Shari Paisley thought she might be a journalist once. She liked writing, had an interest in photography, went to Western Illinois University — but somewhere in there, she realized she didn't write quite like a journalist. She loved figurative language. She loved poetry. She became a language arts teacher instead, and taught seventh grade for the better part of thirty-four years: eight at a small district in Astoria, then twenty-six at Macomb. "It was such a fun job," she said.

She retired. Then, three years ago, Macomb's assistant superintendent Margie Rhodes wrote a grant in response to the teacher shortage, and Shari came back — this time as an instructional coach.

The position was designed for teachers entering the classroom through alternative pathways: people who earned degrees in other fields, bypassed student teaching, and came to the profession with strong subject knowledge but limited formal training in how to teach. Shari works alongside them, not above them. She coaches six teachers this year, across math, science, English, and foreign language. Her own background is in language arts — but instructional coaching, she's clear, isn't about subject matter. "It's all about the practice of teaching," she said. "And so even though I have a language arts background, I feel like I learn a lot in the math and science and foreign language classes."

The program is voluntary. Nobody has to participate. Three of her six teachers have been with her since the beginning and keep coming back. "I tell them every week, you don't need to come back and watch you teach," she said. "And they always invite me back." That fact — six teachers choosing to show up, three of them for three years running — is the quiet proof that something real is happening.

A basic week starts on Mondays. Shari comes in, sits with her teachers, and asks how things are going. If a teacher wants her to observe a class period, she does. She uses the Danielson instrument — the same rubric administrators use for formal teacher evaluations — but her purpose is the opposite of evaluation. She documents what she sees, and she only reports the positive. "Many times they've not known that they've done something that's a good thing," she said. A teacher might manage to speak to every single student during a lesson without realizing it. Shari notices. She says so. And when a teacher hears it, they do it again.

There's a subtler dynamic at work, too. Because her reports are purely positive, teachers have learned to read the absences. If something isn't mentioned, they often name it themselves — identifying what they want to work on, unprompted. The coaching becomes a mirror, not a verdict.

"It's successful because my teachers want to grow," Shari said. She's careful to credit them. She also knows she got lucky with this particular group. "I got very lucky with the people that I'm working with." They're self-selected, growth-minded, and talented in ways they sometimes don't see in themselves. One of them is from the Philippines. Shari picked her up one afternoon, and they drove somewhere together, and she found herself watching Macomb through a newcomer's eyes — the green space, the parks, the beauty in the simple things. "She doesn't need me," Shari said of her. "In fact, none of my teachers need me. They just choose to work with me to grow."

She's honest that she's not sure she would have done the same when she was teaching. Letting someone into your classroom, non-evaluatively or not, takes a kind of openness she thinks she might have struggled with. And she believes that willingness — to be vulnerable, to keep reaching — transfers. Students see the teachers working hard, working publicly. They respond to it.

The best days end the same way. A lesson finishes, Shari stays a moment, and asks the teacher how they thought it went. On the good days, the answer is: I think that went pretty well. And Shari says: I did too.

"It's just like," she said, trailing off with a smile. "It's awesome."