It starts here. I have a confession to make. Don’t hate me for it. It’s a confession about me. Something you may not have known…. I’m a coach.
Let that soak in…
For twelve years of my life I was a coach.
More soaking…
I spent twelve of those years coaching football, eight coaching track and field, seven coaching basketball, four coaching cross country, two coaching baseball, and two coaching soccer.
Still more soaking…
I looked up the term coach on dictionary.com in search of a fitting definition…. didn’t see one. Not a definition that truly conveys what or who a coach is. To me, and let’s face it, it’s all about me, a coach is someone who builds capacity. A coach is someone who helps you focus your energies on improving your skills. A coach doesn’t point fingers at what you don’t know or what you haven’t learned. A coach assesses where you are (formative) and devises a plan for you to get better. To get you to be the best you can be. A coach does this for numerous players at any given moment.
The grade for my coaching ability came most often during public exhibitions. We call them games or contests.
In my opinion (see above about that), the best classroom teachers are coaches. I’m not saying that they stand on the sidelines and yell and scream. I’m saying that they stand in the classroom and help the kids improve. The give formative assessment all along the way. They find out what the kids know and don’t waste time teaching things they have already mastered. You don’t teach a kid how to throw a pass or catch a ball if they already know. There are no tricks involved. Teachers are truly about kids and truly about helping kids develop… to develop their full capacity.
In the coaching arena the kids go home more tired than the coaches do. The kids are the ones doing the work. The coaches design the work… the kids do the work. The kids work hard… the coaches coach.
More soaking…
I don’t want my teachers to go home more tired than the students are. I want my students to go home tired from all the work that the teachers created for them.
See the parallelism… the best teachers make the students do the work. The best teachers coach.
I’m reminded of this when I speak to one of my teachers. We went to high school together. We actually had a class together. I had the big desk she had one of the small ones. I’m reminded how important coaching is by her almost daily. When our conversation ends it usually ends with her calling me coach… and that makes me smile… because that means the right people are doing the work.
