Executive coaching at Houston charter school about 'personal growth, not achievement,' coach says

Coaching – rather than teaching – requires a solid relationship between students and their instructors, an expert in just that at a Houston-area charter school said during a recent interview.

Theo Plowden, part of the executive coaching program at A+UP Charter School, told the Houston Daily that this form of instruction in middle school can be effective when the "coach" builds a relationship with each student for whom they are in some way responsible.

"Relationships are needed so that students and coaches understand the limits and habits that each other have," Plowden said. "This can allow for the student to be OK with being vulnerable in asking questions, along with giving a coach insight on how a student learns, and what the student may be interested in so that the coach can tie their interest into a subject matter in order to bridge learning gaps."

He said those relationships also show students that their coaches value them as people.

"Students today have been thrown so much information since they were born, and do not have the tools yet to properly process and compartmentalize them," Plowden said. "Building this connection gives the students confidence in their coaches for not only academic guidance but also guidance throughout the school environment. So, coaching at A+UP looks different than any other place. Now in order for this to be effective we demand out of ourselves – and out of our students – full accountability. So even with the unique relationships that we have with our students, we also demand a lot from them at the same time. Ensuring that our students understand that relationship does not remove responsibility."  

A+UP is a tuition-free charter middle school on Hamilton Street in Houston with students who attend from all over the city. More than two-thirds of A+UP Unlimited Potential's students are low income, according to a "Learning Loss Recover" article written by Nick McMahon, a volunteer at the school.

A+UP teachers are called "coaches" because their work is more like that of personal trainers, expecting students to lift their own weight, according to the article.

"This works well on our campus when the North Star is personal growth, not achievement," Plowden told the Houston Daily.

A Florida native and son of a stand-up comedian and a government administrator, Theo Plowden was a math major who played basketball in college and still plays professionally on an international stage, according to information on his LinkedIn page. In August 2020, Plowden founded Pivot 6, which assists young people through major challenges.

He has been an A+UP Unlimited Potential learning coach since August 2017 and was the first at the charter school to receive Teen Executive Coaching certifications.

One of Plowden's students is eighth grader "Yuridia C.," who studies math with Plowden but also is showing signs of a developing artist and whose artwork demonstrates the creativity A+UP demonstrated this past school year.

"As a coach you cannot present all information from the lenses that 'this is right' or 'this is wrong'," Plowden said. "Kids today see immediate results as a norm and are not as connected to the importance of a process. So, when a kid doesn't know something, they hide because they automatically attribute ignorance to negativity instead of a challenge. Executive coaching allows for the coach to get invited in, to realize what makes a student shut down, more confident or anxious so that we can present strategies that the student can use to pivot how they look at the process of learning or grasping new concepts."