Coaching for Change... Equity... Transformation... It all.

This post on taking a critical coaching stance is, simply put, on point. While it might be a stretch to say the author created critical coaching, as a number of scholars have been drawing on similar frameworks for some time (including some from our UW family...), I truly appreciate the clarity with which the author asserts the need to ground literacy coaching work in asset-oriented perspectives that seek to address issues of equity. 

I've been reflecting on this topic a lot lately since we began searching for literature to guide our SIG on Coaching for Equity. It has also become apparent in our current coaching study that equity is taking a backseat within our participant coaching beliefs, as it has been subsumed within the broader belief of focusing on student evidence. But a focus on student evidence does not in itself drive deeper into structural questions about equity or how they play out within classroom instruction. Even a more strategic focus on the use of culturally responsive practices or analyzing the ways in which assessments construct language demands that may or may not be relevant to learning goals could be easy inroads to engage more constructive and equity-oriented dialogue in coaching conversations.

All of this speaks to the larger point made by ILA in distinguishing between coaching to conform, coaching into practice, and coaching for transformation. How we support coaches to engage in this work is essential to the potential impact of coaching efforts, especially if we hope to see instructional coaching live up to the high expectations that have been placed upon this form of PD.