This #coachbetter episode is another in our series of coaching case studies, with one of Kim’s amazing clients, Angela Mee Lee, Early Years Performing Arts teacher at UNIS Hanoi, Vietnam. At the time of recording Angela had just graduated from The Coach Certificate and Mentorship Program.

These case study episodes are designed to share the story of a coach, and the development of their coaching program and practice in their unique setting.

We are excited to share this episode with Angela with you because Angela has been on a year and a half journey to coaching with Kim and she has grown so much! She started in the course Getting Started as an Instructional Coach and discovered that coaching is so aligned with her educational values, so she wanted to dig even deeper, and then she joined The Coach Certificate and Mentorship Program.

Angela is already applying so much of her learning in her current role (at the time of recording) and in her future role in a brand-new startup school in India.

In this conversation Angela and Kim talk about…

How Angela started her journey to instructional coaching
What makes coaching valuable to Angela as a classroom teacher – and her early experiences with coaching with The Coach Mentor, Maggie Hos-McGrane when they both worked at the American School of Bombay!
The surprises she uncovered about coaching as she was learning more
What Angela was able to accomplish in just one academic year in The Coach Certificate and Mentorship Program
How Angela is applying her learning in multiple contexts
What she wishes she knew before she started coaching

This episode highlights the ongoing journey that we take when we begin learning about coaching.

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Show Notes

Please tell us about your journey as an educator

Started over 25 years ago, quit teaching after 10 years to do music therapy. I have always been in music, music is my passion. When I graduated I was music and PE. Did that for 6 years in HK, then 4 years in Australia. Quit in the question for something deeper. Practices as a music therapist in Australia and HK. Worked at 10 different international schools.

Why was coaching so impactful for you as a teacher? Tell us a story about when you were coached when you were a classroom teacher.

One of the schools I worked at was quite progressive and there was an initiative towards tech. We were all allocated tech coaches, which we all dreaded. I was allocated my coach, who happened to be Maggie Hos-McGrane. I was not looking forward to it because I don’t enjoy tech, but it was one of the most positive experiences I’ve had.

Always driven by my questions she was asking me, clear agenda, she helped me set up my goal. Of course this was all instructional coaching, but I had no idea. All I knew was that I felt great.

Because of that positive experience with Maggie, I started to notice different coaches in my schools. I had never heard instructional coaching, it always had a subject area. A good friend of mine, Tracy Blair, did your course

What made you curious about coaching? How did you decide to start exploring the role more deeply?

I think this is only upon reflection of doing both of these courses that I’ve understood now that it really resonates with my own values, which also resonates with the approach of Regio. I’ve had an “aha moment” doing these courses, realizing that wow, there are other people who actually feel this way as far as leading in this way. It was something that deeply resonated with me, primarily because the relationships come first.

Leading in this way deeply resonated with me, primarily because the relationships come first. In Regio it starts with the child first, in coaching it starts with your coaching partner first.

One of the things that has really stood out from this course for me is also about listening. As an Early Years Educator, I try to listen to children and listening to adults is more difficult, because you always wanna jump in and help with their challenges. This is something that coaches really taught me by nature of having a framework for the coaching conversation, and knowing that there are many different ways to be supporting somebody without telling them what they need to do.

It’s quite emotional. You experience the fluctuation of frustration, and it’s hard to put that aside.

Tell us about the artifacts you created

During the pre-observation conversation, I realized I had no flow. I felt disjointed. I realized the framework had to be very clear for next time, both for myself nad my coaching partner. THat’s when I created a “cheat sheet” which was the coaching flow, but I put language there that was helpful for me to stay on track. My coaching partner really responded to that.

Once you started learning about coaching, what surprised you? What did you expect?

Things that surprised me were that I noticed I was trying to pause and paraphrase A LOT during the conversation but I didn’t know why I was doing it. So there was no purpose. And then trying to pull questions out of the air that were not thoughtful. Later on I remembered that I needed to have the purpose of the conversation.

When I started out on my coaching journey, I was probably having a nice conversation without a direction. Now I have a framework and a purpose for those conversations.

In my Learning Journey Reflection Video I had two coaching partners and one of the coaching partners had been coached a few times so she knew the process and the flow better than me, so when she was able to reflect, she was able to articulate very clearly.

Even thought this was really simple, it’s been very significant.

I remember saying when I started the course, I remember saying I wanted a toolkit of skills to have coaching conversations. After the course that’s exactly what I have.

I’m in a unique opportunity to go into the startup. Now I have this clear structure I can re-divert to be more purposeful in my conversations. Before I was going by the seat of my pants coaching, just talking about glows and grows, but there are so many other aspects now. A lot more intentional now.

It was really important that I remained with you as a mentor, I really needed to debrief. Someone who is going to come back to reminding us how to be coached by being mentored by a coach. A lot more concrete foundations are set now.

Being invitational was also a surprise. Very strong foundations have been set by working with you.

What’s YOUR level of coaching mastery?

All coaches go through various stages of coaching mastery. Once you identify where you’re at, you can begin to build the skills needed to move to the next stage.

This quiz is based on real-life case studies compiled from years of working with coaches inside The Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program!

When you receive your results, you’ll also get your matching case study from the STRIVE Case Studies to see where you fit in the stages of coaching mastery.

Ready to tackle your challenges and move on to the next level in YOUR coaching practice?

The STRIVE Model of Coaching Mastery quiz will help you identify your level of coaching mastery by matching you with case studies compiled from years of working with coaches inside The Coach Certificate & Mentorship Program so you can easily see where you fit!

TAKE THE QUIZ!

You’ll go straight to the Quiz, and get the Case Study Document via email.

Show Notes continued…

What do you wish classroom teachers knew about coaching to help them make the choice to opt-in?

Jackie said it, Who wouldn’t want a thought partner? This is not an extra initiative, this is an enjoyable process. I”m not here to come in with solutions for you. It’s about having someone to think about your practice and what it is that’s troubling you. Classroom teachers need to be eased into it.

A bigger challenge because I’m not sure if I understood her goals. Language barrier. Some of our words are not part of other languages.

Given all of the different work you do in different contexts, how are you applying your learning? What are you thinking about how you can bring coaching to all of the work that you do?

We call our teachers facilitators because that resonates with the values we believe in, just like coaching facilitates safe nurturing learning spaces for adults. My team have all been very supportive. There’s been no pushback there. Outside of that, we’ve also been running workshops for other teachers in India, and we’ve been doing that through a coaching model

Focus on relational leadership: being inclusive, creating trust. Not about us imposing on you what you should know, but you bringing your experiences and challenges and then we come together as a community to share and then we offer tools and strategies to address them.

I want to know how we can scale up coaching

What’s one thing you wish you knew before you started this journey?

That I needed to have a clear framework. It seems so basic and logical, but it needs to be stated. A lot of educators want to help and support their peers.

Documentation is key.

We were all waiting for the strategies, but we needed to be ready.

Any other key learnings

Relational leadership really stood out to me – at any school I’ve ever worked at, it’s always been positional leadership. Relational leadership tends to be put aside. That really resonated with me. I find it challenging now to listen to some positional leadership, when the person should always come first.

What’s one thing you would recommend all new coaches do to be successful in their role?

A lot of people kept asking me questions about setting up beautiful spaces. I found myself saying “you already know what you want to do”. You tell me what you want to do, and I’ll listen. If people are coming to you, asking you for advice, that’s an inkling that you might want to get into coaching so you might be more effective at helping your peers and giving them support.

This is another way to go into leadership. It’s not just going into VP or Principal, there are other ways that you can be a meaningful and heartfelt leader.

What would you change about the course?

I love the resources that you share – an additional time where we come to meet and we explore specific resources – like a bookclub idea. You could sign up to delve into a specific article / book / resource.

Ready to Learn More about Instructional Coaching?

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A Case Study: Moving from Classroom to Coach with Angela Mee Lee [297]