Coaches Make Better Teachers?

For the last several years I have been blessed with the opportunity to be a coach in addition to my role as a teacher. I started as a track coach for the urban school where I was teaching at the time. This was such an exciting time for me and it allowed me to connect with my students in a completely different way than I had been able to in the science classroom. I quickly realized though that I was going to have to enlist the help of others in order to get my athletes to where I wanted them to be. Since I am not quite 5'2", I am not any kind of authority in jumping events - at all. So of course I had to start researching the best way to coach long and high jumpers. I was lucky enough to have another coach that was pretty good with hurdlers, so I was able to have him coach my girls that were brave enough to try to tackle the hurdles. Then I had to make sure my distance runners and sprinters were getting the right kind of conditioning. Not to mention making sure the relay teams got some time to work on handing off the baton. Each day it was necessary to plan out practice making sure each group of girls was getting a good workout that would prepare them for their events in the next meet. It was a lot of stress and work, and there were definitely times where at the end of a meet we realized that I had not been an effective coach in one area or another. So we (the assistant coach, myself, and the girls) would re-evaluate the situation and look for a new approach. Most importantly, my girls knew that I would never expect them to do something that I myself wasn't willing to do - or at least try. So at each practice I would spend time stretching, running, "jumping" and participating in the training in some way. Sometimes I did well, and other times I fell on my rear (mostly when I was trying the jumping events.) The important part was that my girls saw me fall down and get back up time and time again. They knew that it was ok to not win every time, but that you always have to get back up and try it again.

When the season was over I realized that when I was coaching track was the first time I had really ever differentiated my instruction. This gave me the inspiration and drive to take that strategy into my classroom. I spent the summer teaching 3-7 graders the basics to chemistry and the entire class was hands-on activities, differentiated for the different grade and ability levels. It was so much fun for me and the students and it reinforced the idea that differentiating instruction is the most powerful thing you can do for students. So the next school year it was on! My students, much like my athletes, got to have an active part in how the learning environment was structured and what types of activities we would do in class. Again, I always made sure my students saw me actively communicating, collaborating, and participating with them in their learning. We learned together the best methods for carrying out an experiment. There were definitely times when my students saw me "be wrong" or "fail" in our experiments. Much like in coaching, I would simply talk about what went wrong with the students and we would try again with a new approach. Every time we would "get back up on the horse" and give it another go. Another component that I found to be valuable to my students is letting them see me NOT be the expert with all the answers. Much like when I was coaching, the teaching was a constant learning experience for me and my students, and we were all able to learn and grow together. If we didn't know the answer, it was just another opportunity to expand on our problem-solving skills and find the answer together. This was another opportunity to do what I had learned in coaching, which is to model the drive and desire for learning that I wanted my students to have themselves.

Most importantly in all of these roles, I always make sure my students (or athletes) see me having fun and know that they are what makes it fun. I can't always guarantee that ALL of my kids enjoyed having me as a coach or a teacher, but I do feel that being a coach is still the biggest thing that influenced my teaching. That first year after I started teaching, I was able to make the most amazing connections with my students and I truly believe it was because I implemented my coaching techniques into my classroom.