How do people move from good to great? I believe and research has shown that that every person has the potential for greatness in their chosen area- we can’t be great at everything (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993; Pink, 2009; Dweck, 2012, 2006). But once committed, we can be great at a few choice things. In the teaching practice, our commitment to move from good to great is determined by our ability to move our students from good to great. By standing on our shoulders, children can continue to build on their ability to use higher-order thinking skills, to transfer their knowledge to novel problems, and to have joy in the process of meeting challenges. This is greatness at its best.
One thing I have learned through my own difficult and growing awareness of my personal foibles is that we don’t move from good to great on our own. The best athletes, artists, politicians, doctors, and educators invite coaches to come into their sphere of action and reflect back to them what they themselves can’t see. I have coaches and mentors that offer me another perspective on myself and my actions. It is not always a comfortable process, yet it is one that I am committed to because it is the only way that I will ever get better at anything in my life: education, parenthood, music, writing, friendship, and artistry. I can only get better when I acknowledge that I have room to grow and I need others to help me see where to grow.
Dr. Atul Gawande is curious about how people in different professions get from good to great and he shares what he has learned in his book Better (2007). He looks at improvement through a medical lens, which is quite motivating because of the constant underlying issue of mortality. However, he also transcends the medical field by asking the big essential question of why others (like professional athletes) have traditionally had coaches to help them improve. Yet, doctors, teachers, and artists typically get their degree and are left with only themselves to rely on for guidance and improvement. Why is there a difference between the professions’ orientation to having outside eyes support growth? Dr. Gawande illuminates this through a great deal of research in the book. But, when I heard him speak at the ASCD Conference in Philadelphia, his point crystallized through a story.
Itzhak Perlman is often called the greatest violinist of his time. Dr. Gawande went straight to the source when he called Itzhak to ask him why great athletes have coaches, but great violists don’t? How had Itzhak gotten to be such a great violinist with no coaching? Itzhak said he didn’t know because he had always had a coach- his wife. Toby Perlman and Itzhak met when they were both studying violin at The Juilliard School. When Itzhak’s career blossomed, she chose to become Itzhak’s coach instead of pursuing her own career as a concert-level violinist.
Before creating The Perlman Music Program, she committed herself to being Itzhak’s trusted outside eyes and ears. Listening and watching him perform in order to find the small things that he could change in his playing that would move him from playing beautifully to being transcendent. She said that Itzhak would ask after every performance how he did and she would always say, “Wonderful!” Then, a few hours later, when he was open to hearing feedback, Toby would share with him the spots that were a little tight, that if he raised his bow just a bit higher he wouldn’t get the buzz on the A string. These small details made the difference between good and great. The other most important difference was Itzhak’s openness to hearing the feedback. You can read more details in Gawande’s article “Personal Best” (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/03/111003fa_fact_gawande?currentPage=all
This story highlighted for me the gift that one person offers another when there is an openness to hearing and acting on feedback. Engaging in the process brings the unconscious ignorance of “not knowing” into the conscious where we can begin the process of improvement. Once aware of “what” and “where” we can improve, we can start on that process of improvement by learning from others who are doing it better by observing, reflecting, and implementing. Finally, after much practice, we make the improved practice part of our unconscious, and then AGAIN are able to receive feedback and start anew. The complex process can be summed up in one word- learning.
Like Gawande, I am curious. It is what leads me to spend my time reading, writing, talking, and going to conferences about learning. The essential questions I continue to ask myself are: how do educators move from good to great; and how do educators respond to coaching? I have come to identify three fundamental elements needed for growth: 1) there needs to be a feedback structure; 2) there needs to be a willingness to acknowledge imperfections; and 3) there must be an openness to receiving feedback. I first look at the structure of the learning environment and see that my school, like many others, does has a feedback structure. It is a process of goal setting and reflection that is the basis of learning.
We begin the year with SMART goal writing. An important part of the SMART goal writing process is sitting down with another person who serves as “coach.” That coach, the principal or assistant principal, asks prompting questions and engages with the other person in the clarifying process by offering feedback. People who coach not only offer answers they ask questions, “What are your goals for moving your students from good to great?” “What do you need to learn to help your students? “What strategies will move your students from their personal good to personal great?”
There are official names for the feedback structure of the school processes: 1) SMART Goals, feedback and revision, final SMART goals; 2) leadership team classroom observations and feedback meetings; 3) Project LEAD observations of colleagues, targeted professional development, observations in other schools; 4) mid-year reflection on student work and goal progress, mid-year meeting, feedback, possible revision; 5) continued observations and feedback; 6) personal reflection on student work, benchmark assessments, end of the year reflection of progress, feedback; and 7) rest, regroup, and assess for the next set of SMART goals.
After goals are set, we are committed to seeking professional development, doing observations of others, being coached through the observation and feedback process, implementing new practices in our classrooms, and then reflecting on the difference we have made in our own students’ learning. The child’s learning is a reflection of the adult’s learning. Our students can only be as good as the people who teach them, and we can only be as good as the people who teach us. But, this is simply the explicit structure and it does not guarantee movement from good to great. The implicit assumption is that all the members of the system who are giving and receiving feedback are open to the process, reflective, and implement changes based on feedback. I think we have all been in situations when either the giver or receiver of feedback has disrespected the process or the person involved in the coaching, which then makes the structure empty of value.
Research about how to move from good to great continues to support the structure and elements of the professional growth system described. However, the other two areas: acknowledgement of imperfections and openness to receiving feedback are elements that are only possible based on the individual’s orientation to themselves and learning. As Gawande shares, “The greatest difficulty may simply be a profession’s willingness to accept the idea [of coaching]. The prospect of coaching forces awkward questions about how we regard failure” (2011). It seems that the difference between good and great is based on how an individual values their own learning process and the openness with which that person receives, gives, and responds to feedback. It is the difference between a growing professional development file and a growing professional. Acting on feedback is the difference between good and great.
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