When Teachers Push Back: What Are We Missing?

Listen to the interview with Elena Aguilar (transcript):

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When an instructional coach or school leader is trying to help a teacher improve their practice, they’re usually asking that teacher to change something. And while those changes are intended to improve teaching and learning, teachers aren’t always eager to make them; sometimes they push back pretty hard.

When that happens, it’s easy for the person doing the coaching to assume the problem lies with the teacher. They’re resistant to change. They’re set in their ways. They just don’t want to try something new.

But what if the coach, or the PD provider, or the team leader is contributing to that resistance, too?

That’s one of the central ideas in Elena Aguilar’s new book, How to Coach Resistance: Turning Pushback Into Possibility, her ninth book on teaching. In the book, she argues that resistance isn’t simply something one person does; it’s a dynamic between two people, and the way a coach responds to pushback can actually make it worse. But this is also good news: It means coaches have more control over these interactions than they might think, and by changing their own approach, they can create the conditions for real growth.

On the podcast, Aguilar draws on her years of experience as an instructional coach and her deep knowledge of adult learning to help us look at resistance differently. We talk about the emotions that often lie beneath pushback, how to identify the gaps that keep teachers from moving forward, and what to do when a teacher has legitimate reasons for questioning what’s being asked of them. Although her book is written primarily for instructional coaches and school leaders, these insights are valuable for anyone who works with other people — whether they’re mentoring a new teacher, collaborating with colleagues, or navigating difficult conversations in their personal lives.

You can read the full transcript here, listen to our interview in the player above, or get the highlights of our conversation below.

1. We May Be Contributing to the Pushback

Instead of viewing resistance as a teacher’s problem, Aguilar sees it as something that happens between two people. A teacher pushes back against a proposed change, and the person coaching them pushes back in return. “What we experience as resistance is actually the dynamic between two people,” she says.

Both sides of that interaction are often fueled by fear. A teacher may worry about making a change, while the coach may worry about being unable to help them move forward. The teacher gets defensive; the coach gets defensive. The teacher says students can’t do something; the coach insists they can. Each person’s response adds to the pressure.

Aguilar uses the image of two hands pushing against each other. The pressure comes from both people. To change the dynamic, the coach can lower their own hand.

“If you don’t want to experience resistance, drop your hand. Stop exerting your own pressure against their pressure.”

In practice, that means getting curious. Instead of arguing for the curriculum, a coach might ask what concerns the teacher has about using it. That shift creates room to learn what is actually happening.

“This doesn’t mean that we have to agree with them,” Aguilar says. “It doesn’t mean we have to try to adopt their mindset, but it means we can get curious and we can build a relationship and we can stop pushing.”

The idea that coaches contribute to resistance may be uncomfortable at first, but Aguilar sees it as a source of hope. “This is not to blame you,” she writes in the book. “It is the most hopeful thing I can tell you, because it means resistance is not fixed. It is determined at least in part by what you bring into the room, and what you bring is something you can change.”

2. We May Be Overlooking the Emotions Underneath

When a coach drops their own resistance and gets curious, what they’re likely to discover are strong emotions underneath. Knowing how to approach these is key to moving forward.

Aguilar’s ACE framework gives coaches a three-step process for doing this: Acknowledge emotions, Cultivate compassion, and Expand the story.

Acknowledge Emotions

Before moving into problem-solving, it helps to pause to acknowledge what the teacher is feeling. This doesn’t require a lengthy conversation or a background in therapy.

“We don’t have to be therapists,” Aguilar says. “We don’t have to probe into their past. We don’t have to do much more than acknowledge them. And through acknowledging them, we’re also communicating acceptance.”

The approach should be more exploratory than prescriptive. Aguilar recommends leaving room for the teacher to participate in naming the emotion. Rather than declaring that someone is angry or scared, a coach might say that it sounds like there is some fear present and ask whether that seems accurate.

Another option is to use her Core Emotions tool, a list that helps people find words for their feelings. A teacher might initially identify nervousness or distress, then recognize fear or shame underneath. Naming those emotions can make it possible to talk about the support they need.

Cultivate Compassion

A struggling teacher may be judging themselves harshly, making it harder to consider another perspective; this is where it helps to cultivate compassion for them.

To help someone access self-compassion, Aguilar might ask what they would say to a best friend going through the same experience. Often, the answer is something much kinder than what they’re telling themselves. From there, they may be more able to extend compassion to students, administrators, or others they’re blaming.

In the book, Aguilar emphasizes that for this step to work, it’s essential for coaches to have compassion for themselves. “You are inviting them to speak kindly to themselves about hard days and hard classrooms and hard years. If the person doing the inviting has not practiced this on themself, the invitation is hollow.”

Expand the Story

The final step examines the beliefs attached to the experience: what is possible, what a situation means, or what another person’s behavior tells us about them.

“We want to begin to unpack the belief,” Aguilar explains, so that people can recognize the story they’re holding and choose whether to expand it. A coach can invite the teacher to consider another explanation or try a different approach, opening a path back to instruction.

3. We May Be Misinterpreting What’s Getting in the Way

Once we’re ready to talk about instruction, we still need to identify what support would help. Aguilar’s Gaps Framework offers a way to explore that question.

“Anytime we want to do something and we’re not able to, there’s a gap,” she says. “And it’s an area for growth. It’s not a deficit. It’s an area for growth.”

The framework identifies six categories: skill, knowledge, capacity, will, emotional intelligence, and cultural competence. Teachers labeled resistant are often assumed to have a will gap: They simply don’t want to do what is being asked. But a closer look may reveal a different need.

Aguilar offers the example of a secondary math teacher objecting to a curriculum that requires substantial reading. Asking about the teacher’s training might reveal that they were never taught how to teach reading. What initially sounded like unwillingness turns out to involve knowledge and skills.

“We need to know what is the gap or where is the area for growth before we start offering the interventions or the coaching.”

One way to introduce the framework, Aguilar says, is through the lens of a problem with students.

Suppose a teacher says students won’t turn in homework. Looking through the categories together might reveal that some students haven’t mastered the skills the homework requires, while others have jobs or caregiving responsibilities that limit their capacity. Once the teacher sees those possibilities, the coach can invite them to examine their own needs. Do they know how to design homework for students at different levels of mastery? That opens a conversation about differentiated assignments and allows the teacher to identify the support they need.

4. We May Be Overlooking Legitimate Reasons for Pushing Back

Sometimes teachers push back because they feel what they are being asked to do is simply wrong. Coaches need to make space for this possibility.

“There are times when resistance is righteous, and there needs to be resistance,” Aguilar says. “Resistance in and of itself is not a bad thing.”

She offers an intentionally extreme example: a kindergarten teacher being told to have students sit still on the carpet for an hour of instruction. The teacher knows the expectation is developmentally inappropriate. That objection deserves to be heard.

Even when a coach can’t change the requirement, they can explore the teacher’s options: What opportunities exist to say no? What consequences might follow? How could the concern reach someone with the authority to act?

This also calls for coaches and leaders to examine their own values. If they’re being asked to enforce something they believe is wrong, they may need to acknowledge that conflict and speak up.

The core of Aguilar’s approach is curiosity, a willingness to learn what’s happening for a teacher before deciding what they need. The message she wants teachers to hear is simple: “I’m not here to judge you. I’m not going to tell you what to do. I want to be a partner. I want to help you work through this.”

When a teacher trusts that this is the coach’s intention, there’s room for a different conversation — one where they can name what’s hard, question what’s being asked, and help determine what comes next. That’s where the possibility for growth begins.

You can learn more from Elena Aguilar on her website, Bright Morning Consulting.