Are You A Practical Problem-Solver?

“Right. What are we actually going to do?”

Some teachers are very good at sitting with uncertainty. Practical Problem-Solvers are usually not those teachers.

Someone tells you about a student who is stuck, a rehearsal that went badly, a colleague who is causing trouble, or a professional decision they can’t quite make, and your brain has already started arranging the furniture.
What’s the problem? What can change? What happens next?

This is an enormously useful instinct. Teaching is full of people who can discuss something for 45 minutes and still leave the room with absolutely no idea what they are going to do on Tuesday. A Practical Problem-Solver can often cut through that beautifully.
You may be particularly good at breaking a tangled situation into smaller pieces, spotting the thing that is actionable now rather than becoming paralysed by everything that might possibly matter.

And because you are used to teaching, you probably have a substantial collection of exercises, strategies, questions, resources and workarounds sitting somewhere in your head. The interesting question is not whether you can find a solution, it’s whether finding one is always your job.

That distinction becomes important when you move from teaching someone to mentoring another teacher. Sometimes the person sitting opposite you does need an idea. Sometimes they need enough space to work out why they keep avoiding the idea they already have. And sometimes what looks like a practical problem isn’t really a practical problem at all.

A good mentor doesn’t become mysteriously passive and stop being useful. They get better at noticing when action is the next step, and when action is simply the most comfortable place for the mentor to go.

The twist? If you solve things too efficiently, people can leave feeling helped but not necessarily more capable. You may have removed the problem so neatly that they never got the chance to strengthen their own judgement.

If you often find yourself saying some version of “OK, so what could you try?”, you may have a strong Practical Problem-Solver streak. Or you may not.

Take the free “What Kind of Teacher-Mentor Are You?” Quiz and see what your first instinct actually is.