In my classroom management class, we often discuss Harry Wong. His approach is very intriguing to me, so I read an article written by he and his wife. It is entitled Academic Coaching Produces More Effective Teachers. I would say that this title very effectively reflects the text of the article. In brief, the article discusses how novice teachers need more than just a mentor. They need a coach; someone to work with them, model for them, and monitor their progress.
This article begins with a picture of a baseball team and how there are many coaches and each coach has a different responsibility. They are supposed to bring out the best in each player within their area of specialty. The players were not given mentors who merely gave them advice and then left them. Their coaches remain with them, work with them, and help them. The rest of the article then goes into great detail explaining how a school is much like a team and it is necessary to have coaches for the school to be effective. Mentors are good, but there is no evidence that supports they help new teachers become more effective. Beyond mentoring, is where coaching comes in. Academic coaches monitor new teachers with the goal of constructive feedback. They are there to model for new teachers effective practices, as well as monitor their progress. They are the teacher’s advocate, helping them to become successful by ensuring that they understand the school’s curriculum, know how to implement programs effectively, and also aid with intervention for struggling students. These “coaches” help new teachers with everything from instruction preparation, classroom set up, to assessment. This has proved to be very useful for very effective teaching.
The main issue discussed in this article is effective teaching practices. This is not a standard per say, but it is crucial. The entire purpose for teaching is student learning. If learning does not occur, then the teaching strategy or approach is ineffective. This is an issue that concerns every classroom teacher. In this article, the Wongs discuss an effective teaching strategy for novice teachers. They discuss the importance of having an academic coach. They talk about the concept of comprehensive induction, and how in other professions novices are not thrown into the field and told to solely rely on mentors when they have questions. They have something like an apprenticeship where they work side by side with someone to ensure their efficacy. Then and only then are they allowed to work on their own. This idea behind academic coaching is to ensure the efficacy of teachers.
In all of the courses I have taken and from every classroom teacher I have talked with, I have repeatedly heard the importance of a mentor. They say to find the best teacher in the school and steal from their ideas. This relates to classroom management, especially for a novice teacher like me, because in all reality I have no idea what I am doing. Forming my classroom management routine by modeling others is the only option I have. I have no experience of my own to learn from and build off of. The idea of having an academic coach is essentially the foundation of classroom management in this article. The novice teacher uses the coach as an outside resource to come in and make sure her classroom is running effectively. As I stated before, the entire purpose for teaching is to ensure student learning and classroom management is the tool for making that happen. Thus the academic coach is the classroom management tool.
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