EnRich Coaching for Educators has arrived! In my mind’s eye I am poised on a mountain peak overlooking a vista that holds promise, support, mentoring and guidance for educators. It is time for me to focus on my dream. It is time to focus on my fellow educators and on our shared experience.
First, it is increasingly difficult for me to get down onto the floor and onto the children’s level.
Second, it is absolutely impossible for me to get up off the floor once I am down.
Third, and most importantly, educators need support, help, direction and mentoring. We don’t need endless training courses or new government initiatives. We need to find specific, effective ways forward pertinent to our own situation.
In essence, we need coaching.
Coaching revolutionised my life. By the time I was 50 I had achieved many things, both within my career and within my somewhat complex personal life. People depended on me. I reached most of my targets. I said ‘yes’ to everything and everyone. I was considered a good teacher and an inspirational trainer. I spent time teaching and training in the Far East, Ethiopia and South Africa. I helped with children’s work in Romania and in rural South Africa. I had to start on the bottom rung of the professional educational ladder when I moved to the UK at the age of 42, but within seven years I was managing settings in Brighton & Hove. I was successful – but my goodness me, was I stressed! In fact, I was pretty broken.
Then I discovered coaching and I realised how much more effective I could be without absorbing all that stress. For the first time I felt in control, even when work was extremely challenging and home life had more extreme ups and downs than the biggest rollercoaster in the world.
Once I knew how to look at life and work differently I put these skills into my own teaching practice, as well as into managing and motivating staff. What a difference it made, not only to the other people involved but to my own sense of well-being!
We are so similar, you and I. In fact, wherever I have coached or trained educators, whether in the Philippines, Ethiopia, the UK or in South Africa, I have found the same magical bond – whatever our differences, as educators we all have the same worries, challenges and pressures – as well as the same joys.
One thing we have in common is that educators’ wellbeing is not high on anyone’s agenda – so I have made it my goal to change that. EnRich Coaching for Educators makes the educator’s success, effectiveness and happiness a priority. And so I invite you to join me on a journey to map out the best way forward for you, in your specific circumstances, to help you reach the destination that’s in your mind’s eye when you think about your future.
In my next post, I will discuss the issue of staff retention in the teaching world and how coaching can be a valuable tool in ensuring teachers remain in education. I would love to hear of your experiences – do you feel you want to leave due to pressures at work? What are your most pressing needs as an educator? What does wellbeing at work mean to you? Let’s start a conversation…
Great post Pam!