Models of Teaching/Coaching: Non-directive Teaching | Session - Week #1

Models of Teaching/Coaching

   Summer, 1997

Peter S. Pierro, Ed.D., Instructor   

Session - Week #1

This weeks’ featured model and founder Non-directive Teaching, Carl Rogers

The Handout to the Class

         In the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Carl Rogers gained attention for his style of teaching - Non-directive Teaching - a model that we might consider more learning that teaching. His approach was to give his students the resources they needed so that they could teach themselves. If any learning happened, it was created by the student(s).

Carl Rogers was an American psychologist. He cofounded the Society for Humanistic Psychology, served as president of the American Psychological Association, and authored many bestselling books on therapy, development, and relationships. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He was famous for his creation of client-centered therapy. Rogers’s system of psychology was based on the following beliefs:

People are inherently good and their inner direction can be trusted.

People flourish when they are provided an environment of honesty, trust, and empathy.

In therapy, these beliefs meant that Rogers would not give advice to the client. He would not try to make his client feel better about themselves. Instead he would communicate a sincere interest in that person.  

  Rogers developed a nondirective style of facilitating learning in the classroom. In nondirective teaching, it is the students who are in control. Learning objectives, lesson plans, activities, evaluations, grades, homework, lectures, and so on are decided by the students.

Learning models being used in this class:

Non-directive Teaching, Carl Rogers

Player-centered Coaching

The Handout to the Class - Experiential Session Topic       

The Wolf and the Pack

Now this is the Law of the Jungle;

      as old and as true as the sky.

And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper;

but the Wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk;

the Law runneth forward and back.

 For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf;

       and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.

  — Second Jungle Book,                                                    Rudyard Kipling

Instructor’s Notes on the Class Session

This really was a unique learning session. Fifteen students, all of them are coaches working at different competitive and age levels of their players.

The first surprise for them was the seating arrangement; all single desks, including mine, in a circle. I introduced myself and briefly gave my playing and coaching experiences. I asked them to go around the circle sharing the same information. 

The sharing was conducted quite well by our student-coaches.

I then referred them to The Handout and gave my only lecture based on these topics:

Non-directive Teaching, Carl Rogers

Player-centered Coaching Our interaction speaking and discussion rules

The Wolf and the Pack

Phil Jackson, coach of my Chicago Bulls, used this metaphor in one of his books. And in the metaphor, the Wolf is a Player and the Pack is the Team. So our task today is, as coaches, to share our thoughts and feelings of our players and our teams. 

The floor is now open for our discussion - and the discussion began.

Notes on the Class Discussion

The remainder of the session was great. Coaches are Talkers. They got what and how we were going to do this. They talked about their players and teams. One talked about her star player and how many homers she hit. Another talked about his conference championship.  There was considerable interaction - members reacting and commenting on the stories and statements of others.  Later, as a member of the class, I shared my story about children hitting the baseball off of the tee. A couple of times, the discussion slowed and I asked a Socratic level question, such as “What do you do the first practice after losing a game?”

A class member shared that he was from England and knew about the British Middle School and Summerhill School. We chatted about the Nottingham Forest soccer team. Over all, the group commented on a lot of different learning methods and concepts; such as drill, repetition, questioning, and story telling.

I ended the discussion by assigning next week's learning model on Memorization, founded by Jerry Lucas - they all knew who he is.

The hard part of figuring out how to teach is learning when to keep  your mouth closed, which is most of the time.     — Carl Rogers, to a seminar at Columbia University