Scenario: First practice as a high school wrestling coach

“Let’s go (insert name of student), you can do this.”
“Stephen, remember you are a coach, not a cheerleader. You are there to provide assistance and another perspective.”

Many of us have had coaches in our lives. Whether this is in sports, career, or life, coaching is essential to our new globalizing world. Even our parents and mentors are coaches to teach us new ideas and innovations.

Since November 2012, I have been a high school wrestling coach. As an aspiring educator, being a coach has its benefits. For me, coaching means you are there to guide someone else on his/her journey and provide assistance in achieving their next goal. Becoming an effective educator requires many skills. Besides learning new skills, you are building on the skills you already have. So, in this article, here are some reasons to consider becoming a coach.

Become

Every single aspect of your life influences you one way or another. For me, coaching opened more career opportunities. Initially, I came to SFU wanting to enter the Professional Development Program (PDP) to become a certified teacher. However, since learning to be a coach, I’m looking into other opportunities such as a youth coordinator, social worker or camp manager. There are so many opportunities ahead.

Educate

This word is pretty much self-explanatory. We learn from educators, and educators guide people. I don’t know about you, but I think we can only become better pedagogical learners. Everyone has their own style, but I think you can only gain advanced levels of pedagogical teaching, not become what I like to call “a master”. From coaching, I’ve started to develop my pedagogical teaching style, and it works in its own efficient way.

Learn

As an educator, we learn from a variety of backgrounds. The people you are coaching are your students, and you can learn from them. Regardless of the subject matter, a coach’s students are essential to the pedagogical learning process. It is a reality. I believe by becoming a coach, everyone learns from everyone else.

Language

Believe it or not, there are still high levels of communication as a coach. Being a coach requires you to communicate with parents, students, and colleagues. Learning to use effective words and phrases to communicate with a variety of people is critical to the coaching environment. By using effective language, you become more professional.

And there we have it – my reasons to become a coach. Hopefully, you caught the acronym BELL. So try out coaching as a volunteer activity. I hope you find it very enjoyable and rewarding.