Three Quotes for Instructional Coaches

Recently my teenage daughter started collecting quotes in a notebook. It reminded me of being her age, sitting on the porch in Limon, Costa Rica, reading my favorite quotes out of my own notebook to a community elder in. We discussed the meaning behind the messages and why they resonated, as I tried to piece together some wisdom. Some insights stick with you, reshaping how you approach your work long after you first encounter them, and as I close out my 11th year coaching teachers, these three quotes have been rattling around in my brain—grounding me when the work gets complex, relationships get challenging, or the stakes feel impossibly high.

"Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions." — Elizabeth King

In education, we're doing ambitious work with the best intentions. We want to close achievement gaps, create inclusive classrooms, support teacher growth, attend to students' whole selves, and set them up to pursue lofty and practice goals alike.

But without strong processes to support our intentions, our work becomes wishful thinking. Intentions, on their own, just don't get us much.

I think about this quote when I notice a team meeting circling around the same challenges without making progress, or when a teacher and I have great rapport but struggle to see concrete changes in practice. Even in warm, collaborative environments, process ensures the work moves forward and honors everyone's time.

Instructional coaching implication: Strong coaching processes help teachers reach goals and translate values into consistent practice.

• Developing strong coach prep processes to ensure we're focused and ready

• Establishing clear protocols for analyzing student work together

• Knowing when and how to pivot in coaching strategies

• Building structured reflection routines that move beyond "how did it go?"

• Planning follow-up actions with specific timelines and success criteria

  
  

Strong processes allow us to be both methodical and responsive. They actually build trust by showing we're serious about our shared goals and account for the people in them.

"Justice is found in the details of teaching and learning." — Lacey Robinson

If there's been a message that grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a good wake-up shake, this is the one. We cannot settle for surface-level conversations about engagement or general improvements when it comes to ensuring justice in the educational trajectories of our young people. Every student deserves rich learning experiences, and every teacher deserves a coach who helps them attend to the details that make the difference.

I return to this principle when analyzing lesson plans that seem "perfectly fine" until we discover they're only topically aligned without incorporating the skills students have a right to develop. Or when helping teachers understand how changing one word in a question can completely shift the cognitive demand.

The coaching implication: We have to get granular.

• Practicing teacher moves together—the inflections, pauses, and moment-to-moment choices

• Analyzing student work for evidence of thinking, not just correctness

• Refining questions to match learning objectives

• Examining equity of participation patterns, not just overall engagement

These "small" moves have huge aggregate effects—for supporting students to become independent learners and for challenging what we believe they're capable of. Justice isn't found in good feelings; it's in the specifics of whether students are accessing grade-level content and developing the thinking skills they need.

"Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets." — Kevin Kelly

Trust isn't built in grand gestures, but in micro moments—how we react when stressed, whether we remember what matters to teachers, the energy we bring to everyday conversations.

But the trust bucket can spill in an instant. A decision that undermines teacher agency, a comment that feels evaluative—these moments can erode what took months to build.

The coaching implication: We have to be intentional about both earning and protecting trust:

• Following through on commitments, even small ones

• Being explicit about our intentions when sharing feedback

• Acknowledging when we make mistakes

• Approaching conversations with genuine curiosity rather than an agenda to "fix"

Trust isn't just about being nice. Sometimes the most trust-building thing we can do is be courageously honest about what we're seeing in service of student learning, while being clear we're in their corner. Real trust requires treating teachers as having knowledge to contribute and staying focused on our shared commitment to students.

Holding It All Together

These three quotes work together to create coaching that's both rigorous and relational. Effective coaching requires constant attention to method, unwavering focus on details, and vigilant protection of relationships. These aren't competing priorities—they're interconnected elements that create conditions for sustainable change.

What quotes or principles guide your coaching practice?

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