Child-Centered /Coaching – A Scenario and a Goal

In the last segment of my blog last week, I pointed out that coaching, by its very nature, uses progressive player-centered learning. So, quoting myself,  . . . “We have what is natural in our sports world; the interpersonal co-learning; that we’re not allowed to have in our regular classroom.” I also assured you that “I learned later how to individualize my fourth grade classroom and then how to adapt this to my learning experiences with my college students – all the way to my students in the doctoral experience.”

In this week’s blog, I want to invite you to join me on my journey from my “Teaching Children” to my “Co-learning with my Students.”

I’m a Teacher - The Time and the Place - The Start of a Journey

This is how it was for me back in the early 1950s. I was a teacher/coach in a small town in Illinois,  teaching a self-contained sixth grade classroom with about 18 kids. I was also coaching two junior high school basketball teams; a light-weight and a heavy-weight team, and I was assistant to the coach of the high school basketball teams. I was making an extra $300 a year (about $3,500 in today’s money) so it was worth it.

A Day and a Day’s Work

My sixth grade classroom had four rows of desks with five desks in each row. I had a desk in the front of the room next to the chalkboard. I started the day by sharing a Joyce Kilmer poem. Our studies featured a trial spelling test, a science lesson on magnets, and a mixed fraction math lesson, e.g. 4⅛ + 3¾ = X.  Recess duty out in the Illinois winter snow and cold hadn’t been a lot of fun.  Overall my kids and I really liked each other even though there were times when I had to be a “Disciplinarian” or a  “Motivator” so they would behave appropriately, get their work done, and learn the required facts and skills.

They call me “Mr. Pierro.”

I’m a Coach -  Same Day and a Day’s Work

I’m leaving my Essentialist/Existentialist classroom and going to another section of this building where my more Progressive activity is located - it’s called a gym.

My players are just shooting baskets waiting for me to get there - I get a lot of “Hi, Coach” greetings. I have a Coach-Team relationship here and Coach-Individual Player relationships, No need for motivation here - If you asked me to define Intrinsic Motivation, I would say, “My Junior High basketball teams.” It’s a different classroom - and it is a classroom.

Ron*. Mario, David, and the rest of the heavyweight team are at the East basket and Roger, Kim, Pablo and the rest of the lightweight team are at the West basket. We have non-league games scheduled with Ladd Junior High School so we spent much of our time playing simulated games. We also spent time on our pre-game warm-up routine. It was a good session.

*One of the players at the East basket, an eighth grader, later in life held the Illinois state record for points scored during a high school career, he played for an outstanding University of Iowa basketball team, and he played on a team in the ABA.

I’m a Scholar - I Led 3 Lives

There was a very popular TV program, I Led 3 Lives, that ran from 1953 to 1956. It was about a person who was, at the same time, a businessman, a member of the communist party, and a secret FBI agent. I was living my own version of 3 lives; a teacher, a coach, a scholar.

Early in 1953, Bill Einert, the high science teacher and my good friend, invited me to go to the University of Colorado this summer with him and begin my graduate degree studies. I told him I would love to do that but I couldn’t afford it.

Soon after that my bowling team signed up to participate in a tournament which paid pretty good prize money. My team, which included my brother Joe, bowled very well and I did better than that - I recall a 253 game. I made about $300.00 in team and individual prize money and I was headed for Colorado and the beginning of my masters degree.

I was now at a decision-making point in my career life; am I going to spend it as a coach or am I going to spend it as a professor. As so often happens, the universe gave me a sign. Another teacher friend had moved to teach in Barrington, Illinois. He wrote me a letter telling me about their school district philosophy and said that I needed to be a teacher there.

End of first leg of the Journey