The Coaching Letter
The Coaching Letter is written by Partners’ staff member Isobel Stevenson, who has extensive experience as both a leader and a coach. The Coaching Letter’s perspective is that leaders could be a bit more successful if they thought and acted more like coaches, and coaches could be a bit more successful if they thought and acted more like leaders.

Coaching Letter #185
September 26, 2023 Fig 1.—A school-based model for teacher expectations (Proctor, 1984). On expectations and equity Hello, I hope you are well and that you are feeling good about your life, your work, your family. I’m very sorry that it’s been so long since I wrote a Coaching Letter—late August and September are always very busy times, but this year more than most, I think. The fact that Rydell and I had a book manuscript due on August 31
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Coaching Letter #184
August 15, 2023 A science classroom during HQI Live! in Milford, CT. On popular misconceptions in education that we need to overcome Hello, I hope this finds you well. Almost all of you are gearing up for the start of a new school year—I wish you all the best. It’s so important, and it’s so much work, and it’s exciting, and it’s stressful... I know all the feelings, and I miss it and don’t miss it both at the same
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Coaching Letter #183
July 1, 2023 Woman looking at spreadsheets, by John Singer Sargent, courtesy of DALL-E Multiple ways I've been thinking about data lately. Hi, I hope you’re doing well and that the close of school went smoothly. Thank you for subscribing to The Coaching Letter, I am so happy that you do. I have had several conversations lately that make me think that the most useful thing I do in these Coaching Letters is communicate that despite my decades
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Coaching Letter #182
June 6, 2023 On becoming a better facilitator Hello, I hope this finds you well. Thank you for reading the Coaching Letter! You are amazing. I’m writing this on a day when the smoke in the air in Connecticut from the fires in Canada has been particularly bad, and my eyes are stinging. I’m just going to finish this letter, and then I’m going to go close my eyes in a nice cool, dark room. Thank you for all the
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Coaching Letter #181
May 22, 2023 What I learned from Peter Liljedahl (and what I'm going to do next) Hello, how are you, and thank you for subscribing to the Coaching Letter. You rock. This Coaching Letter is about some of what I learned from watching Peter Liljedahl in action over the course of four days in April, and what we’re doing as follow up. Peter is a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and his book Building Thinking Classrooms in
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Coaching Letter #180
April 30, 2023 Friends, welcome to spring! Every year it feels like the view out my window shifts from brown to green overnight, and this year it felt even more abrupt because it happened while I was out of town. Thank you for the huge response to the last Coaching Letter on Ted Lasso—I was initially really disappointed at the lack of response, because I thought it was a pretty good Letter, and then I realized that I had a ton
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