Effective Feedback: Relationships First

Knowing others matters as much as knowing literacy

I was stuck with a new beginning for a writing project. After two arduous pages finally completed, I had my wife read my draft.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

“I am wondering if this is a good shift. Is it better than what I had?”

So she read it, then paused to consider what she wanted to share and how. After a minute, she commented, “It doesn’t sound like you.”

“What do you mean?”

She paused again, then responded, “It feels tedious. For example, when you use the story of the ski trip to introduce the book…”

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After this conversation, I felt two things: affirmed that I was going in the wrong direction, and motivated to engage in the approach I now believed would be better.

This is what feedback is supposed to do: cause us to want to keep learning and improving. Why doesn’t this occur more often, either between teacher and student or among adult colleagues?

It’s easier to know where to improve. What’s harder is knowing how to help someone improve, or to seek ways to learn ourselves.

A lot of articles discuss the technical aspects of feedback during instruction, such as “Feedback should be timely”. Yet knowing others - relationships - are as important as knowing literacy. We have to invest in each other before we can help someone learn.

Knowing Others

We can start with the basics when fostering new relationships. What are their strengths? Interests? Current challenges? This knowledge comes from frequent visits to classrooms and corresponding conversations, sometimes not about education but about our daily lives and experiences.

During one informal conversation with a former teacher, I learned that she initially went to school to be a nurse. These findings seem like little things, the smaller bits of personal and professional information. But they add up and form bonds between colleagues, a foundation for trust. Once I have developed a strong relationship with faculty, they know I am coming from the right place if I offer feedback.

With my wife, she knew that I wanted an honest critique of my writing. I had asked for it and we have an established relationship. This took honesty, time, and a general sense of awareness on both of our parts, of ourselves and each other.

Knowing Literacy

If our awareness leads to positive beliefs in others and ourselves, then literacy becomes a point of conversation instead of contention. We aren’t worried about being right because our confidence in each other and ourselves allows us to accept new ideas. To know literacy means to know that our knowledge base will always be limited.

Knowing/not knowing literacy goes both ways. For example, as the recipient of feedback from my wife, I had a responsibility to not become defensive if I heard something I disagreed with or did not like. No one needed to be right. Instead of only tapping into someone’s knowledge base when we want to be coached, we can also create a space to think and reflect - a commitment to time together.

By ensuring strong relationships before providing feedback, knowing literacy increases: it is an outcome of our conversations, more than an expectation. We build collective knowledge about teaching readers and writers.

Bottom Line: There Are No Shortcuts

As we invest in people and in developing relationships with them, simply wanting them to get better becomes secondary. We do it because it is the right and kind thing to do. This means taking the long road willingly and with an expectation for enjoying it. The opportunity for feedback will arrive; the reward for our patience is a schoolwide culture of learning along with a genuine connection with our colleagues.