John Thompson: Coaching is Good for Doctors and Teachers Both
Guest post by John Thompson.
Atul Gawande says that surgery is not like teaching where your best work is behind you by the age of thirty. Just kidding! In fact, Gawande's New Yorker article, "Personal Best" explains the value of programs for coaching teachers in order to show its potential in transforming doctors' practice.
In medicine, as in education, the temptation is to look for transformative changes rather than teaching professionals to be more effective. The most famous example was the discovery that simple checklists and reminding doctors to wash their hands were able to improve health as much as sophisticated technological systems. But Gawande also explains that "coaching" is just a fancy term for "teaching" and its most effective technique is "just conversation." Wouldn't it be ironic if the best way to improve teaching was through teaching,