Coaches Corner:
Critical Friends
A Critical Friend is someone who will challenge you to think more deeply and be more intentional about your practices. Often critical friends are colleagues whose relationships are such that they can sit down with each other’s work (lesson plans, classroom observation notes) and talk about it honestly - its strengths, weaknesses, what can be improved, and suggestions for how that might be done. This discussion of the work is clearly separated from the “me” of participants. The atmosphere is one of mutual trust and freedom from fear.
Critical Friends Groups
Critical Friends Groups (CFGs) represent the basic unit of support for educators engaged in improving schools and increasing student achievement. CFGs generally range between six to twelve teachers and administrators who commit themselves to two years of learning to work together with the aim of establishing student learning outcomes and increasing student achievement. CFGs usually meet for two hours per month at which they establish and publicly state student learning goals, help each other think about improving teaching practices, collaboratively examine student work, and identify school culture issues that affect student achievement. Group members also observe one another at work at least monthly and offer feedback to each other in challenging but non-threatening ways.
Reflective Practice
Teaching which is characterized and shaped by an on-going personal and collective conversation which aims at improving teaching and learning is part of reflective practice. Reflective practice involves teachers talking about what they do and why they do it. The “why” is something more than feeling, opinion, preference; it’s based on evidence, research, and theory. The teachers talk about where the “why” came from (something they read, learned at a conference/workshop, heard from another teacher, learned during their training, learned in the CFG… ). Reflection is ongoing, not a one-time revelation that “sets” a teacher’s pedagogy for life.
Support for Critical Friends Practices
Educators across the county use Critical Friends Group practices to pursue significant change. This work is being supported by the National School Reform Faculty (NSRF). The mission of the National School Reform Faculty is to foster educational and social equity by empowering all people involved with schools to work collaboratively in reflective democratic communities that create and support powerful learning experiences for everyone. For more information regarding CFG practice and the National School Reform Faculty please go to www.nsrfharmony.org.
