Martin's Mastermind Group

Are you ready for this? I know I am.

Bring coaching concepts to life in your classroom and school, with the support of virtual colleagues and a Masterful Coach and Experienced Teacher, Martin Richards, the Author of this Newsletter.

INVITATION - for Teachers of all 'shapes and sizes'

We meet online starting on Monday, September 2nd for 4 weeks. The link is a direct invitation that shows the dates and local times that you can add to your calendar. Further Masterminds will follow in October and November this year.

JOIN HERE <<< there are places available

• Discussions We share what's on our minds and give answers from our hopes more often than from our fears. We listen, a lot. We take the time to pause and reflect. We go slow, because there is depth is slowness, and we need that. Silence is powerful.
• Focus We each take one thing to focus on each week in our classrooms and schools, and are willing to share mistakes, brick walls, breakthroughs and triumphs with our group.
• Fees Not required. Your contribution is your time. At the end of the month you will be invited to donate the value you have received and can afford.
• Book Optional, can be bought here . Money goes to Martin Richards, the author.
• Topics covered in previous Newsletters and Meetings: Positive Language, Humour, Asking more than Telling, Asking Open-ended Questions, Asking for feedback, Learning from Mistakes, Learning Experiences, Agendas, Agreements, Goal-Setting, Role-Models, Working with Values and Beliefs

Superman's Underpants

How do you notice you need to coach?

The realisation can come slowly, or all in one go. For me, it happened like this...

I was a new teacher, at my first job at a Secondary School. I was enthusiastic about Mathematics, and wanted to pass on my enthusiasm to the schoolchildren there.

One day, whilst writing on the blackboard I noticed that one of the taller boys was having a bundle of fun attracting the attention of the class, distracting them from my teaching of the Noble Art of Maths.

Some of the teenage students were rather tall for their age. Several boys were taller than I was. Along with their age and size came an awakening interest in the opposite sex. In this co-educational school the classes were a mix of boys and girls, which gave plenty of opportunities for the boys to show off to the girls; and for the girls to show off to the boys.

Realising - from the sounds of laughter at the back of the room - that I had lost the attention of the class I felt that I needed to focus on teaching them some social skills.

I paid more attention to what the boy at the back of the room was doing. Somehow - and I still don't know how - he had managed to take off his underpants without removing his trousers AND had put his underpants back on again, over his trousers, like Superman.

I could have flipped out, shouted and perhaps demanded that the boy leave the room, apologise etc. etc. However I was so fascinated by his feat of dexterity that I had to ask, not "Why?" but, "How?".

Standing beside this boy asking how, we shared the attention of the class. Here was an opportunity to discuss useful social skills. In this case the skill of knowing the difference between private and public behaviour, appropriate behaviour for a classroom, and how to get the attention you need without taking your pants off. A skill that could be useful for all the boys and girls in the room.

I asked the boy to stand up and adjust his clothing in front of the class, which probably felt slightly embarrassing for him since the kind of attention he was getting now was not as sexy as before.

Being a young teacher, I still felt the need to play the role of teacher, to assert my authority in the classroom and to "tell him off", so that everyone would know that I am in charge of the classroom. Yet it felt daft looking up at this giant of a boy to say "Don't do it again"... so I grabbed the nearest chair and stood on it in order to be taller, then in an over-dramatised way, said the words "Don't .. do that ... again!"

"No Sir", he said, smiling and accepting the admonishment in good spirits, along with the lesson in social skills. I sent him out of the room to adjust his clothing.