Over blueberry pancakes and coffee on Saturday morning, my husband, Dan, interrupts my weekly recap of teaching to say, “Have you ever heard of the coaching tree? You are talking about the teaching tree.”
I was talking about lesson planning with my student teacher. What the heck is a coaching tree, and is breakfast about to turn into Sports Center? Is that even on anymore?
“Well, you know Phil Jackson, right? Chicago Bulls? He had assistant coaches who went on to coach their own teams. Tom Thibodeau? He is part of the Doc River’s coaching tree,” Dan explains reaching for his coffee mug.
“Uhuh,” I say remembering Mr. Jackson but having no idea who Doc Rivers is.
“Well, the coach is the trunk or base of the tree and his assistant coaches, who have gone on to coach, are his branches. Football is probably a better example because there are so many assistant coaches– like Ditka’s coaching tree. Your student teachers are like the assistants; they eventually stand on their own–have their own classes. They take what they learned from you and branch out–get it? Your student teachers are your branches,” he concludes with a grin and moves on to his omelette.
“Yeah, but I don’t think I have my own tree; I’m part of someone else’s coaching-teaching tree — just a branch,” I reply as I am thinking this through. “Or maybe… the people who helped me become a teacher are my roots. Do coaching trees have roots?”
“Not really — the ones I’ve seen are just boxes connected with lines – like a family tree. But, you can probably be both- a trunk and a branch. Your mentor teacher was Sue, right? From Morton East? If she made her teaching tree, you would be a branch for her with lots of leaves — healthy,” he says smiling, “but, you would be a trunk for your student teachers; the people you’ve mentored.”
“Uhuh,” I respond. “I haven’t talked to Sue in a while, but her lessons are still with me. I wonder about my student teachers. What is their take away from our time together? Geesh, what if they quit? What does that mean?”I sigh pouring us more coffee.
“Well, your ‘branches’ die if they quit, I guess,” Dan says regretfully. “Not every assistant coach has the same success as their mentor, and not every assistant coach even goes on to coach their own team. Stuff happens the mentor can’t control–the new team or school has complex dynamics.”
I sip my coffee and think about the word “success” as I look at the waiting area of Egg Harbor. It’s getting busy, but our tree conversation is resonating with me, and I want to talk this out, so I pour more coffee.
I almost quit teaching after my fifth year, and there are plenty of days now when I feel like an imposter, when I fail, when I lose my composure, when I forget a meeting. I wouldn’t know where to begin to define successful. What can a mentor do to support teachers through the hardest days that come once they are on their own? And how can we support teachers later in their career when the systems have chipped away at their souls (too dramatic, maybe), when “success” is so elusive?
Dan notices my furrowed brow. He can tell when I am going to a dark place. “In my mind, the metaphor is more of a mentality,” he reassures me. “It isn’t about how long they’ve been teaching or how successful they are; it is more of an initial metaphor for how your theories, how your work ethic is really branching out or helping other teachers.”
He is so wise, this man. I am no sports fan or arborist, but the part about the mentality of teaching makes me feel better. We learn certain traits or approaches from our mentors and then we have to make our own way. But the beauty of these relationships is that they can endure and nurture both people throughout their careers. I had a moment this week when I found myself being comforted by my current and former student teachers (one who is now teaching in our school). What a gift to be vulnerable and to have compassionate witnesses who really know what a day in your classroom is or tries to be.
When we get home from breakfast, I look up some coaching trees. The Mike Ditka tree has many healthy branches, but he came from deep roots: “Halas taught Ditka to compete. Landry taught Ditka to lead.” Competing and leadership are not skills per se but ways of being. And this got me thinking about my roots, the rings marking my years growing, and budding branches. How did I grow? How am I helping other teachers? How am I keeping the tree healthy?
The Roots
My husband made it clear that the coaches don’t actually make their own coaching tree graphics or discuss the success or failure of their assistant coaches as they make a name for themselves. Still, it has only been in reflecting on my own practice and my impact on my students and colleagues that I have been able to stay in this profession. Reflection has been humbling because I must face my failures and comforting because I recognize that I am one among so many trying to do what is good and right for the human beings with whom we are entrusted — and what is “good” and “right” is not always clear.
Even though this is bordering on self-absorbed, I decided to sketch my teaching tree. I began by listing the people who have helped me become a teacher: teachers, professors, mentors, authors, bloggers, students, and even my dear husband. My sketch was a beautiful mess that could not capture the plethora of people and experiences that I attribute to my still-becoming a “good” teacher. My roots take up over half of the sketch. They sustain me, anchor me.
Students, of course, have taught me the most; they are the “soil” and “sun” and “rain” that keep my tree alive. However, the people who have explicitly taught me how to be a teacher are Todd DeStigter, David Schaafsma, and Kate Manski from the University of Illinois at Chicago. They taught me to put relationships first, and they taught me how to do that with young adult novels, classics, writing and reading workshops, narrative feedback, portfolios, reciprocal teaching, and always, always reflection. Sue Fitzgibbons-Hughes was my cooperating teacher at Morton East High School in 2003. She showed me how to design curriculum and use class time to uncover rather than cover all that is English (e.g., the philosophy of being human alongside Lord of the Flies). She also taught me to recognize when I slip into avoidance mode (and to keep coins for coffee and lipstick in the desk drawer). Diane DuBois, my mentor the first year of teaching and beyond, taught me about schooling — how to navigate the systems of teams, departments, unions, data, and testing. She taught me how to be a teacher-friend. These teachers are the core roots of my teaching tree.
The Branches
It was ten years before I would sprout branches. Even after ten years, I did not think I had any business helping someone else become a teacher. On a daily basis I would hears whispers (sometimes screams) of doubt that I should even be a teacher. However, when a group of Illinois State University pre-service teachers were coming to our school for a year-long student-teaching experience, I decided that I would not turn down an opportunity to have one more adult in my classroom giving attention to teens in desperate need of it. And since then, I can’t imagine my classroom without a co-teacher, and I am grateful to Madeline LaLonde, Amy Estanislao, Gabbi McArtor, Jessica Arl, and Sena Kose for trusting me but, even more so, for supporting the hearts and minds of our students.
I want to stay in this profession, but I know that my “tree” will not stay healthy without care and deliberate choices to do and be better. My “branches” have kept me alive so to speak as they remind me that, as teachers, we never have this figured out; we never stop growing. So I decided to reach out to the student co-teachers who’ve worked in my classroom to hear how they remember our time together. I also wanted to hear how things are going and what, if anything, I could have done or can do now to be a source of support. I think that believing in and supporting their careers will actually sustain mine. I invited them to be a part of this “tree reflection” process by pondering these questions:
- What ideas, beliefs, lessons did you take away from our time together that seem helpful in your own teaching now?
- What are you struggling with or working through now and is there something we could have done during student teaching to help?
- When you are ready for a student teacher, what do you think you can most help with and what do you think new teachers just have to figure out on their own?
Now I realize that this is not a scientific survey of any kind because I was asking the questions. I recognize that their responses cannot be entirely candid, but I share their responses with you over the next few days to illuminate what is possible in the short time student teachers have with their mentors, what lessons can only be learned when on one’s own, and what issues all teachers — novice and veteran– have to negotiate as they are always becoming the teacher they imagined.
I have enjoyed reconnecting with these women and honoring the them on Ethical ELA. They inspire me to take care, to stay healthy, to honor my roots, and to keep growing.
Monday, 2/6, Madeline LaLonde: Feeling Safe, Cared About, and Respected
Tuesday, 3/6, Amy Estanislao: On Humanity, High-Stakes Tests, and Worksheets
Wednesday,4/6, Gabbi McArtor: In Year One
Thursday, 5/6, Jessica Arl: Beginning as a Long-Term Sub
Friday, 6/6, Sena Kose: In the Middle of Student Teaching
I encourage you to answer these questions about your teaching and make your own teaching tree (here is a template) . If you are willing, share in the comments here or on social media to celebrate your roots and branches.