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Foreword

By Richard DuFour

Early in my career as a high school principal, I was often struck by the very different ways in which the same person would approach his or her coaching versus teaching assignments. The best head coaches realized that to create a consistently strong program, they needed to have all of the members of their coaching staff working in unison as a team. They wanted the junior high school, freshman, sophomore, and junior varsity coaches to be clear on the goals of the program and the process to be used in achieving those goals. The same offensive and defensive principles would be taught at each level. The staff would work collectively to solve problems that were occurring at any level. These programs typically provided the best examples of team-work in the entire school because the coaches worked interdependently to achieve common goals for which each member was mutually accountable.

These coaching staffs were big on goals. They would set long-term goals at the outset of the season: “We will make the state playoffs,” or “We will win the conference,” or “We will demonstrate improvement in key indicators every week.” They were equally attentive to short-term goals that helped clarify their game plan. “In this game, special teams will not allow a kickoff return beyond the thirty-yard line, we will gain over one hundred fifty yards in rushing offense, we will hold our opponent to fewer than seventeen points, and we will control possession of the ball for at least 60 percent of the game.”

Members of these staffs learned everything they could about the challenges they would be facing in the coming week. Advanced scouts were sent to determine the tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses of an upcoming opponent. Practices were purposefully designed to prepare students for the test they would face when they stepped onto the court, field, or pitch later in the week.

The best coaching staffs were fanatics about formative assessment. They were constantly—in practice and in games—gathering evidence of their players’ achievement. They would give specific, diagnostic, formative feedback to individual athletes: “This is what we need you to work on to get better at your position so the team can get better at achieving its goals.” They would check for understanding until they were certain their athletes were clear on what was being asked of them. They would pore over sheets of statistics during the game or at halftime and make adjustments accordingly: “We are being badly outrebounded. One of our goals in the second half is to outrebound our opponents, but to achieve that goal everyone must contribute. Our guards must stop releasing and get to the boards, and our front court needs to do a better job of getting a body on the opponent on every shot.”

These same individuals who were so committed to collaboration, goal setting, focused preparation, and formative assessments often abandoned these principles when entering their classrooms where they insisted on teaching in isolation. They didn’t set either short-term or long-term goals based on student learning. Many never bothered to even review the high-stakes assessments their students would take to determine if they would be eligible for admission to college. They used assessments to assign grades to students rather than as feedback regarding the effectiveness of their instruction or to identify the needs of individual students.

Their very different approach in the classroom was not a reflection of disinterest in teaching. Many of these coaches were excellent instructors and took pride in their relationships with their students. The stark contrast between how they approached their work with athletes versus their work with students spoke instead to the very different cultures of two different worlds—coaching and teaching. The culture of coaching has always supported the principle of people working interdependently to achieve shared goals for which they were mutually accountable. No self-respecting coach would be inattentive to setting goals, advance preparation, or making adjustments in their coaching based on evidence of what was working and what was not.

The culture of teaching, on the other hand, has been characterized by isolation. For too long in our profession, teaching has been regarded as closing one’s classroom door and serving as the autonomous ruler of one’s kingdom. Studies dating from the 1970s and continuing to the present have cited this tradition of working in isolation as the major obstacle to substantive school improvement.

Game Plan makes clear that what we know about the most successful athletic programs transfers perfectly to what we know about the most effective schools. The quotes from coaches and athletes that the authors use throughout the text ring true for educators at all levels.

The best thing about this book, however, is the care the authors take to provide precise tools for bringing concepts and ideas to life in the real world of schools. They are passionate advocates for the professional learning community process; however, they also recognize that even the grandest premise eventually comes down to hard work. To succeed in that work, people throughout the organization need clarity. As Chip and Dan Heath, authors of Switch (2010), write:

If you want people to change, you must provide crystal-clear direction. . . . Many leaders pride themselves on setting high-level direction: I’ll set the vision and stay out of the details. . . . But it’s not enough. Big-picture, hands-off leadership isn’t likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change—the paralyzing part—is precisely in the details. . . . Ambiguity is the enemy. Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. (pp. 16, 53–54)

This is exactly what Game Plan provides—the details, the translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. The authors make the complex simple by breaking down concepts into specific, manageable action steps. The facilitation guides, key questions, and discussion prompts that they offer as coaching points are tremendously valuable resources that will benefit any district, school, or team willing to engage in the dialogue these tools are intended to generate.

If you are looking for a resource to help bring the professional learning community process to life in your school or district, you won’t find a better one than Game Plan. I highly recommend it.