In 2010, I went principal shopping.
I had decided to move into a coaching role, and I knew for it to be successful, I needed the right setting. One where coaching would be supported and sustained over time. I was looking for a school willing to try something new, with a principal who believed in it and would stay with it long enough for it to take hold.
I found them at a K–6 school in Washington state. Good staff. A principal who believed we could figure out something the district had never done before.
What I didn’t expect was the question waiting for me when I walked in the door.
I was ready to coach. What I wasn’t ready for was realizing that nobody in that building, not me, not my principal, not the district, had answered the most basic question first:
What does effective teaching look like here?
This week, I was talking with a coach about this same question. She was trying to support her new mentees and kept running into the same wall. Without a shared picture of what strong teaching looks like, every conversation starts from scratch. The mentor improvises. The new teacher guesses. The principal observes without a common language to build on.
After years of working in classrooms and coaching alongside teachers, a pattern began to emerge. The classrooms where teaching was most effective weren’t doing something entirely different. They were grounded in a set of practices you could see, describe, and strengthen.
If you’re thinking about your own classroom, here’s a place to start:
Ask yourself: what would someone see if they walked in for five minutes?
Not what you planned.
Not what you intended.
What they could actually see.
Would they see students working with clarity and purpose?
Would they hear students naming what they’re learning?
Would they see you moving through the room, responding to what’s happening in front of you?
That question has a way of bringing things into focus quickly.
It gives you something to notice.
And something to build from.
This week’s blog article on our site goes deeper into what effective teaching actually looks like in practice, and how to begin naming it in a way that supports everyone in your building.
It answers the question every school is quietly asking and gives you a clear place for you to begin.
Gail
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