and that person might even be you."

Summer Reading # 1 - You Are AweSome

An important part of being a teacher is being a lifelong learner. Another part is finding good resources to use with students. The first book I read this summer, picked up in the bookshop in Singapore Airport fits both those categories, as well as being encouraging for me personally.

Our secondary principal takes great delight in telling me that I'm awesome, so when I spotted this book in the airport bookshop I thought it would be worth reading, even more so when I read the back cover. 

WHAT IF YOU COULD BECOME AWESOME AT (ALMOST) ANYTHING?

It's not as impossible as you might imagine.

If you're the kind of person who thinks ...

* I need a special type of brain to do maths
* You're either good at sport or you're not
* I don't have a musical bone in my body

... then I've written this book for you, to challenge the beliefs that hold you back. Whatever you want to be good at, the right mindset can help you achieve your dream.

I KNOW you can do it. How? I wasn't born sporty, but I'm a two-time Olympian.
You know how else I know?

BECAUSE YOU ARE AWESOME.  

This book absolutely lived up to it's cover. It was easy to read, and packed with practical tips. One of the key points raised in this book is the importance of having a growth mindset, rather than a fixed mindset. Wonder where I've heard that before - oh that's right - IPC Brainwave. Another important point was that we need to make small changes consistently. Lots of small changes end up with GIANT results. 

So where to from here. My goal for this semester is to improve teachers' perceptions of my interpersonal communication skills. Wow! That might sound like something I've got no control over, and to some extent it is. I can't control other people's perceptions. However what I can do is change my mindset (that I've always struggled with the interpersonal stuff for the last 30 years) to a more positive one, and make those marginal steps that will result in better relationships with staff and students.

The other thing that I've got going for me is that I don't have to make those changes in my own strength. I know God wants me to be relating well to the people I work with, because that's how they get to see Him. So one of those "marginal gains" for me is going to be spending the time when I'm walking to work talking to and listening to Him. The time is already there - I just need to use it effectively. Who says you can't walk and pray at the same time. I just need to be somewhat aware of the traffic, because it won't help anyone if I get knocked down by a speeding car or moto!

Relaunching Scholastic Book Club at East-West

Back in December 2016, after receiving approval from the school admin team, I enquired about re-introducing Scholastic Book Clubs at East-West. A lovely lady in the UK contacted me, we set up an account, and our first flyers were sent by DHL in early January 2017. On 26th January 2017 packages of forms, envelopes, and covering notes were distributed to staff with the hope that they would get their students excited about being able to order books. Orders came in over the next week, and on 8th February I got all the orders entered into the computer. A total of 257 items were ordered, over $2,500 worth of books. We then received 20% of the value in rewards and I was able to order 17 books/packs for the school library/teacher resource area. It took a little while to work out our payment processes, but it eventually went quite smoothly, and the order was processed.

Meanwhile Scholastic changed shipping companies, and that was definitely a learning experience. DHL had previously handled the whole process and delivered books to the school door, with no hassles over customs or anything like that. We'd heard from at least two schools that their orders were coming through very reliably with no hassles. First there was a delay in the warehouse due to the change over. Scholastic staff were quick to respond to my enquiries and very helpful. Eventually our shipment went out on 22nd February with the new shipping company. That same morning I get a distressed message from a colleague at another International School saying she had received a quote for over $500 to have her order (similar in size to ours) cleared through customs. I quickly contacted Scholastic and they said the orders were shipped in such a way that we shouldn't have to pay that but to let them know if there were any problems. We got a tracking number and that enabled us to see where the boxes were. They moved fairly rapidly from the UK to Singapore (via Germany and China), arriving in Singapore less than 36 hours after leaving the UK. They stayed in Singapore for 4 days before finally arriving in Phnom Penh on Tuesday 28th February. We were notified of their arrival and advised that we would need to arrange customs clearance through another company since the shipping company handling our delivery didn't do that. The shipping company delivered a packet of photocopied forms to our office and then marked the delivery in their tracking system as "delivered".

Meanwhile we'd been keeping the lines of communication open between us and Scholastic and been told that we would have to pay the customs clearance since it couldn't be invoiced directly to Scholastic in the UK. Scholastic assured me they would cover those costs, even though we were going to have to pay them up front. We went ahead and got another company involved and they said it should take about 3 days to get the shipment cleared through customs and delivered to us. Then we struck another problem. The packages were addressed to me using my initial and surname, but to get them through customs a copy of my passport was required. As you might imagine my passport has my full name on it and the staff at the shipping company said that because the names were "different" it could be a problem. Thankfully customs did accept our documentation and at 7pm last night 10 boxes of books were delivered to the school. Now, as you can imagine there aren't many people around at school at 7pm, and on this occasion there were even less than usual since some staff had gone away to attend a wedding. Once again God provided. Unbeknown to me until about 6pm, a High School "sleepover" was happening at school last night. Not looking forward to carrying 10 boxes upstairs myself, I thought I'd see if I could enlist some help from the high school students attending. At 7pm, when I got the phone call saying the truck was at the school, the teacher supervising rounded up 9 boys as well as carrying a box himself, leaving me with nothing to carry up the stairs to the 4th floor except myself. A big thank you to the Grade 10 boys and their supervising teacher. 😊

The boxes as they were when they arrived in my classroom.

So now I could finally get down to the fun stuff. Yes, I got to open and unpack all ten boxes of brand new books. Those who know me well will know how much please that brought. It was fun! I was glad I'd asked the boys to bring our "backpack" table into the classroom. By the time I'd finished all the tables in my classroom were covered in books and I'd had to rearrange a few other shelves to get some extra space as well. Here they are.

Having done that, I settled down to complete one more job before heading home for some rest. There were 270 plus items that needed to be checked off against the packing slip to make sure none had gone missing along the way (when you look closely at some of the boxes you'll understand why I needed to do that. I almost managed my 10,000 steps yesterday as I covered a lot of ground tracking down titles. Happily everything was there. 👍 At that point I called it a night, turned off the lights, locked up the classroom and headed for home.

This morning I undertook the first stage of the distribution process, matching the books to the individual student orders. Scholastic made this much easier for me by providing a series of "bookmarks" which each listed up to five items that a student had ordered. These were much easier to read than the original order forms, and four hours later I had finally finished. I've already delivered one batch to a classroom (I noticed a teacher in his room when I went past to go to the bathroom so I dropped off the books for both his class and the other class at that grade level since I was running out of boxes).Here's the rest of them, ready to go out on Monday morning. There are going to be some very excited students on Monday morning!

Next, I want to share what the school has gained from our efforts. Scholastic Books offer us 20% of the value of the books purchased as a reward for our school. With that 20% plus a donation from one family I have been able to get 41 hardcover books, and 79 paperback books for our school library and teacher resource room. I have no doubt these will be received with great excitement in the library.

Finally, my classroom library is getting some new books as well. The Science Vocabulary Readers have been purchased with one of our upcoming IPC units in mind, a couple relate to a unit we've already done, and others just looked good. I could easily have spent more, but I set myself a limit and this is what I got within my budget. I confess I've already read the National Geographic "Ape Escapes" book from cover to cover and it is good.

The other good news we've received in the last few days is that Scholastic are returning to DHL for shipping to Cambodia! That means we'll be doing it all over again, although hopefully with a few less hassles. The first time of doing anything is always a challenge, but in this case I think it has been worth it. Thanks to all those who've helped, supported and encouraged through this "first" and to those who prayed those books through.

Shopping for school

One of the things I enjoy about being in Australia is the shopping. No-one looking over your shoulder every minute you are in the shop. Wandering in wide aisles, in air-conditioned comfort. Spotting bargains. The challenge is that I've only got 30kg of checked baggage and 7kg carryon to get it all back to Cambodia. This year I've been blessed with a couple of gifts of money to buy things for my students, and I'm really appreciative of those gifts. Here's some of the goodies I'll be taking back with me.

Slightly smaller than our existing sets, this set will be perfect for lower grades when I add a few more ones cubes to it.

Ones cubes are tiny, and so they get lost easily. Also we only had one hundred in each set which isn't quite enough for individual students to work with them. Now I've got an extra hundred tens (longs) and an extra two thousand ones so I'll be able to make our existing sets much more user friendly. Just need to remind teachers how hard it is to get these so they make sure students are careful to put all the pieces away carefully.

Aldi had these excellent non-fiction books on sale for just $2.49 (RRP $14.99) and I stocked up my sticker supply as well. These were just $2 per packet with either 240 or 384 stickers in each. 

 A big thank you to those who helped me buy these things. There's more in Brisbane to pack, but I'm hopeful it will all fit within my luggage allowance.

Did I mention I love shopping ... for books?

Today is another Cambodian public holiday. This time it is the Royal Ploughing Ceremony holiday. While we had a holiday, most shops and markets were open and trading as usual, so it was a good day to sneak in a little extra shopping. Actually, today I was shopping with a specific purpose in mind. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that one of the things I have set up in my classroom, thanks to some supporters and a great second hand bookshop, is a classroom library. The books in the library are all English. Today, I fulfilled a promise to my teaching assistant to get some Khmer books for the children.
First we went to the local market where we found a great selection of books. They were a quite a bit more expensive than last time I went Khmer book shopping (about 3 years ago), but we did find some great resources. We also went to one of the large international style bookshops where I was amazed to discover they have a whole new area of the store dedicated to Khmer language books.
Here's what we came away with. Somehow I doubled up on two titles but I'm sure they won't go astray. I'm looking forward to sharing these with the principal tomorrow morning and with the children. I know several parents who will be very happy to see their children encouraged to read more in their own language.

The books are a popular series of Khmer readers for children.

Biographies: These are in English and Khmer but most are about Inventors so fit with our current unit, and it will be good for students to read them in both Khmer and English.

Khmer folk tales: You can buy English translations of these for about 4 times the price!

Does anyone recognise the one at the bottom of this photo? Yes, it is a Khmer translation of a well-known children's story that has been around for many years.

These are to help our non-Khmer children learn words.

Some chapter books or compilations of short stories)

Non-fiction in Khmer! With great photos.

More non-fiction

This set of 9 books was just $7.

This is a beautiful story of friendship, and a reminder of the dangers of landmines (still a very real danger to people in rural Cambodia).