Culturally Proficient Coaching: Supporting Educators to Create Equitable Schools

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_00:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by Dr. Dolores Lindsey. Dr. Lindsey supports schools and districts through coaching, consulting, and mentoring. With more than 50 years of experience as an educator committed to the work of equity, she's served as a teacher, administrator, and university professor at Cal State San Marcos. And she's the author of numerous books, including Culturally Proficient Coaching, Supporting Educators to Create Equitable Schools, which we're here to talk about today.

[00:42] Announcer:

And now our feature presentation.

[00:44] SPEAKER_00:

Dr. Lindsay, welcome to your principal center radio.

[00:46] SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Justin. Delighted to be here today.

[00:49] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm excited to speak with you because I think, you know, we hear a lot about cultural proficiency. We hear a lot about coaching, but we don't often hear those put together. So I wonder if we could start with just a little bit of a definition and explanation. What is culturally proficient coaching and what prompted you to put out this book?

[01:08] SPEAKER_01:

Well, as you said, a few years ago, everybody was going to be a coach, an instructional coach in schools. There was funding available for it. And all of a sudden, teachers on special assignment were assigned to be coaches, but there was limited training available for coaching. Typically, coaching is a way for a person to influence the thinking or even the behavior of another person that can be instructive. This is what I think you need to do, or it can be reflective. The coach can say, what are some things you think you should do?

[01:47]

Culturally proficient coaching takes on a little different perspective, and that is using the lens of equity for coaching the person. And it's really intense for the person that's being coached to be aware of the cultural connections of students and the families in that educational environment. And so if you're coaching, we typically are coaching teachers and administrators. So we want to coach in an environment that the person that's doing the coaching is aware of their own culture and they are aware of the implications of the culture of the person being coached as well as the cultural environment of that school or community.

[02:40]

And of course, we're always coaching for equitable action.

[02:44] SPEAKER_00:

It's interesting to think through some of the, once we say them, obvious empathy implications of culturally proficient coaching, because it's easy to think as a coachee, when working with a coach, it's easy to think about my problems. It's easy to think about my dilemmas and my decisions that I have to make. But from an empathy perspective, not only am I being treated by the coach with empathy and with my kind of perspective in mind, I'm also being invited and challenged to think about the implications of my decisions for everyone that I'm responsible for in that community, to think specifically about the equity dimensions and implications of those decisions. So why do you think, Dolores, that this is something that so often gets overlooked? Why is this not part of the conversation in so much of the coaching that takes place in our profession?

[03:38] SPEAKER_01:

Well, because it's easier to focus on other things, Justin. It's easier to focus on, so what strategy are you going to use tomorrow? It's easier to focus on, so how do you think most of the kids are doing? It's easier to focus on, so what assessment strategies are you going to use? And it's easier to focus on helping teachers solve problems by telling them what to do. And that's often what teachers need and want.

[04:10]

They'll say, help me figure out what I'm going to do with some of these students who won't behave. And then often coaches say, well, let me tell you how I did it. And the way I did it is not necessarily applicable to the teachers that we're teaching today or the teachers that are in the classroom of that person you're coaching. So what we're asking teachers and administrators to do now is to think about a framework. We call the framework cultural proficiency. It happens to have a set of tools, a framework, a lens, if you would, that the coach can apply to help the person you're coaching think about that equitable environment.

[05:02]

And it's not easy work. So it takes skill building. It takes consciousness and awareness of we need to do deeper work. We can't ignore this work any longer. Today's context is probably the most complex environment in all my 50 years that I've experienced. In addition to COVID, There are things going on in our environment that challenge us in ways that I've never seen before.

[05:36]

And what complicates things in our schools is what's going on around us and around our students today and teachers and students. So what I mean by a challenge that we've never seen before, the emphasis on Black Lives Matter brought on by the murder of George Floyd and the murder of Breonna Taylor. and the murder of Akhavan Aubrey and the recent shooting of Jacob Blake. This has brought conversation to a surface that we in schools can no longer ignore because high school students are involved in marching. Teachers are now involved in marching. And what's different now than 30 and 40 years ago and forced desegregation and court order desegregation is that more of the general public are really engaged and involved in what's called the movement.

[06:39]

if you would, about Black Lives Matter. So in talking with a local school district, administrators asked the question yesterday, do we really have to talk about this when we get back in the classroom? And the other teachers on the conference call said, yes, we do. We can no longer ignore this. So teachers need and want coaching about how do we do this? And so not only do they need professional learning, craft and craft building skill building they need instructional coaching about how does this happen in a classroom how do we build curriculum around what's going on today how do we assess our own cultural knowledge about what do we know as coaches so that we'll know how to ask thinking questions of the individuals the teachers the administrators

[07:39]

the community leaders that we're coaching. So your question is a very complex one layers of years and years of uh anger years and years of guilt that are coming forward now and a very divisive uh community and teachers and administrators are caught right in the middle of it and and really coaching is a way of mediating a person's thinking to where that person wants to be more effective in the classroom. As teachers and administrators, we don't want to screw up. We don't want to mess up. We want to know how to make things better. So culturally proficient coaching is a way to do that because we're using a lens for equity, a lens to support better thinking that engages the entire community.

[08:44] SPEAKER_00:

And I feel like having a framework is such a critical component because this is an area where, as you said, I think we collectively realize the importance of equity, the importance of having these conversations, but also have a lot of uncertainty about exactly how to go about that. So I wonder if we could get into the framework a bit. What are some of the key elements of your framework for culturally proficient coaching?

[09:10] SPEAKER_01:

Well, there are four tools and we emphasize these four tools that folks can learn the four tools throughout the school or throughout the community to develop a common vocabulary. One of the tools is barriers. What gets in the way of being a culturally proficient coach? And the tool is actually overcoming those barriers. Um, the, the biggest barrier right now is a system of oppression and the system of privilege and entitlement. And so we don't have time today to go into details about that, but that's what's pushing and pulling, uh, in a way that's separating folks today, uh, into this, uh, polarization that we have going on in our country and in our communities.

[10:05]

So how do we overcome those barriers? Another barrier is just a resistance to change. People don't want to change. We've been doing it this way. Most of the kids are doing okay. So you feel that push and pull.

[10:20]

And then the other barrier that we recognize is the unawareness of the need to adapt. Our communities are changing every day. And now because of the pandemic, we've had to shift to a use of online learning and distance learning that many teachers were not using technology in their classrooms and the going from face-to-face relationships with students in your classroom to distance learning has taken an adaptive strategy that many of us did not know. So there's a resistance to that. And then our communities continue to change on a daily basis. Communities that refugees are still there.

[11:10]

Communities are growing and changing and we're our educational communities resisting and not understanding why we need to change what we're doing in the classroom. So as coaches, we can ask questions so that our educators are thinking about ways to adapt and overcome those barriers. And we do that through another tool called the Guiding Principles. Terry Cross identified what we call our core values. And we adopt and adapt these nine core values. It's part of our belief system, believing that all kids can learn, believing that families need to identify who they are and give a description of families rather than the school identifying.

[12:02]

Simple things like filling out forms and students fill out a form that says blanks that will say mother and father when really we just need to have a form that says parents so that a child with a Two moms can fill out both mom's names without having to scratch through mom and dad and put in their family names as they describe their family. So making those adjustments. There's diversity within groups. Even though we have a group identity, we also have individual identities. So there's nine of those guiding principles. And those guiding principles help overcome those barriers I just described.

[12:48]

And then we have a tool called the continuum. There's six points on that continuum that help us assess our organization, not evaluate, but assessing where we are on our healthy or unhealthy, productive growth or unproductive growth. So the left side of that continuum is cultural destructiveness or incapacity, and cultural blindness, where we don't see cultural importance. We don't see cultural differences. We see a negative approach, a deficit approach to working with students. On the right side of the continuum, we see an assets-based approach.

[13:31]

Students come with assets. They come with cultural knowledge. They may not speak English, but they speak three other languages. So we value the assets that they bring and we build an education around those assets. And then the fourth tool is really the action. Now that we know what we know using those other three tools, there's five essential elements and five action words we take those action words and as coaches that's why we wrote this book is that we can take those five essential elements along with five internal resources that everybody has the five states of mind and we put those together And that gives us the action planning that we have as coaches for our inside.

[14:23]

Who am I as a coach? And then the relationship that I develop with the person I'm coaching. Now, that's a very quick overview of those four tools. And they work. They're interrelated tools. And so as coaches in writing this book, we created scenarios of people who are culturally destructive or culturally blind and a coaching conversation that because of the questions and the craft, the skill of the coach, the person actually, Behaves and thinks in a different way.

[15:02]

We've learned that I cannot and we as coaches cannot change another person. I'm not going to make somebody do something differently, but I may in fact ask a question that helps that person think and behave in a different way. That may in fact change the way they believe about students. It could be an aha moment. Oh my gosh moment. I hadn't thought about it that way.

[15:30]

Or it could be a slow change process over several months. But it's a thinking process. It's not a telling process. I'm not going to tell somebody that they are sexist or classist or racist. But I'm going to ask questions in ways that help them reflect on their behavior and what actions they are thinking about. So that's a quick overview of those four tools and how one might use them and use them as a framework for coaching.

[16:07] SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about that a little bit more, if we could, in terms of maybe a coaching relationship where a coach is assigned to work with maybe all staff or maybe all staff who were hired within a certain time period, and maybe comes across someone who, as you said there, is maybe on one extreme end of the continuum that you described of not just being indifferent to some of these issues and to some of the needs of their students, but perhaps even you know, on the destructive end of the continuum. And as a coach who is equity minded, you might be horrified to even discover that these attitudes are present among your staff members. And as you said, we can't necessarily change people overnight.

[16:59]

First of all, how do you even get your mind around, as an equity-minded coach, working with someone who may have attitudes and mindsets that are somewhat abhorrent to you? How do you even sit in the same room with that person? and make any progress if that's where they are?

[17:18] SPEAKER_01:

Well, the person you just described, there's usually two or three of those folks almost on every faculty at university level, as well as high school and elementary school. We see them in a variety of forms. And one of the first things you notice is the comment is, look, I'm not a racist, but, or you'll hear a comment. The comments are very telling because in our research, we've identified those comments as, well, those kids are doing the best they can for who they are. Or the comments will be, if they just learned to speak English, then I could teach them. Or the comments might be like, well, if we had different kids in this school, then I could teach them.

[18:13]

So the folks aren't shy about what they say. Their belief systems come out very strongly. And so our approach is that you don't indict those people. You try to inform and the continuous is not used to indict, but to inform. So when I was a principal, I would have individual conversations with the individual that you're describing. And I would use from my coaching training, cognitive coaching training.

[18:52]

I would use the skills of pausing paraphrasing. And then posing some questions. Again, not to accuse, but to help them think. An example would be, so when you say those kids, who specifically are you describing?

[19:18]

And then I just wait. And then I would continue coaching in a way so that that person has to do their own thinking. Now, if I see evidence of sexism or racism in the classroom, then I have ways more directly to address that. You can't put that in the classroom. You can't say that in the classroom. You can't treat those kids, our students that way.

[19:53]

So those are different approaches that it can use. If it's in a group, then I use, and we teach facilitation of large groups or faculty groups. And when somebody makes that statement, then I use open-ended questions. So tell us more about your experiences that lead you to make that comment. Most people have had some experience on which to base their assumptions that they hold. And so if we can get people to surface those assumptions, for instance, they'll say, well, I've never known of kids like we have that can score high enough on the test to take AP classes.

[20:47]

And then a coaching question might be, so one of the things you're concerned about is all of our students being able to take AP classes. And they'll say, well, yes or no. And then I might say, then one of the things that we might do as a staff is to investigate and locate data where students like our students are accomplishing AP test success. And then we can review those data. Would that be something that we could do as a staff? And would you be interested in doing that?

[21:26]

So you put the kind of the question, and again, it's kind of open-ended. Might that be something, who else would we engage in our thinking? What might be some other ways we could look at the issue? So you keep the conversation going, and it's hard to do because the comments are usually inflammatory, derogatory, negative, And it takes highly qualified, highly skilled facilitators to keep the conversation open. And that's part of the work of culturally proficient coaching is you do not want to one or two people to monopolize the time.

[22:18]

So when it gets to the point that those one or two people are moving toward the level of anger, then there are other strategies that we can use to move the conversation on. I realize you and I have been talking about this particular topic now for several minutes. Is there someone else or are there other folks in the room who have comments? Then you pause and then someone else might say, I experienced those students differently. And then that opens the conversation. If not, then we say, Mr. Carter, we'll have a break in a few minutes.

[23:02]

And my co-trainer and I would be delighted to continue the conversation during our break. and then you move on. Otherwise they will monopolize the time. I think today people seem to have permission to speak out more in a negative way. We've been called to schools to come and help faculty work with students who are making comments that are borderline racist comments, not exactly racist comments. And then as we work with the teachers on how to intervene or the teachers don't want to intervene.

[23:44]

They want to let it go. And then they realize, well, they can't let it go, but what will I say? So we use the phrase, if I stay, what will I say? Stay in the conversation. And what will I say? then we have what we call questions that we keep in our back pocket.

[24:03]

So we do some skill work with that. And a recent workshop, a couple of teachers said, well, Dr. Lindsay, we're gonna have to stop our work because we realize that adults, we can't even work together. So how are we gonna be able to work with our students right now? So the level of disagreement among the teachers was pretty high, which reflects the conversations in our country right now.

[24:31] SPEAKER_00:

And it's easier in that context to simply not have that conversation, right? It's easier to sweep it under the rug and say, you know what, let's actually talk about formative assessment. I don't think we need to, let's move on. But

[24:45] SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just move on. And I will tell you it's easier to move on. But down the road, students suffer from that. And for the teachers in the classroom, whether it's distance learning or not, middle and high school students are going to want to talk about what's going on because they see it and experience it, especially on social media right now. And they're going to want to know.

[25:11]

And their questions can be as straightforward as, so Dr. Lindsay, what do you think about what's going on? And if they say, well, we're not allowed to talk about political issues in the classroom, a student's going to say, well, can't we talk about current events? This is social studies class. Can't we talk about? Or this is literature class.

[25:36]

Can't we talk about? uh you know writing about reflective writing about what's going on now can't we journal about it so kids are not going to let teachers avoid the conversation so it's time to develop skills on how to have the conversation

[25:55] SPEAKER_00:

We'll refer people to some of the specific frameworks and tools in the book for some of the specifics there. But you have a chapter on institutionalizing cultural knowledge and around professional development on some of these topics. So given that we have Maybe some serious attitude and awareness concerns for a number of faculty in just about every school. And if we think we don't, maybe it's just because they've learned to keep their mouth shut at key points. But this is work that every school needs to do. invest in, what can that professional development look like, especially for a school that maybe has not pursued that before, that maybe if leaders are nervous about even having that conversation, if it's been one that's maybe been simmering for a while, what are some ways of thinking about that needed professional development and starting some of those conversations?

[26:53] SPEAKER_01:

I just had this conversation with the district yesterday. Assistant superintendent, director of student services, director of assessment. They've had a few incidents on campus last year. Community members now have come and said, we don't feel like we belong here. And all of this within the last six months. So throughout this country, Justin, our teaching population does not reflect the students in our communities.

[27:29]

We still have about 80% of our teachers are white. And in California, that certainly does not reflect our student population. Now, many communities are more reflective of the teaching populations, more reflective of the students, but it's not about hiring more teachers of color. Every teacher should be able to teach the students that are in their community. So professional learning is the answer. It is the key to that.

[28:02]

So it has to start with a leadership team at the top that says, we have a clear vision for equity. And they'll have to look at their current vision to say, who are we? as a district who are we saying we are and look at that vision very clearly and then start looking at some evidence about are we who we say we are and then they begin looking at what professional development plans have we had over the years and have we accomplished what we need to accomplish and so answers will be like, well, we did diversity two years ago. You know, we had a consultant come in for two days and we did diversity. So you have to ask what was the outcome of that? You know, well, it was a compliance two days.

[28:56]

We checked it off the list. So those are the kinds of things that won't get you very far into equity planning and professional development around issues that arise out of inequities. So from the superintendent and assistant supes level, we encourage folks to really look at the data and match the professional learning to the data that they see. And in the absence of data, then interview folks, talk to folks in the community, and then focus on learning and student achievement and work collaboratively to build the knowledge and the deeper understanding of addressing the success of each and every student.

[29:51]

And we used to call it this achievement gap, as if it was a student issue. It's not a student issue, it's an adult issue. So we began then by building a professional learning plan that addresses school level leadership. So we encourage equity action plan. Now you're only as good as your plan is. And if the plan just sits in a binder, then it'll never happen.

[30:24]

But we encourage folks and our books are all written to be self studies. They can do book studies and then implement from the book. So they would write an equity action plan using the five essential elements, five action birds, and then hold themselves accountable by evidence. If we say we are assessing cultural knowledge, what does that look like? How do we know ourselves and how do we know our community? Valuing diversity.

[30:59]

We say we value diversity. How are we going to do that? Can every student walk in our schools and see themselves reflected in our curriculum, in our assessments, in our organization, in our community meetings? And can they see other cultures as well in all of those elements? Then the third element is managing the dynamics of diversity conflict is a very natural and normal part of people organizing people coming together so they need to be able to look at uh how do we manage our organization and our possible conflicts and confrontation in a healthy equitable way And then how do we adapt to diversity in our changing community?

[31:51]

What action are we using to do that? Not just, oh yeah, we are, but what would be the outcome? What would be the evidence to show that we're adapting? and who's leading those efforts. And then the one that you mentioned is institutionalizing it. What does it look like in our policies and practices?

[32:12]

And that's where true change takes place. If an organization's not willing to look at their policies and practices, then they're gonna keep doing exactly what the current policies, practices and procedures would lead them to do. So somewhere in their action planning, they have to be responsible for looking at their current hiring practices, dress code policies, those kinds of things that make a difference in behaviors. And when we talked earlier, We can't change other people, but we can certainly change systems and policies and procedures in ways that can change the way people behave. So yeah, that's the way we go about. And we can be there.

[33:02]

Consultants can be there for a few days to get folks acquainted with the framework, with the vocabulary. And then we can check back in with them and coach them on a regular basis. But it's for them to do the work. This is not about consultants. Years ago, there was a legislation called No Child Left Behind. It ended up being No Consultant Left Behind.

[33:33]

So what we advocate for and are coaching allies in is that this be district-led, that principals know how to implement an equity plan at their school level, and that they lead the professional learning uh themselves and they engage uh teachers and parents in uh learning what cultural proficiency is in creating a culturally proficient environment we don't ever reach the level of individuals being culturally proficient. It's something we work toward every day. It's not a checklist and say, oh, today I'm culturally proficient, so I'm done. It's something we work toward every day.

[34:25]

Some days I'm more culturally proficient than others. Some days with some groups, some levels I'm just not aware. I don't know. I'm culturally blind. I have to study. I have to be more aware.

[34:40]

I have to know. so that I can move forward toward being culturally proficient. And that's part of what that professional learning plan might look like.

[34:49] SPEAKER_00:

So the book is Culturally Proficient Coaching, Supporting Educators to Create Equitable Schools. And Dr. Dolores Lindsay, if people want to get in touch with you and learn more about your work, what's the best way for them to reach you?

[35:02] SPEAKER_01:

Well, there's two ways. We do have a website. We founded Center for Culturally Proficient Educational Practice. So it's ccpep.org. And they can learn a lot about what cultural proficiency is.

[35:22]

There's a lot of information there and a chance to contact us. The other way is D-B-L-I-N-D-S-E-Y at AOL.com. That's the best way. And I'd love to hear from folks. Our publisher is Corwin.

[35:39]

So if you just go to Corwin.com. All of our books are listed there. And I want to give certain compliments, certainly compliments to my co-authors, Richard Martinez, Randy, Lindsay, and Keith Myatt. scholars and consultants and wonderful, wonderful co-authors and good friends. So their email addresses are in the book as well.

[36:09]

And any questions or comments that you might have can go to any of us.

[36:15] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. Thank you.

[36:18] Announcer:

Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.