CURMUDGUCATION: Transactions and Transformations

CURMUDGUCATION: Transactions and Transformations:

Transactions and Transformations

My wife is taking a professional development course this weekend, and one of her classmates (a football coach) brought up one the truly genius models of distinguishing between types of coaching. If you're active in the world of coaching, you may know these terms, but for the rest of us, let's talk about transactional and transformational coaching.

The transactional coach is trying to make a deal. The athlete has a skill, a power, a strength that the coach needs to win games, so the coach works hard to get that game-winning something out of the athlete. The work between athlete and coach is about developing a particular skill out of the athlete with the goal of wining. If the athlete loses the ability to produce, then the coach no longer needs the athlete, discards the athlete, replaces the athlete, moves on. If the athlete has no ability to produce, that athlete can ride the bench or just get off the team. If the athlete can't help get a W, the athlete is of no use to the transactional coach. For the transactional coach, the athlete is like a vending machine-- you put in money (time, attention) and out comes a treat (victory).

The transformational coach has a broader view. The transformational coach is there to transform the entire athlete, or as one site puts it "by giving individual consideration to all aspects of an athlete’s performance - skills and techniques, motivation and behavior, work ethic and sportsmanship - the transformational coach has the ability to positively affect, and to positively CURMUDGUCATION: Transactions and Transformations:

ICYMI: This Week's Reading Stuff

No blizzard here, but if you are socked in, here are some things to read while you're waiting for the world to dig itself out. And for the rest of us, just some Sunday reading for our cup of cocoa.

If You're a Teacher, Say Please and Thank You

Ray Salazar with an absolutelyl bang-on response to the scourge of no-nonsense compliance demanding being advocated by some reformsters these days. 

No, My Kindergartner Will Not Be Doing Y0our Homework Assignment

Okay, it's possible that you haven't missed this because it's been heavily liked and read on the book of face, but just in case, you need to catch Cara Paiuk's parental take on the ridiculousness that is academic homework for kindergartners.

Will Ethical Walls Protect Education Journalism from Billionaire Influence

If you are Eli Broad and you propose to buy half of the L.A. school district for fun and profit, it makes sense to buy a big L.A. newspaper so you can get the kind of favorable coverage you need to sell your rather audacious and horrifying idea. Anthony Cody collects and sums up the best explanations of why it's a terrible idea.

ESSA Answers 

Amid the many, many posts on Diane Ravitch's blog is a unrolling-in-segments series offering answers to questions about ESSA from Lamar Alexander's chief of staff. Here's what DC thinks they did.

Eva Goes To Court

John Merrow's Eva Moskowitx interview was part of the Very Bad Month that showed many cracks in the Success Academy facade, so it seems only fair that he should report on the legal trouble she now faces for her failure to properly educate students with special needs.

The Truth about Flint

This Salon piece from Paul Rosenberg isn't just about Flint-- it looks more thoroughly at the systematic process of stripping democracy from poor, black Americans. His one mistake is ascribing the process strictly to the GOP, but otherwise this is a thorough and thoughtful look at the trend threatening US democracy.