Unlearning and Relearning Learning – Career Coaching
Everything is possible when you understand why; even unlearning everything that you know from an entire career. Why do I do what I do? It’s to connect with others and to help them reach their potential. This ‘why’ is what has always gotten me out of bed each morning, it’s what first guided me through my transition from a Head of School to Education Consultant and it’s what has brought me to now; an education coach and career coach.
Why continue on a traditional pathway when I can create my own that more closely aligns with my values and beliefs? Everything has started with why… and so ‘why’ prompted my 2020 business pivot from catching international flights to being grounded as an education consultant in Adelaide, based at my home in West Beach. If I could no longer be consulting for International Schools abroad because of border restrictions, how could I carry out my ‘why’?
2020 COVID created an environment where I could unlearn and relearn, enabling breakthroughs that energised my new digital world. This helped me shape a rediscovered outlook for education. I had to unlearn what I knew about education, how schools are managed and how education is delivered. It doesn’t make sense to continue with the status quo in education. How might we prepare students for this changing and disruptive world? I believe that it’s through teacher coaching in schools and career coaching.
The strength of my past insights is a foundation… I’ve been an educator in both schools and universities, an executive, managing and leading schools as well as an entrepreneur setting up my own business. However thinking differently about my profession enables the steps towards the future. In relearning learning, coaching is an essential element to education. In the late 2000’s as a Head of School I first employed a coach and I’ve now identified this idea as a way forward for education.
The innovation of teacher coaching first emerged from my need to elevate the teaching quality of my entire staff. Although we had ‘international’ within our name and we were internationally accredited, there was a wide range of experience as well as teacher training and there wasn’t a shared understanding of what ‘teaching quality’ meant. Nor what it looked like throughout the school. During my first year the Board allocated funding to employ a full-time coach whose sole responsibility was to coach the teachers with their teaching practice. Over a three year period the shift in quality of teaching practices was visible, not just to the students and parents but also to the internationally renowned ‘teaching experts’ who flew in to work with our school once per year. Coaching works.
In rediscovering coaching in education, the idea extends beyond elevation… as in sport even the most elite athletes have coaches. How can we ensure the highest quality teaching standards for students but also how can we best prepare students for their careers after school… what are the industry trends and how is higher education being disrupted? So I earned qualifications in executive coaching, undertaking the Level 1 International Coaching Federation course through IECL and have clients in South America, SE Asia and Australia.
A teaching quote I love is “If we create a culture where every teacher believes that they need to improve, not because they aren’t good enough, but because they can be even better, there is no limit to what we can achieve.” — Dylan William, University of London.
In the 2000’s I was setting up teacher coaching in a school and now I am a coach for schools and individuals. It was a transformational 2020 unlearning my business model and the teaching practice… the turn of the new decade is full of possibilities. As a teacher, school leader, business consultant, education coach and career coach, I’ve re-imagined teaching to take it to new levels.
Send me an email to further discuss your coaching needs, either individual coaching or for groups in your school: http://deidrefischer.com.au//contact/