You are an educator when children learn.
You are a better educator when children love to learn with you.
Content matters. Research leads us to this conclusion. Domain knowledge is fundamental. Our children will need to understand the game to play the game with purpose and precision. No arguments there, I assume.
Delivery also matters. Too often we find ourselves burdened by a myth that joy is the enemy of learning. So our delivery must be stern, harsh and unrelenting. Stress breeds champions. Austerity and misery will hone our skills type of nonsense.
If anything this past year has shown us is that sport is about learning and joy. An inspiring matrimony. While one may exist without the other, why would we want it to?
We are not social Darwinists accelerating development by setting the harshest human conditions and watching our toughest creatures emerge at the expense of the frail.
Delivery is our mechanism for transmitting all that is noble about sport. Delivery affords relationships that transcend a victory. Delivery is the message that you are one of us. Delivery is about guiding others to the best version of themselves. We cannot accomplish any of this by bringing the worst version of ourselves to leadership.
If you want to be an educator of positive significance, consider the field a classroom. The sport you coach is the content to be covered. Your delivery is the mechanism by which that content inspires a child.
Your player comes to you with the hope that you will see her. That you will care for her. That you will carry her from baseline to better.
Walk on to the field as the best educators walk into a classroom. The best teachers recognize that even brilliant content without remarkable delivery are words in the wind. The best educators create a safe environment where vulnerability can seed, where connection can root, and where relationships can blossom.
Your athlete is a student today.
The field is your classroom.
What an amazing day it will be when joy and learning marry on the pitch. What an amazing educator you will be when you have made that happen.
See you on the fieldroom.
Reprinted with kind permission from Todd Beane
Founder of TOVO Training and TOVO Academy Barcelona. In TOVO Training, Beane has combined proven pedagogical practices of experts in the field of education with the visionary components of a total football legend into a dynamic and practical training methodology.
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