Facing Down Imposter Syndrome

Becoming a coach is not an easy transition. Actually, part of being human is realizing that there are no easy transitions - becoming a teenager, moving to a new home, getting a divorce - most change is hard for us fragile beings.

I suppose much of it comes from discomfort with a lack of control. Most of us like feeling that we know what we're doing, and transitioning to a new place or a new position puts us in a place of Wobble, as my friend Bob Fecho calls it. Wobble is good however - it means we're changing, growing, and learning, becoming more than we were before. But it is also often uncomfortable.

Sometimes, those of us in this period of change subscribe to what is called Imposter Syndrome, or the feeling that we should “fake it til you make it." Imposter Syndrome is that uncomfortable feeling that you SHOULD know something, that others are depending on you for the answers, and that to not know them would appear weak. It can manifest as a feeling of guilt or shame or even in some cases in defensive behaviors such as anger.

I remember as a new coach, in a new building of teachers I didn't know, I felt I had WAY more questions than answers to give people. After several days of telling folks I would get back to them, I didn't feel like I'd helped anyone with any thing. I wasn't at all sure that they'd hired the right person for my job, that perhaps I'd just be better off going back to the classroom where at least I knew what I was doing. I remember wishing I could skip the next two years and just magically become an experienced coach who knew the answers.

If I'd had the words to label what I was feeling as Imposter Syndrome, I think it would have helped. I needed to know this was a perfectly normal feeling for a new coach, or even for a new teacher or new principal. I wish I had confided these feelings to someone, and that they had advised me to enjoy the Wobble that came with this new experience. There would only one time in my life I would be a new coach, and I could learn a lot from the experience if I only let myself reflect on it, pay attention to it, and use it.

If this is you this year, or if your next door neighbor down the hall is new this year (to the school, or the grade level, or to teaching), watch for the ugly evidence of Imposter Syndrome and do your best to squash it. Instead, tell yourself (or the other person) to enjoy the Wobble as a sign of growth. Embrace the chance to stretch yourself. And know that to not know something is never a sign of weakness. It is, instead, a sign of transition as our fragile selves change into something new.

The Power of Teachers

Years ago, on the first day of school, Nicholas walked into my classroom. Nicholas was a full head taller than the other kids, and though he wasn't necessarily older, he was much more confident than the other newly minted second graders. He hadn't come with his parents to “meet the teacher” afternoon earlier in the week, so I hadn't been sure he was still enrolled at our school, and yet here he stood at the door to my trailer classroom loudly asking the nearest kid, “This Mrs. Wall's class?” before walking in like he owned the place. His parents were nowhere to be seen - this 7-year-old had gotten off the bus, asked around, found our class, and simply presented himself. It was a perfect depiction of his personality in a nutshell, and it gave me a hint of how he would take charge of my class in the coming days.



Kids like Nicholas are in every classroom in the country. Kids with louder-than-the-teacher voices, kids who expect their classmates to obey them, kids who struggle with reading, and kids with very little parental support. It would have been very easy, that first morning, for me to harden my heart to Nicholas and mentally set him up to be the problem child, the negative mascot of the class who garnered most of my attention and whose name my husband would come to know from my daily rants.



Something was different that year, however, and for some reason I chose to really learn who Nicholas was and try to get inside his head. Perhaps it was because it was the second year I had done home visits with all of my students, and something about seeing these kids' earnestly cleaned bedrooms and their drawings on the refrigerator, and being introduced to the family pet while mom cooked Hamburger Helper suddenly brought into focus where school ranked in the overall picture of their lives. While I had Nicholas in my classroom for 6 ½ hours a day, there was another world in which he lived that we teachers had never seen.



Kids like Nicholas are why I love teaching. The power we hold in our hands as teachers is stomach-droppingly powerful. We decide whether a kid has a good year or a bad year. We can influence how a parent responds to their child, how that child feels about himself, and whether school becomes a place of love and safety or a place of shame and self-doubt. How we choose to respond to a child, every child, contributes to those children's beliefs about themselves and their own abilities for years to come. It's an awesome responsibility, and one we should be fully conscious of as we enter these first days of school.



My hope for teachers as this new year begins is that we all have the contemplative space we need in our days to be fully aware of this power we wield. Here's hoping we can come to understand the stories behind all of our little Nicholas's.

 

Savoring the Struggle

I've been reading a lot about inquiry learning lately, and the power of letting learners discover knowledge for themselves. This is true for learners of all ages - people from age 2 to 92 tend to remember and understand more deeply that which they had a hand in creating. A first grader who “discovers” that even numbers can be modeled by creating two matching columns of blocks to model a number will have a much deeper understanding than the child who memorizes, “2, 4, 6, 8…” The middle schooler who starts an interest-bearing savings account and the 35-year old who rebuilds his truck engine both learn life skills at a much deeper level than by simply reading a book about these events.

The key to inquiry, however, is struggle, and that something that's very hard for us teachers to allow. Letting a child struggle to accomplish something that we could help them solve with one or two well-placed comments requires patience and trust that eventually the student will master the task. It comes from a misunderstanding of where the learning is occurring - we tend to think the learning happens at the very end, when the math problem is solved, the engine is put back together or the savings account results in a longed-for purchase. But in reality, learning occurred during the period leading up to the final event. Without the struggle beforehand, facts are merely memorized and soon forgotten. No lesson is learned.

I'm reminded of a first grade teacher I knew many years ago while I was a reading specialist. I worked with several students from her class, and they would sometimes say, “Don't give me the fish!” while reading a text. When I asked the teacher to explain this, she told me that every year she would very dramatically act out the proverb “Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day - teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime.” She created a story from it, complete with a poor, bedraggled man becoming rich from all the fish he'd learned to catch.

She then connected it to the culture they were creating in their classroom - they promised each other that they would never “Give each other a fish” but instead would find ways to teach each other along the way. She told me the parents had been especially guilty of “giving fish” by providing the hard words during nightly reading, but the students soon put an end to that by teaching the parents to prompt them with strategies.

I've never forgotten that teacher's important lesson to her first graders. I unabashedly stole it to use in my classroom for years afterwards. Those kids knew the power in the struggle. They knew that being given a difficult word or told a math answer took away their right to learn for themselves. Allowing our students to struggle isn't easy, but it's the best way to ensure they truly learn.

Quietude

I once had a second grade student – let’s call her Amy – who was quiet and shy, even thoughtful, and not the kind to get noticed. She lived on a farm near the school, and when I came for a home visit, she asked me to bring my mountain bike so we could ride through her cow pastures and see the fish pond. She wasn’t any more animated that she usually was in class, though her quiet pride in her pets, her bike, and her family was evident in every blush and downcast glance.

Amy’s parents were worried because she was quiet and slow to respond in conversations. Her reading was progressing at a normal level, but she read still slowly and shyly, even in one-on-one conferences. To all outward appearances, she was simply someone who liked to think and take her time with it, and in today’s rushed world, she stood out.

I recently read a book that helped me better understand Amy, and myself, at the same time. Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking by Susan Cain describes the American admiration of gregarious, friendly, talkative people and its detrimental impact on the 1/3 to ½ of us who are introverts. Our Extrovert Ideal rewards quick action over careful thought and admires charismatic leadership over quiet strength. It explains why Amy’s parents and many others like them worry that something is wrong with their child if she only has a few close friends and prefers to read or play alone instead of attend parties and participate in team sports.

Cain’s book helped me realize that introversion is determined from birth (4-month old babies who were highly reactive to unusual stimuli later turned out to be introverts who preferred the solitude of their minds over the activity of crowds) and that it can be a gift rather than something to be embarrassed about. She describes a number of introverts who pretend to be extroverts for periods of time but who then find quiet times to decompress later. A surprising number of apparent extroverts are really introverts who are faking it for something they love (e.g. radio talk show hosts, beloved professors, presidents). As Cain says, “Sometimes it helps to be a pretend extrovert. There will always be time to be quiet later.” In the next breath, however, she says, “But in the long run, staying true to your temperament is key to finding work you love and work that matters.”

Until I read this book I had no idea how I, too, had subscribed to the Extrovert Ideal to the point of even feeling bad about myself for avoiding small talk and preferring to spend Saturday at home reading a book. I also realized that I’d set up my classroom to promote this ideal by encouraging group work without leaving room for individual projects, and rewarding the quickest and loudest responders in class discussions without leaving sufficient wait time for the more contemplative students.

One third to one half of our classrooms are filled with introverts like Amy. How can we make room for them to make the most of their natural temperaments?

 

How will your voice be heard?

I've been thinking a lot lately about teacher empowerment. Various readings and current situations have made me reflect on how terribly important it is for us teachers to 1) feel emotionally invested in the work we do, 2) remain simultaneously open to new ideas and yet confident about our own effectiveness, and 3) be willing to share our beliefs about what works with those who might be seen as more powerful.

Too often, it seems, we lack the courage to speak up about what we believe to be right.

Below is a project I worked on this summer with this in mind. Perhaps it might be helpful for some of you who want your voices to be heard...



(I apologize for the jarring ending - Powtoons automatically adds that unless you pay a fee to join ;-)

Two Theories Diverged...

This past week I had somewhat of an epiphany as I was working with a large number of Juniors and Seniors at the College of Education from our local university. They'd asked that I give a three and a half hour overview of literacy, Common Core standards, and anything else they thought might be helpful to kids at the beginning of their careers.

Three and a half hours is a long time, especially to the students who were hearing a lot of information all at once. But I tried to build a foundation from the beginning by starting with educational theory. It was the discussion of theory that led to my epiphany.

My basic approach was to talk about two major theories of learning that teachers tend to have - the transmission theory and constructivist theory. Transmission theory holds that the teacher possesses knowledge that must be transmitted to students, who are simply receptacles. This is also called the banking method - the teacher makes “deposits” in the students' knowledge, slowly adding to their overall understanding over time. The students' job is simply to receive the knowledge and remember it. The problem with this approach is that it views the learner as passive and uninvolved, and doesn't value the knowledge the learners bring with them. It also tends not to stick, because the learner doesn't value or relate to the information. Teachers who believe in transmission theory will often say, “I don't know what's wrong with these kids - I told them what to do and they just won't do it.” The implication is if the students don't learn there must be something wrong with them because the teacher did her job.

Social constructivist theory, on the other hand, holds that learners construct their understandings by combining new knowledge with old knowledge. In order to understand a concept at a deep level, such as how to infer character motivations in a classic novel, the learner must draw from both the text (new information) and previous experiences (old knowledge) to infer, for instance, why Atticus Finch chooses to defend a black man in “To Kill a Mockingbird”. A teacher believing in the transmission model would explain the character's motivations to the students, while those using social constructivist theory would ask students to talk about it, drawing on what they already know about the time period and human nature. Social constructivist teaching takes longer, but it's relevant learning that remains with the student after the teacher is gone.

I'm beginning to realize, as a coach working with teachers and other coaches, that oftentimes what I see as stubbornness or resistance to new ideas is actually a clash between my learning theory and theirs. Underlying all instructional moves, assessment decisions, or classroom management strategies is the instructor's theory, and if I don't first understand that, I can't hope to effect change.

I need to think about this further, but so far I have several things I wonder about:

• Does everyone consciously know their own theory of learning? My guess is they don’t so then, as a coach, how do I help them tap into that?
• Is constructivist theory always best? Are there times when transmission is the preferred method?
• What language can I use as a coach that is the least threatening, and allows people to freely examine their learning theories without feeling defensive?

What about you? What is your theory of learning?

Fair Isn't Equal

It's the time of year when students and teachers are cramming in last-minute vacations before the fast-approaching first day of school. If you're a teacher, then most likely you're already dreaming “school dreams” at night and having day dreams as well. I always love the planning part of summer, when anything is possible and my optimist self foresees all my plans going perfectly in the upcoming year. Yep, THIS year I'll be organized, efficient, and downright inspirational to the best group of kids a teacher could hope to assemble in one place. Then reality hits as soon as every kid arrives bringing a bag of notebooks, folders, and reams of paper, none of which have their name on them, and somebody's crying and another one's mom wants to stay for the first 3 hours and my best laid plans are out the window before 8:15.

I do know, however, that however chaotic those first hours are in the classroom, one of the most important things I do during that crucial beginning time is to establish through my words and actions what kind of place this classroom will be for the 25 or so kids and I who inhabit it. Everything I say and how I say it is watched ever so carefully by kids those first hours, and so no matter how messy the pile of notebooks and folders, I have to prioritize and spend time creating community. My actions and words need to communicate that this is the kind of place where you'll be expected to think, where we value what you think even if we don't understand or agree with it, and where it's safe to be different and creative and even wrong.

Something I love to do on the first day, after everyone is settled and I've gathered everyone on the rug to tell them a little about myself, is to share with them an anonymous quote written large on chart paper: “Fair isn't equal. Fair doesn't mean everyone gets the same. It means that everyone gets what they need.” We talk about what this means, and how my job is to figure out what each one of them needs and their job is to help me find that out. Everyone in our classroom is different and has differing needs. One person might need me to help them come up with ideas for writing while another person might have plenty of ideas but need help organizing them. Some of them might love multiplication but need help with fractions, while others are just the opposite. People are complicated beings, which is why teaching isn't easy, but it's always interesting.

As I'm explaining this, all their faces are turned towards me, listening intently, not really sure what I mean. Some of them want to trust me, but if they've struggled in school they may be wary of being the one that's “different,” the one who sits in the special desk or sees the teacher every day for interventions. They don't really trust that I'll treat everyone's needs differently or that I'll ask their opinion about why they feel the need to distract other kids in circle time or that I really do want to hear about the fort they built behind their house during a writing conference. That will come later.

For now, they have homework: find out from their parents at exactly what age they learned to walk, say their first word, and lost their first tooth. We spend the next few days charting these facts so that I can once again reinforce the idea that we're all slightly different, just like snowflakes. And if our bodies grow at differing speeds, reaching these milestones at different times, then our minds and how we think develop the same way: at different speeds and at different times, but we all DID eventually lose our first tooth, right? We all did learn to walk and talk. So too will we all learn the things we're setting out to learn this year, but it won't happen at the same time for each one of us. And that's perfectly okay, because that's only natural.

It's my job to find out exactly what they need as students, and it's our job as a classroom community to help each other get there. It should be what being in school is all about.