When we embark on a journey, every action revolves around the destination. Of course, not all trips are smooth sailing. We inevitably hit distractions, obstacles, and detours. These challenges threaten to blow us off course, but when we stay focused on the destination rather than the barriers, we can move forward. The same is true in education. Barriers to effective teaching are neither permanent states nor character traits. Rather, they are temporary challenges successful coaches help teachers overcome by connecting them with the right methods and keeping them focused on the destination. In Compassionate Coaching, Kathy Perret and Kenny McKee identify the six most vexing challenges teachers face-lack of confidence, failure, overload, disruption, isolation, and school culture challenges-and the six corresponding ways that coaches can help teachers surmount them, dubbed the compassionate coaching focus areas. Coaching with compassion is a process focused on partnership, empowerment, prioritization, routine, connection, and openness. Done well, it can result in transformational improvements to student achievement and teacher work satisfaction. In some cases, it can even shift the trajectory of whole schools. Roadblocks and detours can get in our way when we are coaching just as they can during any journey. Instead of grumbling about the setbacks, we can open our eyes to the possibilities of a new and better route. That's what compassionate coaching offers. Let's go!

What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts. Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters - who should be considered and valued - and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.