The Messy, Human Work of Constructing Togetherness in a Coach’s Interactions with a Teacher

Background: Prior research illustrates the potential of collaborative coaching relationships that foster mutual learning and a sense of solidarity between teachers and coaches. Various studies have explored strategies for building such relationships. Purpose: This paper extends prior research by examining the moment-to-moment work of constructing togetherness—which we conceptualize as involving solidarity, mutuality, and connection—in all its messy humanness. We ask: How does a coach work to construct togetherness in her relationship with a teacher? How does the coach’s own messy humanity relate to her work to construct togetherness? Research Design: This critical case study focuses on the relationship between a coach (the first author) and a middle school teacher, whose interactions contain evidence of togetherness as well as evidence of frustration and alienation. The study draws on video recordings of the pair’s work over four coaching cycles (co-planning, lesson enactment, and debriefs), conducted over the course of a school year. We coordinate close analysis of teacher–coach conversations with the coach’s first-person accounts to investigate the coach’s personal, subjective experiences of her work and how these experiences shaped her constructions of togetherness with the teacher. Findings: We found that the coach’s experiences of disappointment in and distance from the teacher presented barriers to building togetherness and learning collaboratively, even as she enacted practices for effective coaching offered by the literature on instructional coaching. However, when the coach and teacher centered both of their personal, subjective experiences and used them to guide their shared work, these experiences provided powerful resources for constructing togetherness. Conclusions: Our analysis extends extant efforts to understand the promise of instructional coaching, suggesting that a broad range of both coaches’ and teachers’ human experiences, including their emotions and commitments, have an impact on their work together and should therefore be acknowledged, investigated, and built on. We argue that recognizing and probing teachers’ and coaches’ messy humanity is essential for supporting coaching that, in turn, supports learning that is meaningful and humanizing for both teachers and coaches.