I have all the answers.

You know Sisyphus as the guy condemned to push a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Just as he gets it to the top, it rolls back down the hill. He returns to the bottom and starts again.  He does this forever.  

Insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  I can't claim to have coined that gem.  Neither can Einstein or Rita Mae Brown, for that matter.  

I think about the USA and their military solutions.  I think about Australian politicians squandering the diminishing returns of voter trust on hollow rhetoric.  I think about my two-year-old son's tantrums.  Of these three examples, I expect that my son will grow out of his self-defeating behaviour very soon.

This all brings us rather neatly to the topic of peer coaching.  Peer coaching is very simple.  It's about perspective.  The challenges that you face might not be of any substance.  The way you're doing things might be the issue.  The solutions you've come up with might actually be the biggest problem.  A peer coach can think for you (we come up with solutions for others far easier than for ourselves), be objective for you (our regular colleagues often reinforce our limitations) and hold you accountable (it becomes real if you say it out loud and someone else is listening).

Why was Sisyphus pushing that rock?  He was being punished.  For hubris.  The one thing sure to get in the way of effective peer coaching is hubris.  We already have the answers.  Often before we know the questions.

Change

We all know change is a constant. Can the direction of change be controlled?

A very experienced teacher was anxious about using an online survey to gather feedback from her Stage 6 students. For Americans and other foreigners, Stage 6 is the last two years of high school in New South Wales. This teacher was afraid of what the students might write and how their feedback would impact her professional self-image.

She sent the survey. Six months later, these types of surveys are now an integral part of her teaching. She uses them to fine-tune her delivery and give the students ownership over the learning process.

She is no longer afraid of what the students write in survey responses.

There is a wider story. The school where she works hires an independent consultant to survey leaving students about their teachers. Various criteria are coalesced into a single percentage mark. The school considers anything below 80% to be of concern.

The teacher in question controlled change at personal risk. She is now well placed to thrive in an organisation which demands accountability.

A minister once told me that there are two things people hate. The first is the way things are. The second is change.

When suggesting technology integration, I'm often asked “why should I do this?”. There is a flavour to that question that is much more about culture and relationships than it is about a shiny new toy or the effectiveness of a LMS. Cultural/relational problems might just need cultural/relational solutions – not technological ones.