Losing Control

The other night I drove my son and some of his friends to a basketball skills clinic, and quickly buried myself into a corner of the gym with a pile of work from school that had to be finished by the next day.  However, in only a few minutes I found myself totally distracted from my work, watching one of the most impressive teaching demonstrations I'd ever seen.

The clinic involved at least 75 athletes, ranging from 10 years old to 18, both boys and girls, with a wide variety of athletic, basketball and learning abilities.  The young coach running the skills clinic had every single one of the athletes engaged, working hard, and learning, with almost no breaks in the pace of instruction or drill transitions.  If an athlete was struggling in a drill, another athlete showed them how to do it correctly.  There were no apparent consequences to failing at a drill (running laps, etc.), yet the athletes were clearly trying to improve.  The learning, tempo and energy in the gym were nothing short of inspirational to someone who has spent many years observing and mentoring coaches.

If you had walked in, you would have imagined that these athletes had been working with the coach for years, rather than the one or two other sessions he's run with them.  The way the group moved, worked, and improved was astonishing.  What was most impressive to me is that he seemed to have absolute control over the hour and a half session, even though he was interrupted a few times by a guest coach, and parents were talking too loudly on the sidelines.  He never broke stride, and the athletes were totally "locked in" - they never lost focus.

I approached him at the end of practice and asked him about his coaching methodology.  He looked a little surprised, as I'm sure he expected a parent to ask a "basketball question," or worse!  I explained that I was an educator, and that I was trying to learn how to teach coaches and teachers how to work effectively with groups.  He smiled knowingly, and explained that he's experienced some difficulty in training other coaches in clinic settings, but that there was one thing that he found to be most important.  I expected him to talk about preparation, drill and fundamentals instruction, or even a coach's presence in the gym, but I got something totally unexpected.

He told me that the most difficult thing to get coaches to understand is that "they have to be OK with imperfection."  He added that "most coaches are so interested in the drill looking right, that they never allow the athletes to work their way through the drill - to get better."

It makes me think of all the times in the classroom or in the gym where I was too interested in my lesson plan, or the practice I'd developed to actually let my students work to improve the process and themselves.  In other words, I was more interested in having them work to improve within my lesson, instead of creating an environment where they would grow beyond the lesson. 

Simply put, I was unwilling to lose my control over the teaching environment.  Instead of actually creating a classroom where my students could learn and grow, I developed a setting where my students and athletes were limited by my control. 

This video features Alan November, an educator who promotes the use of technology in education, asserting that students need to become active classroom contributors through the use of available tools.  It's an interesting presentation arguing for a shift in the teacher control paradigm, and is a gentle reminder that while technology can be a distraction, if used creatively it also has tremendous potential in the service of our students' education.


Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.