Born
I loved riding my horse. If memory serves, Dad made the horse.
As a youngster at new secondary school I was bullied, like most of the other ‘new kids’. I could see it coming, the two bullies were already known to me, as I was to them. They grabbed me, pushed me down some concrete steps and pulled me in front of their leader, who gave me a punch in the stomach by way of introduction. This leader then said something that would change my life, “YOU!, you’re gonna do my ‘omework!”. The homework was arithmetic, fraction addition. I could do that! I recall that I explained what he should write, and where, and why. What I learnt from this was that some kids need more help than they are getting from home or school, and they really want to learn. And, I can use words to achieve that. A teacher was born.
After the final exams, the school had a visitor, a representative from an organisation called ‘Young Enterprise’. We were encouraged to think about starting a small business. A lot was said on that day, and I remember vividly the words that opened my mind to the possibilities of making money. Those magic words were “If you can't find what you want, you can create it!” ‘You can’, meant that someone thought I was capable AND I had permission. An entrepreneur was born. At College I started selling sweets, and kept the profit.
At the start of one Maths lesson, I was disappointed to hear that our Maths Teacher had to go to a different meeting and the substitute was the History Teacher. The History Teacher! What had a History Teacher to say about Maths? The subject was pi. The teacher walked around the classroom and talked about the history of pi, for almost an hour whilst we worked on calculations and problems involving pi. I was amazed. My respect for this man grew. Later the same history teacher invited some students to learn about computer programming, outside the normal lessons, programming a machine at the local University, by remote modem. I signed up. I learned BASIC programming. The same history teacher also offered extra maths lessons, we were to study ‘Probability and Statistics’ in one year instead of two, during our lunchtimes. I signed up for that too.
Having finished secondary school, I was looking for what was next for me. My parents were divided on the right choice for me. I had to choose between getting a job (my dad’s preference) and continuing my education at College (my mum’s preference). Neither of my parents had had any formal education after they were 14 years old. The Second World War had prevented that. So I turned to my teachers for informal guidance. The Science and Maths teachers believed in me. I trusted them. My science teacher was funny, friendly and very round. After a heart attack he had to change his diet, lose a lot of weight and learn Yoga. I learnt yoga from him, it was his way to stay healthy and alive, and he shared his journey with his students. My maths teacher was serious and challenging, and always found ways to make use of our mistakes in our mathematical reasoning. From him I learnt how to turn errors into learning, and to hold on to the belief that everyone is doing their best, and learning from it.
At the end of College there came the next moment of choice. To continue studying, or start earning. My parents were divided over this, as before. The key that opened the door came from one teacher, the House Master, who asked the question “Where have you applied to?”. It was clear to me that I was expected to apply. Again the message was , you are capable and you have permission. Going to University would normally mean a serious investment for my parents but luckily, my entrepreneurial years with the sweet shop had made plenty of profit, so I didn’t need to borrow any money, I had already earned it selling sweets. Thank you Mr Young Enterprise.
I attended Sussex University, and studied for a Maths and Physics degree. Sussex University is built in a valley through which flows a small river. The buildings on one side of the river are for the Natural Sciences, Mathematics, Chemistry, Programming and such; and on the other side of the river the buildings are for Social Sciences, Cross Cultural Studies, Social studies and so forth. Even though my degree was to be from the Mathematics and Physics, I spent most of my spare time on the other side of the divide. That’s where the interesting girls were! I found time to go along to courses with my many girlfriends, so I learned about Transactional Analysis and Fourier Analysis at the same time. Learning is such fun! During the second year, I realised that I was not sure if science was fun anymore. I had to choose my ‘major’ subject, and I turned not to my parents but to the professors. My memories of the History teacher’s lessons about programming computers helped me to choose Computer Science. I attained a passing grade in the Mathematics and Computer Science degree.
The first years inside the Education System as a teacher my thoughts and energy revolved around Syllabus, Books, Tests, Exams and Grades. I was also noticing the boy/girl bias in terms of what was taught, how it was taught and how it was tested. The social class divisions were also becoming apparent as my students came from different social classes to myself and each other. The different values systems and expectations were leading me towards the conclusion that, School cannot reach the extremes of so-called behaviour, aptitude and intelligence. I felt the need to create something different to School.
I chose to take the PGCE Post Graduate Certificate of Education thanks to one teacher's support. He asked “What are your talents, and how are you going to use them?” It took me all summer to work out the answer! The Dean of the Education College was a professor of Education from Gothenburg University, and her preference was that we shall learn experientially, i.e. experiment and reflect. This was an intensive course, and I really enjoyed it.
The PGCE Teacher training was experiential. We spent one term reading and discussing and comparing different theories about learning, and the second term practising teaching at a local school. I went to a ‘tough’ school, where the teachers had low expectations of their students based on where they were living and where they were likely to work. For me this was an awakening to the unfairness of pre-judgement based on social class. I could see how this factory education and factory employment worked together to hold the students down. In my opinion. However, I also discovered that different teachers had different expectations, and I could see that this resulted in different student behaviours. My final paper was entitled “Options? What options?”, regarding the advice students were given about choosing subjects, because the students were being roughly guided into employment at the local companies and factories rather than being encouraged to discover themselves and reach their full potential.
My first teaching job was at a secondary school. I was just eight years older than the oldest students, rather like an older brother. There were challenges to my authority of course, like when one student managed to put his underpants on over his trousers and pretended to be Superman. He was tall, taller than me. So, when I ‘told him off’, I stood on a chair, and with great humour said “Don’t. Do. It. Again.”. We connected! After that he was a delight to teach. (I met him some years later, he was the manager of a local restaurant, and he told me that he made use of the phrase “Don’t. Do. It. Again.”. I felt proud to have taught him.) Several other teachers at this school had a habit, a smoking habit. And they confiscated cigarettes from the older students. They joked that these cigarettes were called Freeman’s. There were daily conflicts in the classroom. These were challenging teenagers, and the school had an established system of punishment. One day I was invited into the headmaster’s office to ‘witness’ the corporal punishment of one student. Standing in the room were the student, the headmaster, the head of year and the offended teacher (a Freeman’s smoker). The punishment involved the student verbally apologising and then being struck repeatedly with a paddle on his backside. I watched, horrified and unable to prevent this from happening. I felt ashamed to be part of this punishment system, and deeply ashamed of my inability to take action when called to do so. Crisis “Shall I stay and change the system, or leave?” I left, broken.
I applied for a position and was accepted at a private college for foreign students. I was the Computer Science teacher, and it had all new state-of-the-art BBC Micro computers and a dedicated computer room. Or at least that’s what they said at the interview in July. When I turned up for the first day of work in August the computer room was empty, there were no computers and no students. Weeks went by with no delivery of computers, and the students were sent to extra English lessons. I spent my working days in an empty room, waiting for something to change. Weeks became months. My salary was paid at the end of each month. My friends thought I was on to a good thing, getting paid to do nothing, but this was the worst time for me. I needed an outlet for my creativity and energy. Another Crisis. I had to decide between “Stay put, do nothing, and get paid.” or “Leave do, something, and maybe not get paid.”
I left the private college to pursue a career in computer programming, or so I told them. I wanted to teach, to work with students who were not being reached by ordinary schooling, so I created a small school. I had learned from EO, Education Otherwise, that legal situation in the UK with regard to home education could be summarised in the phrase, "Education is compulsory, schooling is not". Home-schooling was possible, funding was a challenge. I had some contacts with the NAGC National Association for Gifted Children, which catered for the needs of families with specially gifted children. A local tutorial college provided a platform for children who had been referred for extra tuition, for whatever reason. The doors to my mini-school “Micro Education” were open to gifted and differently gifted children; and I taught them whatever they needed and were interested in. I learned to reach students that were challenging for their usual school teachers. The largest part of my income however was from selling programming services for companies, which went some way to covering the expenses for my mini-school. However this was not a financial success.
I found an outlet for my creativity and desire to teach Mathematics. I wrote an interactive maths book, and converted it into a PC computer program. I worked hard to sell my programs to local schools, with little success.
Reluctantly, I had to let go of my mini-school. I was not successful in making ends meet. I took a part time job as computer science teacher at the local adult education centre, SFHS, the Swedish Folk High School, and my life took a dramatic turn and moved to a new location.
Two of the SFHS students invited me to ”Come to Gothenburg”. So, that’s where I went. By boat. Sailing for 24 hours. Ah those were the days. I came , I saw, I fell in love with the place.
It was during this decade that I discovered, in Sweden, the delights of Study Circles, which were based on small groups of adult students, collaborative learning and lack of formal exams. The participants motivation to join these groups was to belong to a group, and develop themselves. Parallel to the collaborative learning style for private people, I was also offering 1-1 business training for business people who wanted to excel at presenting their companies, products and services; and influence people in sales meetings. Early on in this decade I taught at a Primary School, for a while. SFI Swedish lessons for Immigrants It was easy speaking to Swedish people, because most of them spoke English. After a year or so, I began to realise more fully that I had to make more of an effort to learn the local language. I bought a book, and started a language course for immigrants. This made me see myself as a immigrant. That was new.
I took employment at the local Junior School, by way of gaining an income. The head teacher was old-fashioned, a dictator in my eyes, who insisted that I teach only from the syllabus, using the standard issued text books. The discussion came down to “Do as I say, or leave (the country).” Being a schoolteacher was a sensible solution to staying in Sweden but it drained my energy and felt too limiting to teach from a preset syllabus under the leadership of a tyrant (my interpretation). I needed to find something in which I could teach more freely. Crisis. Shall I stay or go? This time I was deciding between two countries, a girlfriend and a potential family.
I discovered evening classes, called Study Circles, were a part of Swedish culture. They were run collaboratively, the participants decided what to learn and how to learn it. I taught English, of course, but it was in a very different way to teaching in a school. The syllabus was agreed at the start of the term and taught by making use of the skills and experiences of adult learners in the class. A bout of laryngitis, which prevented me from speaking for two weeks, revealed to me how little the learners relied on the teacher to teach them. I taught myself to use techniques from Silent Way, Community Learning and many other interesting learning methods to facilitate their learning. This was to be my basic source of income for fourteen years. A new venture for my inner entrepreneur. As soon as I realised that I had an income, albeit small, I felt stable enough to start my own company, teaching English to businesspeople in small groups and individually.
I so want to do things my way, and during the early years as a Business English Trainer, I developed a particular training method for tailored Business English training, 1-1 by phone and I called it DirectLine. It was based on collaborative design of what was to be learned, and how it could be learned. This method was to be my company’s major source of income for 15 years, and was wholly phased out only this year 2015.
My first employment was at the British Institute thanks to the owner another Englishman who understood my need to work. At the BI we were teaching English as a Foreign language, TEFL. My only claim to be able to teach TEFL at the time was that I was a native speaker, and a teacher (of Mathematics). So, I started to learn about other ways to teach. I encountered Community Language Learning and the Silent Way.
During these years my attention went to my family and my company. I was holding training workshops in Negotiations, Effective Meetings and Understanding Cultural differences. Slowly I was working towards teaching Intercultural Leadership. Whatever I was teaching, I held that the lessons were part of the students’ Bigger Game. They wanted to be more than they had been, to do more than they had done. This was true for me and for others.
I choose to omit writing about the family tragedy from this decade. The company ran on auto-pilot during this time, and I take up the story when I am almost awake again.
I wanted to be a better English teacher. I had learned to teach Maths, not English. I went on several courses to learn about Suggestopedia (Accelerated Learning) and Eliciting learning which enriched my teaching skills, and developed a collaborative approach to teaching and learning.
This was the decade when I gave talks to teenagers, through the non-profit organisation “Transfer”. My goal, when I signed up was to be “the most-requested and highest-rated speaker”. I wanted to make my mark on Gothenburg, West Sweden as someone who cared about and had something to say to teenagers. From the start my talks were about language, culture and communication; later they became about awakening teenagers to the opportunities to be found in challenges, and the role that they play in creating the life they want.
The business is running smoothly, and I am looking for new challenges. I noticed that my work is less about the subject and more about the people and their hopes and fears. So I decide to investigate how to better support my clients, beyond training them to hold meetings and presentations in English. I wanted to make a significant impact in their lives. I started the training to be a Co-Active coach. A Co-Active Coach “focuses on the whole person, whom they hold to be creative, resourceful and whole, they dance in this moment and evoke transformation.”
This is the decade when I begin to realise that I am no longer struggling to make a living, or make a name for myself, or to prove anything. I have been asked to mentor people who are starting up their first business or revitalising a struggling business. I have been asked to mentor classes of students, and I have been asked to mentor teams of teachers. I always say yes. It feels good.
Through the local organisation, Transfer, I was holding lectures at colleges, on general subjects such as language and culture, business and story-telling, and noticing that my talks were becoming more about Life Lessons. The feedback from students was hugely rewarding. From a hundred lectures, with 20 - 30 students at each lecture I have accumulated a large bank of their comments, including “You Rock!”. “The lecturer was one of the best I have ever heard.”. “His energy and humour crept into me and made the whole thing fun to listen to.”. “It was interesting. I feel encouraged to take charge of my life, even if I am satisfied now I want to move on.” I was also learning from my mistakes, and making my learning process visible to the students, this vulnerability greatly increased the connection of trust between us.
I had a strong urge to connect with and collaborate with other coaches, so I started a ‘club’ where we could gather and share our ongoing adventures. By running this club I was preparing for what came next, although I didn’t know it at the time.
The GCPU club evolved into a more serious team of coaches who wanted to collaborate to make a difference. Each had their own area of interest, each had their own company. CoachInvest became the umbrella organisation under which we would collaborate, for a few years. We designed and held coaching activities for job-seekers, working for the National Employment Centre.
During the economic recession, many people lost their jobs and were receiving temporary financial support through the national insurance system. The government decided to invest in individualised support for people seeking work, especially those who had been unemployed for years. I was invited and interviewed for a position with Job coaching at Pomona, a small local subcontractor to the government. We worked with people whose dreams had been shattered by the realities of unemployment. We developed powerful ways of rebuilding their self-confidence and guided them in their search for a suitable employment. “Inwards, Outwards, Upwards” was based on modern coaching techniques.
During this time I was invited and accepted to be Ambassador for ICF, the International Coaching Federation, and co-ordinated professional meetings for the 70 or so local ICF coaches. I learned to stand on stage and not be the centre of attention but the Ring Master for many talented and generous coaches who shared their time, skills and experiences.
The National Employment Agency still needed professional coaches to support people who had been unemployed for several years, and guide them back to employment if possible. At Pomona, a supplier of coaching services to the unemployed, through the National Employment Agency, I learned that I had talent in reaching people who were struggling.
Initially I just wanted to speak with like-minded coaches about what we were doing regarding coaching. I pinned a notice on several interactive noticeboards, for the virtual meeting as “9 o’clock on the 9th September 2009”, i.e. 09:00 at 090909. When the word got out, I managed to attract dozens of coaches from different time zones. In the end we spoke for 24 hours, ‘around the clock, around the world’. I was inspired to set up and hold a global coach conference around the world again in 2010 and for the last time in 2011 with 1 600 participants.
Coaching job-seekers and executives was rewarding, especially financially, but I really wanted to return to my first passion and coach teachers. Together with a colleague, I designed a series of classroom observations, plus follow up coaching and training aimed at developing teachers in whatever they needed to develop. We sought financial support from the ESF, European Social Fund, but were unsuccessful. The Swedish Education Authority made a similar application, and was successful. I was invited to be a subcontractor and accepted. For two years I coached teachers at secondary schools in Malmö and Gothenburg. The coaching was focused on what happens in the classroom, through observation and followed up with coaching feedback. It was the teacher who decided what was to be observed, and what, if anything, they would change about themselves. The feedback from the teachers included comments like: “This has clarified the importance of a balance between ‘relationship’ and ‘teaching’ in order to reach a good result.”
As co-coordinator (yes, co- co- coordinator) for the ICF Coaches Association, I enjoyed the challenges of getting coaches to come to meetings and be inspired, encouraged and motivated by each other; and by some special guests. I learned how to lead from the sidelines and how to work in tandem with another coach.
The training course ORSC brought my coaching skills to a whole new level. In these cases the client was invisible, it was the relationship between people. We learned to coach an invisible client.
I have worked with Job seekers who are looking to restart their working lives, and others who want to find new balance in their private+working life. I have worked increasingly with teachers, lead teachers and teacher teams. The Co-Active approach supports us in this. I am writing, writing and writing. There seems to be a never-ending stream of stories, revelations and ideas for what to say to educators, teachers and coaches.
The education organisation Folkuniversitet held a contract to coach job-seekers for the National Employment Centre. I took employment there as a way to earn money and feel useful. I learned that I need not go back to this kind of work.
I could see that coaching, or rather a coaching approach, was going to be very influential in the evolution of the education system, so I decided to write a book about coaching in education. I had never written a book before, so this was a labour of love. I used the many Life Stories that I had been sharing with college students, relating the educational turning points in my life as examples of a coaching approach. The titles of the book, “A Coaching Approach to Education”, (available on Amazon) and the names of the chapters came to me very rapidly and served as a framework for the book, workshops and marketing materials:
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