By Casey Jackson, first published by EdNC, May 18, 2021
“Can you please be my coach?”
With tears rolling down her cheeks, this was what a young, second-year teacher asked me in the middle of a professional development session in 2018.
I was sitting at a table with new faces, in a new state, in a new role as a multi-classroom leader (MCL) in Vance County, North Carolina. The session presenter had asked us to role-play a guided-reading lesson, and this young woman had bravely volunteered to play the role of teacher. As the others played the students, I played the teacher’s coach. Although I had some administrative experience helping teachers, I had not yet gone through MCL training to learn how to appropriately coach the teaching team I would lead. Read more…