The students at our school are fortunate to have second year teacher who is determined to improve her teaching, which is quite good already. The evaluation tool our district uses is effective for it's purpose, evaluating. However, after several post evaluation conferences, it was clear that she was not finding the feedback in the evaluation especially helpful in her development.
For me, the administrator, the evaluation tool provided a structure that was fairly clear. I would evaluate the areas of emphasis previously selected and evaluate those areas according to the rating system as I was trained. Teaching is an extremely personal act, and I took some comfort in the objectivity provided by the evaluation tool. Besides the new evaluation tool was driven by compliance with legislation. It was something we had to do.
To be clear, I believe evaluation has it's place and the new emphasis on evaluation results in better instruction. However, this teacher was looking for more than evaluation. She wanted coaching. She didn't want numbers on a narrow set of performance indicators. She wanted suggestions for how to improve an area outside the ones chosen for evaluation.
Every post evaluation conference ended with questions and requests for guidance. My shallow responses and efforts to redirect the conversation to what were good evaluation marks were not enough. My efforts to allow her observe veteran teachers and have veteran teachers observe her were not enough.
When I thought about stepping outside our evaluation model, I kept stumbling over the same questions.
-As a classroom teacher was I ever much better at this area than she is?
-My training as an evaluator was intense, but I wasn't really trained to coach was I?
-What if my suggestions don't work?
-What if my suggestions discouraged this talented educator?
Finally I decided that logically speaking, something beats nothing. The next time I went in the classroom I didn't open the evaluation tool on my phone. I opened my note taking app. I didn't mark numbers; I wrote descriptive and qualitative comments. While I made an effort to include remarks about great things that were taking place, my comments focused mainly on areas of weakness, even though I knew those same weaknesses existed in my own teaching. When I shared the notes, I requested it not be seen as an official evaluation but as observations from a critical friend.
I hit send, hoping it wouldn't do more harm than good.
To my relief the teacher recieved it in the spirit it was intended. Productive conversations followed.
The process left me with the realization that coaching is much tougher than evaluating. Coaching, especially in this situation, is not as compliance driven. Because of that, it requires more trust. To be effective it can't be reduced to a formula or rubric. It requires individuals who are truly committed to improvement, not just box checking.
In my opinion the best model is for schools to have instructional coaches who do not evaluate and to have evaluators who do not coach. They are distinct functions that are both important. However, in many schools it is not feasible. Administrators find themselves tasked with coaching and evaluating, which is a fine line.
It's a line worth walking.
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