Random Rambling. Reflecting on one main aspect of my career. Satisfaction. Am I satisfied with my current job? School Improvement Specialist Coach. A post very few lucky people would really understand. Throughout my journey as an SISC+, this is the most meaningful year so far. Transforming teachers in their pedagogy is not for the faint-hearted. Rejections is the utmost challenge. I always hold on to Mahatma Gandhi's quote, Be the change you want to see in the world. I must transform myself first. And so I did. The crucial part was to constantly telling myself positive things. It was a process of absorbing all the excruciating pain of loneliness and helplessness. Venturing into a coaching journey is a quantum leap from the comfort zone of the teaching life in school. It was very uncomfortable to deal with high expectations so it was better to put the personal feelings aside and look at it from a professional point of view.

2014. I was not trained to be a specialist coach. I was in the dark most of the time. I came from a secondary school background. The induction course was helpful but the challenges began when I started building rapport with the school admin and the teachers. That was the true challenge. They didn't know me and at some point I failed to remember the names and faces of the headmasters and headmistresses. People were skeptical about the role of a School Improvement Specialist Coach. The primary schools I went to were so alien to me. Perhaps I were a monster to them, hopefully a gregarious one.

Transforming the primary school teachers was not an easy job when I didn't have a clue about Native Speaker, KSSR and Linus. Slowly I learned, getting help from Prof Dr Google most of the time, apart from bugging the Facilinus officers and the language officers. Haha!! I went scrutinising all the DSKPs most of the time. Learning from my coachees' lessons. Thinking of ways, strategies, techniques that would work for young learners. It was heartbreaking to see children learn in a very sad classroom environment- teachers scolded them for the wrong things they did most of the time. They learned out of fear. They didn't write, they copied. They read blindly, repeating the teachers. The aim of teaching was to do as much exercises as they could. Then I started to reflect on my experience with low achievers I taught in my previous schools. Students weren't able to write proper sentences. Students who relied on translation all the time. This has to change. Primary level is where it all began. This is a bitter pill to swallow but seeing the reality in the schools, I started to think of ways to help the teachers. It was not their fault. Some of them were non-optionists who were still struggling to improve their own English Language proficiency. There must be ways to help them.

Reading up Kagan's Cooperative Strategies was one of the steps I made. Introducing a few strategies to the teachers was a challenge. There was no force intended, but putting myself in their shoes, I tried to understand the reaction to this CHANGE they were about to bring into their classroom. Faces were gloomy when I came to school. Excuses were made. Well, it was a normal reaction I had expected. I kept holding on to Kubler Ross' curve in managing the the teachers' emotions. Bracing myself before each visit. It was their acceptance that I needed. Acceptance it is. 2014 was cloudy.

2015. A fresh year to restart from where I stopped. I started working on strategies to make my coachees understand my role in transforming the pedagogy. A new list of coachees, more focused number of schools. A few series of trainings were given. Things were clearer. The process involved building rapport with new teachers, compiling practical ideas and sharing them in small-scale workshop series. Still, it was burdening them. I had to keep providing ideas, increase my knowledge in children's psychology, and andragogy. Reading Elena Aguilar's book, The Art of Coaching, had somehow became an eye-opener of what coaching is all about. I had to revise my strategy. Adults cannot be mandated to learn. The process was smoother compared to the first year. School heads gave positive feedback. The teachers had been more cooperative and positive towards transforming the way they teach. The application of 21st century pedagogy. It was quite a satisfactory achievement in 2015.

2016. Well, the process were repeated. This is the year I felt more satisfied in my coaching sessions. Coachees had full understanding of the role of a Specialist Coach. Strategies were fine-tuned and differntiated according to the school culture. Constant conversations in the Telegram group were helpful. A few series of workshops were conducted. Lesson Study became a norm. This is the 3rd quarter of the year and private messages kept coming in. I felt needed. Important. Accepted. It's still a long journey and hopefully a smoother one.