The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

YES Prep Instructional Coach Celebrates Success in Teaching Teachers

February 07, 2010 by Jeremy Jones

Anyone who has ever spent time teaching can fondly recount moments of pure joy when they had a breakthrough with a student.   Those moments keep us pushing to work hard amidst all the planning, grading, and parent phone calls that remained at the end of the day without needing extra doses of caffeine. I had many of these experiences my first year teaching and looking back I see how they often came at just the right time – those times when I was feeling completely overwhelmed, worn down, and ready to take a break from it all.

I came to Houston in 2002 as a Teach for America Corps Member and was placed at Lantrip Elementary teaching 1^st grade. I was psyched at the beginning of the year. I loved the school I was working at and I only had 15 students at the beginning of the year - every teacher’s dream. I thought it was going to be a great year, no doubt in my mind. “I could totally handle this!” I thought.  Little did I know my work that year would be tougher than I had imagined.

I quickly realized that I had a challenge ahead when I discovered that only 1 out of my 15 students knew the alphabet and could identify all the letters properly. I don’t think I’ll ever forget asking Marissa, “What letter is this?,” as I pointed to “L” on the alphabet strip that ran across the top of her desk and hearing her say, “A,” with a big smile as she looked up at me.  In addition to my students not being up to par academically, I had a few students with behavioral issues. Marco came to class every morning for the first two weeks crying when his mom had to leave. So he sat on my lap, getting all the other tears out, as I lead the other students through our warm-up activity on the overhead projector.  Franco quickly became so attached to me, due to a tough home life that he would call me “mommy” and I could hardly pry him off my leg when he was having a rough day. Then there was George who was two times taller than all the other students and who had anger management issues. There was many a day he would get so frustrated that he’d stand up and push desks over, or across the room, to express his frustrations.

Despite all the challenges that I needed to help my students overcome, I lived for those breakthrough moments that my students had at various times throughout the year.  I’ll always remember the first day Marissa was able to read a complete sentence on her own. Hearing, “The dog ran,” sounded sweeter than any song I had ever heard on trips to the symphony. Seeing Franco make it through a whole day really participating with his peers and not needing me to be his safety blanket made me beam with joy for days. Having George make it through a whole week on green (by far the best behavior color there is in elementary school classrooms) left me feeling like I could accomplish any feat I set out to do. It was those moments, and so many others, that made me truly love my job teaching that first year even though I spent the majority of it sleep deprived and with little to no social life.

After several years of teaching and helping the students in my room make significant academic and behavioral gains, I started to feel like there was something more I could be doing that would impact more than the students in my classroom. It started with being a grade level chair and planning units of study that would culminate in a field trip learning experience. I loved seeing how the students in the other 2^nd grade classrooms benefited from these activities and I was hooked. There WAS a way for me to impact more than just the students in my classroom and it was through supporting and developing other teachers who would spread their knowledge to the students. It wasn’t long before I found my way to YES Prep to work as an Instructional Coach doing just that; impacting the learning and success of over 400 students through the support and development I was able to offer their teachers.

What keeps an Instructional Coach going? What makes them love their job? For me, it’s really not that different from when I was in the classroom teaching. I get up excited to tackle the day’s tasks, observations, and meetings because I know it won’t be long until I see one of the teachers I support have a breakthrough moment with his/her students. When I see a new teacher who was struggling with classroom management at the beginning of the year teach their first lesson where students are on task and authentically engaged in the lesson I swell up with happiness and pride inside just like I did that first year of teaching. I can’t help but smile when I’m there to see teachers doing great checks for understanding and seamlessly adjusting the lesson to meet their students’ needs; something that seemed impossible to many of them at the beginning of their first year.

Those little flashes of success that my new teachers experience bring me just as much joy and excitement as it did during those first years of teaching. These days instead of being pumped when one of my 25 students is successful, I am fortunate to share in the joy and excitement when any one of my 15 new teachers and their 20-30 students really knock it out of the park. I delight in the fact that on any given day just one of the new teachers I support has the ability to positively impact the lives of the 150+ students they teach on a daily basis. It is for that reason, and so many others, that I heart being an Instructional Coach.

Jennifer Catano is a YES Prep Instructional Coach and supports first year teachers in their development as classroom leaders. Catano is a 2002 graduate of Sweet Briar College and earned her Master’s degree in Educational Administration and Leadership from St Thomas University in 2004. 

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