“We are all learners, starting with me”

What if all teachers told their students, “We are all learners, starting with me”?

How would that change our school cultures? How would that shift the frame of schools from teaching to learning?  How would that encourage a more intrinsically engaged relationship between teachers and students?

As many of you know, my daughter, Cassidy, was a five-year member in one of the most high-performing “classrooms” on the planet, the gym of the United States Women’s National Volleyball team, led by head coach Karch Kiraly.  In this post for Art of Coaching, which would make a GREAT, short, highly-relatable read for your teacher teams, Cass shares two very simple ways that Karch, as an outstanding teacher, shifted his relationship with this “students”.

It would be easy to read this blog and take away that, yes, Karch’s students are all the best, most highly motivated in the world, and that therefor the comparison to a typical classroom is not fair.  But the real takeaway is his own humility, that in weekly one-on-one meetings with one of his players, he not only asked for feedback, but then visibly implemented some of the feedback the very next day. He changed the culture in his classroom from one where coaches are teachers and athletes are students, to one of collaborative learning.

What if your teacher team took on the challenge of “how might we be more like Karch”?