Coaches Help Us Become Better Selves and Better Educators

April 11, 2022

Read Jennifer's article for Learning Forward -- why coaching is invaluable for educators.

Excerpt:

When I work with school leaders and their teams, I always share this belief: Growing into who we can become is a lifelong journey that never ends. Usually, there is pushback. Some will ask, “Shouldn’t education leaders be there already? That’s why we got the Schools should be places where everyone — not just students — learns, matures, and develops. Jennifer Abrams (jennifer@ jenniferabrams. com) is an independent communications consultant and leadership coach. Vol. 43 No. 2 job, right?” Others will say, “I have so much on my plate as it is. How could I find time to grow?” While I agree there is a fundamental level of competence and professionalism that should be expected of all school leaders, I also believe that our development as professionals is never complete. We should always aspire to be better selves and better educators. We should model for those we teach and lead what it means to be a work in progress and stretch at our edges. Schools should be places where everyone — not just students — learns, matures, and develops. We should not solely be in the child development business. We should be in the human development business (Abrams, 2021). In this ongoing process of growth, coaching is invaluable.

Read the Full Article

Jennifer Abrams

About Jennifer Abrams

Jennifer has been recognized as one of "21 Women All K-12 Educators Need to Know" by Education Week's 'Finding Common Ground' blog. She considers herself a "voice coach," helping others learn how to best use their voices – be it collaborating on a team, facilitating a group, coaching a colleague, supervising an employee and being an all around better human being in all types of interactions.

Work with Jennifer

    Name*

    Email Address*

    School / Organization

    Questions/Comments

    Praise for Jennifer

    “A thousand things are unspoken, implicit, buried in our educational lives. The invisibility of issues enforces the ineffective status quo. Change–personal, educational, institutional–requires that we speak OUT LOUD about what we know and believe. Jennifer Abrams brings decades of experience and years of training across the world to this usually overlooked essential act of finding our effective voice about what matters around learning.”

    Eric Booth, renowned art educator and author of Tending the Perennials: The Art and Spirit of a Personal Religion and The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life