coaching for relational learning and leadership...coaching for relational learning and leadership...

Coaching for Relational Learning and Leadership

George Otero

Center for Relationalearning

Santa Fe, New Mexico

sunmoon@newmexico.com

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

sunmoon@newmexico.com