"Teaching" vs "Facilitating Learning"
In the past year, as I have spent more and more time coaching natural movement, the more I have changed my view on what it is exactly that I'm doing as a coach. Make no mistake, the end goal of helping people to become better movers, to learn to enjoy moving and to achieve their particular goals stays the same, but my views on exactly how I should be doing it have changed.
Specifically, the more that I coach, the less I consider my role to be that of "teaching" movement. I feel that "facilitating learning" of movement is a better term. Yes it's more clunky, but I believe it's more accurate.
So, what's the difference and why is it important?
It has been my time spent working with children living with autism that has most strongly influenced this change of view. The autism spectrum is broad and manifests itself in different ways in different people. However, many of the children that I work with don't respond optimally to traditional methods of teaching (e.g. picking a skill to practice, explaining how to do it and then deliberately practicing it). Many respond much better if I create situations (e.g. an obstacle course) in which they just happen to need the skill that I would like to help them to learn. I then have the opportunity to provide advice along the way.
It's a subtle difference, but whereas traditional "teaching" could be construed as a one size fits all approach of a teacher conveying information to a student, the concept of "facilitating learning" is much broader and more flexible. It allows (for me and the way my mind works at least) the person facilitating the learning to pick the most appropriate method of learning for the individual. Sometimes that will look like traditional teaching, and other times it won't. Importantly, it takes the pressure off me as a coach to feel like I need to "teach something". I don't. I just need to create opportunities for learning to take place, however that might be.
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