Why a new edition of Culturally Proficient Coaching? Why now, especially?

Because several polarizing years later, there’s even greater urgency for us all to critically examine our attitudes, beliefs, and practices when working with students who look or sound different. No matter how broadly you define coach, no matter which coaching model you follow, this is the resource to help you get started.

With the first edition, the authors’ big goal was to shift our thinking in service of standards-based teaching and leading, and equitable interactions that support all students achieving at highest levels. Now, with this second edition, the authors add a third goal: to encourage a more holistic mindset and expanded contextual uses.

New features include:

Enhanced research on the effectiveness of coaching in educational settings
New data on response to implicit bias and microaggressions–subtle and unintentional, yet destructive, forms of discrimination that continue to marginalize
Refinement and updating of the Tools of Cultural Proficiency, which enable you to provide equitable life-affirming experiences to all cultural groups
Expanded models of Culturally Proficient Coaching Conversations
A special section on crafting Breakthrough Questions to shift entrenched mindsets and barriers to Cultural Proficiency

By design, Culturally Proficient Coaching is an intentional, inside-out approach that mediates a person’s thinking toward values, beliefs, and behaviors that enable effective cross-cultural interactions and equitable learning environments. Here’s your opportunity to serve as that expert and trusted mediator, boosting educators’ cultural confidence and consciousness, while honing their coaching skills.

We owe it to ourselves and to our children to productively embrace and engage diversity, with all of its tensions, for the sustainability of humanity. These authors have given us the invitation, the road map, and the call to action. the embarkment is up to each one of us.

–Carolyn M. McKanders, Director Emeritus

Center for Adaptive Schools and Thinking Collaborative