COURAGE TO LOVE Coaching Dialogically Toward Teacher Empowerment

Instructional coaches continue to be an important part of school reform and professional development, and yet few studies have examined the impact of the language coaches use when working with teachers. The authors work to contribute towards filling this gap by describing a self-;study examining their own language as instructional coaches and its impact on teachers. Paulo Freire's theories about dialogical interactions are used as a model framework. Freire outlined five conditions that must be in place to allow dialogue to occur: love, humility, faith in humankind, hope, and critical thinking. Each of these is examined regarding its impact on the coach-teacher relationship and specific examples of situations from the self-study are described. The authors describe how coaching dialogically can lead to greater teacher empowerment and stronger approaches to professional development.