Skip to main content

What is a Coach?

The word "coach" originated in mid-16th century Europe. A Hungarian town named Kocs was known for building the best horse-drawn wagons to carry people from place to place, and the vehicles became known by the city's name. A coach is a vehicle to transport people from where they are to where they want to be. 

That meaning translated from a horse-drawn carriage to a motor coach still translates to the core mission of a human coach. A coach's mission is to get a person from one current ability, skill, competency, or level of understanding to the next. Coaches don't do the work, they just support the person to make it easier and more comfortable for their journey.

What does this mean for coaches today? First, coaches need to know their client's destination (I use “client” as a general term for whom they are coaching, whether or not it is paid). Without this knowledge, a coach may use the completely wrong “vehicle” or take their client to the wrong waypoints. 

For example, a teacher may return from a conference excited about a new edtech resource. The coach should match the client's excitement, but ask what the teacher means to accomplish with the resource. Clarity on the end goal allows the coach to help the client know if the technology is the correct one, and how best to use the tech. Many have student or instructor-paced, and independent or team modes. The best steps to a successful coaching session start with understanding the client’s why.

Second, any ride is bound to meet turbulence. A good coach will see potential obstacles coming, or help navigate through or around them. A client’s mindset and self-limiting beliefs can be as big of a holdup as a lack of skill or knowledge. Getting the client to believe they will succeed will help them have the grit to persevere.

Lastly, any good mode of transport provides safety and comfort. A client who is stretching their ability needs a coach to encourage them, allow them to fail, listen to them, and ultimately allow them to get to their destination with all their bells on. That adage refers to transport horses that held bells attached to their bridle. If they arrived with all the bells on, it was a safe journey.

Image generated by openart.ai

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vulnerability

I cannot claim to be an expert on vulnerability, that title belongs to Brene Brown. Through her work, I have learned that being vulnerable is key to major breakthroughs in life. The opposite of this is true as well. Being unwilling to take risks, fearing failure or embarrassment, leads to stilted growth and eventual regression. The unwillingness to struggle in the short term leads to eventual major disappointment. That struggle is unpleasant, painful, draining, aggravating, defeating, and necessary. As a teacher, vulnerability arises when teaching a new grade level or content area. It happens when a re-designed lesson is taught for the first time, a new resource is used, and when being observed. Leaders face vulnerability when launching a new initiative and taking questions from stakeholders. Coaches face vulnerability when they meet with a new client or a client who operates outside the coach's wheelhouse of knowledge or skills. Humans are adept at procrastinating, which is a phys...
Post a Comment
Read more

Navigating Uncertainty

One thing most people can agree on in early April 2024 is that no one knows what to expect right now. Federal agencies are being closed at a record pace, tariffs are rocking global finances, AI is changing faster than most people can keep up with, everyone has an opinion on this, and no one can anticipate what might happen next. The stock market is a prime example of the uncertainty, and on the day I started writing this the Dow Jones surged by 800 points and ultimately fell by 600. Today as I continue writing, it rose by nearly 3000 points. There are countless ways to reach when life becomes chaotic. Some people "don't look up" as the movie's title states, because as long as you can't see the asteroid heading straight towards you it does not exist. Some like to lean into the chaos, acting like Loki, the Norse god of mischief and disruption. Others protest through marches, speeches, and boycotts. All of these are human reactions on which I place no judgment. Based...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scheduling - A School's Heuristic Problem

Students learn about algorithms in Computer Science to solve complex problems in reasonable times. Some issues are too complex even for the best algorithms to perfectly solve, and those are known as heuristics. The example commonly used is the traveling salesman. While a little outdated, and I have updated the example to be the logistics of UPS delivering packages, the story goes like this.  A traveling salesman arrives in a new town intending to get to each house in the most efficient path possible. They get a road map of all the homes they will visit and their hotel room and start mapping out paths. The math works out to show the following: Let's nerd out for a moment. Each number of possible paths is the mathematical factorial of the number of homes on the path. So 3 homes means 3*2*1 = 6 paths. 7 homes means 7*6*5*4*3*2*1 = 5040 homes. Just 10 homes, and we are at 10 factorial or 3,682,800 pathways! How can one possibly solve for the best route with that many choices? It is too...
Post a Comment
Read more