This article focuses on how to incorporate coaching when helping students explore career options. We’ll explore what coaching is, the role of the coach, benefits of coaching, and I’ll share some coaching techniques. Coaching can be utilized by educators, counselors, recruiters, and others supporting students in career exploration.

What is coaching?

Coaching is a partnering with clients (or students) in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. Professional coaching focuses on setting goals, creating outcomes and managing personal change. (Source: International Coach Federation).

The Coach’s Role

The following items are what a coach will do:

Provide objective assessment and observations that foster the individual’s awareness of others.
Listen closely to fully understand the individual’s circumstances.
Act as a sounding board in exploring possibilities and implementing thoughtful planning and decision-making.
Champion opportunities and potential.
Foster shifts in thinking that reveal fresh perspectives.
Challenge blind spots.

Benefits of Coaching

Professional coaching brings many wonderful benefits: fresh perspectives on personal challenges, enhanced decision-making skills, greater interpersonal effectiveness, and increased confidence. Those coached can expect appreciable improvement in the attainment of relevant goals. (Source: International Coach Federation).

Coaching Techniques

Visioning: Asking questions such as, “Imagine your ideal career, what does it look like? OR “Let’s step into the future two years from now and you’re in your dream career… what actions did you take to get there?”

Coaching to the Gap: The gap is the space between where a student is and where they want to be. Does the student have a list of career options but needs to narrow it down? You could help the student narrow down the list by perhaps have the student list what he/she likes about each option or asking, “On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate your interest level in each?”

Brainstorming: When the student is stuck, rather than telling the student what to do, ask permission to brainstorm. For example, a student is clear on her skills, but is having trouble coming up with some career options that use those skills. You could use a brainstorming exercise to help her create some ideas on how she could create those options.

Assessments: Consider what assessments may be helpful for the student at this time. Is it an interest assessment, skills, personality, or something else? After explaining the assessment(s), ask which one(s) he/she would like to take. After the student has taken the assessment, ask what his/her experience was like taking the assessment. When reviewing the results.ask the student if they agree with the results. Ask the student for key insights from assessment and how he/she will use this information.

Reflect on Learning: Let’s say you’re a counselor and a student comes to you specifically for help selecting a career program at your college. At the beginning of a session, it’s important to clarify the student’s focus & desired take-away for the session. The student is in the driver’s seat and determines the agenda, not the coach. At the end of each session you will want the student to reflect on what he/she has learned by asking: “What was your insight or key take-away from our time together today?” OR “What have you learned or relearned.

Rather than telling a student what to do, these coaching techniques are meant to empower the student and help create a sense of ownership in their future.

Action Step: The next time you’re meeting with a student and discussing career options, consider incorporating one or more of the coaching techniques into your discussion..

We all know the importance of music education. It’s no surprise to anyone that taking music lessons has been proven to help in a child’s developmental process. Music lessons aid in the development of speech and reading skills. Children who study music will find an increase in their school grades. They have more confidence, discipline, focus, memory, and better social skills.

Music can save lives for children who don’t find themselves fitting in academically in school, and haven’t found their passion or drive yet. If a child struggles to find their passion, they often end up in less than ideal situations, (in trouble). Children need to find things they are good at an early age. “Some children need to move to think”, (Dr. Ken Robinson). They can’t be strapped to a desk all day long. They may learn better through visual examples, audio examples or they might learn better though kinesthetic learning. Some students learn better by doing. Finding a music instructor that understands this is imperative.

We have had many students over the years who come to us, and don’t know what they like, or what they’re good at, and they’re not doing well in school. They have never taken music lessons before, and their parents are desperate to find something their child will take an interest in. Often, when we do find an instrument the student feels a connection with, we see a total change in their personality. If provided the chance, music does help direct students in the right direction. It’s not just about learning songs or technique on the instrument. Music helps put a whole new focus into that student’s life that was missing before. We notice a change in their whole being. Their focus completely changes. There is a complete breakthrough!! The student is more positive, proactive, confident, and we notice an increase in their school grades (and their interest in school). They are more concerned and focused about their future, and often, the friends they hang around with, if negative, changes as well.

“Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.”
“You are who you hang around with.”

I used to hate hearing this when growing up, but now looking back, and after years of teaching and watching students grow, it’s amazing how true this statement is. A great instructor can be this positive role model… this friend.

It is absolutely critical that a child begins to find what they are good at, at a young age. Don’t rely on the school system to help find your child’s passion. You, the parent, must play a role in this process and development. If your son or daughter shows an interest in music, spots, art, movies… feed that passion!! Buy them movies, magazines on that topic, take them to the library so they can find books about what they love, or bring them to a live show. Find someone in that field that can coach and inspire them to take it further.

Lastly, for your child to believe that they’re inadequate, not worthy, not smart or will never succeed just because their school grades are low, is a huge mistake!!

There are numerous successful business owners who had C averages or lower in school, that are now running very successfully businesses, on an international and global level, that have those A+ students with bachelors, masters, and PhD’s working for them.

It calls to us all from our radios, MP players, and smart phones, and with such staying power that we sometimes can’t get the tunes and lyrics out of our heads. And that’s only the beginning… In fact, numerous studies back up the notion that there is a link between music and academic performance that goes well beyond the oft-touted but as yet unproven Mozart effect on intelligence.

When it comes to math, for instance, University of Maryland math professor puts it this way: “The connection is that-to my way of thinking, and I have thought about this for decades-there are patterns [in music], especially with Johann Sebastian Bach. There are a lot of patterns, and mathematics has a lot of patterns… In fact, mathematics is really about patterns.”

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Vermont’s College of Medicine analyzed the brain scans of 232 healthy children, ages six to eighteen, concentrating on the brain development of instrument players. Their findings: More training on an instrument resulted in “an accelerated cortical organization in attention skills, anxiety management, and emotional control.” The cortex, by the way, is the outer layer of the brain.

Then there are the researchers at the Laboratories of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children’s Hospital who, using MRI brain imaging, discovered that playing a musical instrument promotes the development of something called Executive Functioning (EF). It’s apparently essential for negotiating the demands of school and life and is also said to be, “at the heart of all learning.” That translates, they say, to “focusing on a topic, memorizing information, cognitive flexibility, and paying attention to multiple ideas simultaneously.”

As lead investigator Nadine Gaab put it: “This finding supports the widely held perception that music performance and academic achievement go hand in hand.”

Further evidence was found in a smaller study of forty Chicago high schoolers conducted by neuroscientists at Northwestern University. They found that even just a small amount of instrument instruction-like two or three hours in band class each week-improves how brains process sound and auditory processing, too, and that’s evidently key to verbal processing.

Nina Kraus, director of the university’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, went so far as to say she believes that “regular music-making strengthens non-musical brain functions, such as memory, attention, language skills, and reading skills.” She’s also posited that absorbing and encoding differences in pitch, timbre, and rhythm boosts the ability to “decipher and interpret speech better.”

Getting convinced? Stay tuned as researchers continue to explore the effects of music education on intelligence and achievement. In the meantime, though, know that its’ a subject all-too-often cut by budget-strapped schools. Take, for example, the School District of Philadelphia. According to its music education director Frank Machos, about 25% of the district’s schools have no music offerings whatsoever. Plus, in 2004, Pennsylvania decided that elementary classroom teachers can teach music lessons on top of everything else, so kids are not necessarily taught by a certified music teacher until sixth grade.

Lack of funds has also impacted before- and after-school music activities in Philly schools. Meanwhile, district-supplied instruments stand in need of repair, while music technology at all levels and innovation suffer. This in a country that spends countless billions every year on standardized testing alone.

And no one appreciates the shame of all this more than Linda Septien, CEO of the Septien Entertainment Group and one of the most influential celebrity music coaches in the country. Now, she’s gratefully turning her attention towards getting parents to TUNE IN to music education as a way to raise test scores and boost overall intelligence.

As she says, “The benefits of music far exceed simply learning in a classroom.” Along with better brain function, she cites these other “paybacks” to music and performance education:

Discipline
Leadership
Learning to watch people, thereby learning the skills of a CEO
Learning a skill
Being part of the social world
Self-esteem building from successful performances
Dealing with business practices and discipline of a job early in life

She’s also found that children who engage in music programs and faithfully practice playing their instruments score 22% higher on English/language arts standardized tests and 20% on those covering math. Meanwhile, she reminds us that “deep practice, which requires hard work, mental struggle, and extreme attention to detail, is best understood and automated through music.”

Ms. Septien is so expert in the field of music that her Septien School of Music/Septien Entertainment Group was chosen to be part of The Talent Code, a New York Times bestseller by Daniel Coyle. In fact, he deemed its music training program as being one of the best in the world.

So, follow her lead and insist that music starts taking its rightful place in our schools. At the same time, encourage your kids to join the chorus and take up an instrument-and practice a lot, too. After all, as U2’s Bono reminds us, “Music can change the world because it can change people,”

P.S. Philly-area residents, if you care about music and music education, get to Clark Park, 4398 Chester Avenue, for Rock to the Future’s Fall Festival fundraiser on September 19. It runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and will feature local bands, crafts, food, and raffles; it will be so worth your time and generosity. Explains program director, Josh Craft, “When school budgets are cut, music and art programs are often eliminated first.” His hope is to raise up to $1,000 to fill the program gap.

In order to be successful in any sport, one must have a trustworthy and knowledgeable coach. A good coach instructs the archer in technique and safety, and designs archery training programs so that he or she will perform at a higher level in competitions. However, more than just being knowledgeable about their sport, a good coach needs to be capable of supporting their athletes on a mental and emotional level. If you have ever had a great coach or teacher you may have entertained the thought of becoming a coach yourself. Here is a step-by-step process for becoming an archery coach, whether you want to make a living doing what you love, or just want to coach archery as a side job.

The American system for certifying archery instructors and coaches is a five-level process, with each level being progressively more professional than the preceding. For instance, a Level 1 coach is certified to instruct summer camp archery classes, whereas a Level 5 coach has put in years of education and training to be able to coach Olympic-level athletes.

Additionally, anyone who aspires to be a Level 2 coach or higher will need to choose which archery organization they want to affiliate themselves with. Those looking to coach athletes in Olympic-style recurve archery will want to choose USA Archery, the same organization that maintains and manages the Olympic archery team. If you feel you would rather coach athletes for field archery, bow-hunting, or compound bow, the National Field Archers Association.

Level 1 – Basic Instructor

The level 1 instructor is responsible for introducing complete beginners to the sport of archery. Typically this means teaching younger archers about archery equipment, basic technique, and range safety and commands. As mentioned, this level of coach will typically find employment with summer camps, parks and recreation departments, or boy or girl scout organizations. The certifying course can last anywhere from 4-12 hours, and costs less than $50. The only prerequisite is that the candidate coach be at least 15 years of age.

Level 2

The primary difference between a Level 1 and Level 2 certification is that a Level 2 coach must be affiliated with either USA Archery or the NFAA, and that they will typically work with more established classes of archers. This simply indicates that the aspiring coach is invested in becoming a professional coach and/or continuing their education in coaching the sport of archery. In fact, one does not even need to have attend a Level 1 certification course to become a Level 2 coach, however they must be at least 18 years of age, affiliated with a U.S. archery organization and they must submit to a background check. A Level 2 coach might find employment at a local archery club, J.O.A.D. team, or a college archery team.

Level 3 – National Training System Certified

Level 3 and up coaches typically deal with more professional athletes on a 1-on-1 basis, and are the type of coaches are those that might get paid by the hour to help athletes take their shooting further. The level 3 course is 3-4 days in length and covers in-depth archery competition science, including equipment tuning, developing archery training plans, and preparing for competition both mentally and physically. In addition to the prerequisites required for a Level 2 certification, a level 3 coach must also have been a level 2 coach for at least one year.

Level 4

The Level 4 instructor course is a week long and goes into even greater depth and detail regarding bio-mechanics, nutrition, sports psychology, and the timing of training cycles. The course cost is around $500, and makes a coach eligible to work for national and international archery teams and training camps. One must be a Level 3 coach for two years before they are eligible to take the Level 4 course.

Level 5 – Elite Coach

The Level 5 certification is more of an award or an honor than a progression of the course-based certifying system. For instance, to become a Level 5 coach, one must have spent two years as a Level 4 coach, and successfully coached three or more archers to a place atop the national podium, a top 10 ranking, or Olympic or World team placement. It may help to think of the Level 5 certification process being akin to writing a thesis for graduate school, as it is self-directed and self-paced by the coach. To sum, a Level 5 certification is typically the pinnacle of a coach’s career.