Coaching for Relational Learning and Leadership
George Otero
Center for Relationalearning
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Hopes
An outcome of Relational Coaching is an enhanced personal and professional
experience as an educator
explore
•How to coach self and others to develop and support teaching and learning relationships that impact achievement, wellbeing and life chances.
FIRST AND ALWAYSACTIVATE WELLBEINGmeet and greetwelcomeembraceaccepthonoracknowledgeinvite
Personal development
When attempting to open a locked door with one hand free the key will be in the opposite hand
A THEORY OF CHANGE
From: To:
ANALYZE SEE
THINK FEEL
CHANGE CHANGE
Kotter, J.P. & Cohen, D.S. (2002). The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Understanding factors that influence achievement, wellbeing and life chances
We now know all the relationships that determine a person’s achievement, wellbeing and life chances. Relational coaching places our attention as educators on these relationships and the unique ways that our relationships make us who we are.
The variables influencing a child’s achievement, wellbeing and life chances
Social Personal
School
Gender, Ethnicity, Disability ,History
The variables influencing a child’s
life chances and well being:
Social•Family
•Social Capital
•Social Class
•Poverty
Personal•Resilience
•Readiness
•Motivation
•Ability
School
Gender, Ethnicity, Disability, History
The variables influencing a child’s
life chances and well being:
Social40%
•Family
•Social Capital
•Social Class
•Poverty
Personal40%
•Resilience
•Readiness
•Motivation
•Ability
School 20%
Gender, Ethnicity, Disability, History
Speaking a common language accessible to everyone in the community
• NATURAL WAYS OF LEARNING
• Play
• Games
• Story
• Dialogue
• Art
• Ceremony
Partnering
• To partner effectively a number of skills, attitudes, values and sensibilities need to be developed and practiced. To partner is to think actively together, to care about what is important to each member, to value the process of communal enquiry within a democratic environment, to find and explore alternative views and solutions, to follow the inquiry where it leads, and to mutually and respectfully envision new possibilities and make judgments together.
Learning in relationshipA natural hierarchy
PARTNERSHIP
Valuing
Understanding
Involvement
Building social capital
• BONDING SOCIAL CAPITAL
• BRIDGING SOCIAL CAPITAL
• LINKING SOCIAL CAPITAL
Relational Learning Intrapersonal, interpersonal, social and networking
• HOW DO WE EXPAND, IMPROVE and BUILD NEW RELATIONSHIPS TO EDUCATE BETTER?
Relationalearning
Building:
• Trust
• Dialogue
To promote:
• Engagement
• Motivation
• Connectedness
RelationaLearning
RelationaLearning focuses on the three most significant factors in determining educational success.
These factors are:
• The quality of leadership in the school and community
• The effectiveness of relationships between the school and community
• The integrity of the learning experience
Places the focus on five critical relationships in learning
Relationship to:• Self
• Peers• Teacher• Subject
• Community
‘Relationalearning’
WHAT MAKES A GREAT SCHOOL?
• EFFECTIVE CLASSROOMS
• EFFECTIVE FAMILIES
• EFFECTIVE COMMUNITIES
Effective Classrooms
• Encouraging Learning
• Genuineness
• Empathy
• Warmth
• Encouragement of higher order thinking
• Learner-centered beliefs
• Non-directivity
• Adapting to differences
• After Hattie, Visible Learning
Effective Families
• Provide emotional security
• Develop social relationships and skills
• Develop language and communication
• Model moral behaviour
• Offer unconditional love
EFFECTIVE COMMUNITIES
• SOCIAL CAPITAL
• BONDING, BRIDGING, LINKING
Community Building
• Families and communities are the ground-level generators and preservers of values and ethical systems. No society can remain vital or even survive without a reasonable base of shared values—and such values are not established by edict from lofty levels of the society. They are generated chiefly in the family, school, church, and other intimate settings in which people deal with one another face to face. The ideals of justice and compassion are nurtured in communities.
• ~John Gardner
Therefore, community building activitiesshould focus on developing:
• The importance of the sense and experience of community
•
• The extraordinary need that individuals have for identification with and empowerment within their own surroundings; the experience of belonging and personal agency
•
• The opportunity for heartfelt face to face conversation
•
• The collective exploration and application of values
•
• The negotiation of common purpose
•
• The exercise of shared leadership and group accountability
•
• The opportunity for developing relationships that cross social, organizational, and role barriers and that spark collaboration
COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS
• A dialogue among community members that focuses on three questions:
• Who are we?
• What’s worth learning?
• How do we do that together?
Ways of Conversation
• How you enter the conversation
• How you conduct the conversation
• How you conclude the conversation
LEARNING WALKS
• Gather a group of parents, community, staff and students
• Have everyone say something if they wish in first 10 minutes using a friendly check in
• Show a slew of pictures. Ask all to select one that looks like learning to them. Share around the circle with permission to pass.
• Walk around the school and in and out of classrooms with three questions in mind. What do you see or notice (five senses)? What does the walk make you think or feel? What are you now wondering?
• Share and post these with time to consider how to further explore the wonderings.
Relational Coaching
DR. George Otero
Center for Relationalearning
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
www.relationalearning.com