What is EDUCATION, what is COACHING, and what is the difference between the two?
Coaching, education, therapy, counseling, training, conditioning - the list goes on and on; these are all services that strive to help people better their lives in various ways. As they are all related in that regard, naturally, there is, of course, some overlap amongst many of them. The major difference between coaching and education - in hugely oversimplified terms - is that in coaching you don't "give people answers," but in education you "do." Ok, I said that was hugely oversimplified!
To get a better understanding of this, let's look at some background. To prevent us from getting too out of control here (as we could, conceivably, go back to the dawn of civilization with this discussion and spend hours and pages discussing it), let's specifically look at how numerous countries around the world have structured and run their "mainstream" education systems just in the last several hundred years since the Industrial Revolution. In this post-industrial world we live in, education in many parts of the world for the last several hundred years has largely meant memorizing facts and memorizing the steps to follow to complete a task. For the last few hundred years, if you came out of school "knowing the information," and "having the everyday practical work skills to complete tasks," you had a chance at "getting ahead in life." Many education systems around the world were operating like this even before the Industrial Revolution, but the Industrial Revolution helped to further promote and intensify this "fill a vessel with information and specific work-related skills" approach to education.
The turn of the millennium ushered in a new era of education, an era that is still under construction, and still largely "finding itself," to be fair. ALL stakeholders in education are learning more and more about this "new age" of education with each new year! As the 21st Century rolls on, this new era of education continues to increasingly blend more and more aspects of coaching into the mix of mainstream education than pervious generations of educational thought did.
One way we can think of this paradigm shift in education is like this: the old educational paradigm often thought of students like vessels that needed to be "filled up" with information and specific skills. The new age of 21st Century education takes a different approach, advocating that students are more like tender and kindling prepared in a nice formation ready to be set alight. Students of all ages are seeking that "spark" that will set them ablaze! The educational system the student is studying in, the students' parents (for children), and the student him or herself, should continue to add firewood and oxygen to the fire as it roars along and grows. The end-goal is for this fire to mature into a ripping, roaring, blazing bonfire.
Another way we can think of this paradigm shift in education is like this: the old educational paradigm would often advocate: "Don't reinvent the wheel!" This is an old - and what use to be considered "timeless" up until just a decade or two ago - expression which means that every single time you come across a problem or situation that needs solving, solve it "the right way" - the "tried and true way" - the "way your teachers in school taught you how to solve such-and-such a problem!" If it's been done before, and there is a clear-cut method that has been established for accomplishing it, don't waste your time thinking about it, just learn the "tried-and-true" method to use that gets the job done and do it, regardless of whether or not there might be a better way of approaching it or solving it!
Bottom line:
Education has changed A LOT over the past 40 years, and it continues to change - upending the previous paradigm of "filling a vessel with knowledge" more and more with each passing year. With that said, however, with all the critical thinking, coaching, guide by the side, and "let the students figure it out for themselves - LET THEM reinvent the wheel!" attitudes and mentalities that have entered into education and educational theory over the recent decades, there is still the expectation that at some point in the educational process, the student will learn some kind of fact or be directly instructed that there is a "right answer" and a "wrong answer" to this question, problem, or situation...or at least that there is a "more generally acceptable answer" and a "less generally acceptable answer." If ALL direct instruction and the concept of being "right" and "wrong" or "more generally acceptable" and "less generally acceptable" were to be removed from the world of education entirely, the concept of "education" would completely cease to exist!
Coaching, on the other hand, operates under the premise that clients already know what they need and want, and, ultimately, how they can and should best go about getting it - they just need some guidance, direction, and help unlocking the path that will unleash it all. The coaching journey isn't about the coach walking that path for their client, though! The client is very much the one who walks the path. The coach guides and facilitates growth. There is no direct instruction. There is no "giving of answers." There is no authority figure saying "this is the wrong answer" and "this is the right answer," other than the client him or herself.
Coaching, education, therapy, counseling, training, conditioning - the list goes on and on; these are all services that strive to help people better their lives in various ways. As they are all related in that regard, naturally, there is, of course, some overlap amongst many of them. The major difference between coaching and education - in hugely oversimplified terms - is that in coaching you don't "give people answers," but in education you "do." Ok, I said that was hugely oversimplified!
To get a better understanding of this, let's look at some background. To prevent us from getting too out of control here (as we could, conceivably, go back to the dawn of civilization with this discussion and spend hours and pages discussing it), let's specifically look at how numerous countries around the world have structured and run their "mainstream" education systems just in the last several hundred years since the Industrial Revolution. In this post-industrial world we live in, education in many parts of the world for the last several hundred years has largely meant memorizing facts and memorizing the steps to follow to complete a task. For the last few hundred years, if you came out of school "knowing the information," and "having the everyday practical work skills to complete tasks," you had a chance at "getting ahead in life." Many education systems around the world were operating like this even before the Industrial Revolution, but the Industrial Revolution helped to further promote and intensify this "fill a vessel with information and specific work-related skills" approach to education.
The turn of the millennium ushered in a new era of education, an era that is still under construction, and still largely "finding itself," to be fair. ALL stakeholders in education are learning more and more about this "new age" of education with each new year! As the 21st Century rolls on, this new era of education continues to increasingly blend more and more aspects of coaching into the mix of mainstream education than pervious generations of educational thought did.
One way we can think of this paradigm shift in education is like this: the old educational paradigm often thought of students like vessels that needed to be "filled up" with information and specific skills. The new age of 21st Century education takes a different approach, advocating that students are more like tender and kindling prepared in a nice formation ready to be set alight. Students of all ages are seeking that "spark" that will set them ablaze! The educational system the student is studying in, the students' parents (for children), and the student him or herself, should continue to add firewood and oxygen to the fire as it roars along and grows. The end-goal is for this fire to mature into a ripping, roaring, blazing bonfire.
Another way we can think of this paradigm shift in education is like this: the old educational paradigm would often advocate: "Don't reinvent the wheel!" This is an old - and what use to be considered "timeless" up until just a decade or two ago - expression which means that every single time you come across a problem or situation that needs solving, solve it "the right way" - the "tried and true way" - the "way your teachers in school taught you how to solve such-and-such a problem!" If it's been done before, and there is a clear-cut method that has been established for accomplishing it, don't waste your time thinking about it, just learn the "tried-and-true" method to use that gets the job done and do it, regardless of whether or not there might be a better way of approaching it or solving it!
Bottom line:
Education has changed A LOT over the past 40 years, and it continues to change - upending the previous paradigm of "filling a vessel with knowledge" more and more with each passing year. With that said, however, with all the critical thinking, coaching, guide by the side, and "let the students figure it out for themselves - LET THEM reinvent the wheel!" attitudes and mentalities that have entered into education and educational theory over the recent decades, there is still the expectation that at some point in the educational process, the student will learn some kind of fact or be directly instructed that there is a "right answer" and a "wrong answer" to this question, problem, or situation...or at least that there is a "more generally acceptable answer" and a "less generally acceptable answer." If ALL direct instruction and the concept of being "right" and "wrong" or "more generally acceptable" and "less generally acceptable" were to be removed from the world of education entirely, the concept of "education" would completely cease to exist!
Coaching, on the other hand, operates under the premise that clients already know what they need and want, and, ultimately, how they can and should best go about getting it - they just need some guidance, direction, and help unlocking the path that will unleash it all. The coaching journey isn't about the coach walking that path for their client, though! The client is very much the one who walks the path. The coach guides and facilitates growth. There is no direct instruction. There is no "giving of answers." There is no authority figure saying "this is the wrong answer" and "this is the right answer," other than the client him or herself.
In this section we will explore my personal views and philosophies on education and coaching...
More content on this page coming soon!
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