My RAS has been switched on recently to the topic of making changes within the Education System.  I recently posted a blog which was inspired by a Ken Robinson talk, “The Role of Creativity in Education”.  

 

In that blog, I referred to an Albert Einstein quote:

 

  

This quote and has appeared again within my radar several times in the last week: 

 

We are currently running, here at Simply Changing a programme to enable our Coaches to become Trainers of the next generation of Coaches and the metaphor is used in this programme.  

 

I also came across an amazing video on YouTube by Prince ea who is an American rapper/spoken word artist.  His video shows how, if in education we do what we’ve always done, we get what we’ve always got and as we know our education system is not serving all of our young people.  So, it presents a challenge to the education system to do things differently. 

 

This reminded me of a very gifted and inspirational teacher who taught me at school. Her approach presented choice and effective communication which are fundamental qualities of a coach. In order to do this, she opened up her first lesson by asking everyone who was interested in the subject (Human Biology) to fetch their chair to the front and without judgement, allow anyone who didn’t want to participate, the option to do something else instead.  

 

She avoided using complicated terminology and when asked a question, matched the language that was presented to her in her reply. She facilitated a discussion and managed disruptive behaviour by approaching it with unconditional positive regard, paying extra attention to build rapport.  

 

Very soon the entire class chose to take their place at the front, engaged in the lesson and mirrored the respect that she was offering. Something else I noticed was that pupils who wouldn’t usually have the confidence or interest to ask questions were speaking up.  It is clear to me now that the time she invested to build rapport and create a safe environment enabled this shift to happen.

 

I can notice a significant change in my son’s attitude to learning when he has a good relationship with his teacher.  He recently told me that he really loves a particular subject now and has realised he is good at it.  This is a significant shift from the words he used last year to describe how he felt about it and he wouldn’t have taken the subject this year if he had more choice.  

 

When I asked him what the difference from last year was, he described the new teacher and said that he is really kind to everyone, listens to what they have to say and explains things in a way that they understand.  He also takes the time to chat when passing. For me this illuminates the fundamental difference that it can make on our learning when our teacher/facilitator has the ability to apply unconditional positive regard and the skills to build good rapport.

 

In my view, one of the fundamental changes that can be made within our Education System is that all our wonderful teachers are equipped with coaching skills so that they can BE the best teacher they CAN be, to bring out the best in our children.  

 

 

Great Video Links 

 

Ken Robinson      www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Price ea             www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqTTojTija8

 

Kathy xx