Do we really get them ready? As a high school teacher that’s a question that ask myself a lot.
Teaching Gr 9 and 10, my main job is to reach kids and connect, obviously by teaching the curriculum, but sometimes you have to put the curriculum aside and talk about life. At the end of the day my job as a Gr 9 and 10 teacher is to prepare kids for the next year or two or high school. That’s it, that’s my job.
When I teach Gr 11 and Gr 12, my main job is to get them ready for the real world, obviously through teaching curriculum, but are we really getting them ready.
I leave school somedays wondering, did I teach them anything today?
During my coaching days I left the rink thinking the exact same thing.
Are we really teaching them anything? Are we getting them ready for what lays ahead.
Clearly, experience is everything and kids have to learn through experiencing success and failure.
Some kids are more receptive while others are stubborn and it takes awhile, but as teachers and coaches the messaging still has to be delivered.
Are coaches in this day and age really getting players ready for the next level?
I wonder what a players poll would say two or three days into QMJHL Training Camps?
Do you feel your coach prepared you for this or what to expect?
“Teach to the test” is a common phrase thrown around the educational world, but what about higher level questions and problem solving?
The educational world changes its perspectives on things as quickly as some coaches change lines when things don’t seem to be working.
Experience is everything, confidence is critical, but what about sitting kids down and trying to explain what the next level is all about.
Wouldn’t that be considered good coaching? Wouldn’t that be considered good teaching?
You can have the best lesson plan or practice plan in the world and still fall short as a teacher and coach.
You have to check for understanding, you have to make sure the players and students are on the same page and most importantly in this day and age, student and athletes alike need to know why!
They need to know why they are to do things a certain way. They need to know how that applies to them and how that will ultimately make them better in every facet.
Communication and transparency is everything, but do we really get them ready?
That’s one of those questions that only teachers and coaches that really care tend to ask themselves.
Wouldn’t it be great if every teacher and coach asked that question?
Wouldn’t it be great if every player or student felt prepared and confident going to the next level?
It probably wouldn’t take too long for students or athletes to answer this question. Which coach or teacher got you the most prepared for this moment in time?
Do we really get them ready?
FDS Podcast Network 
It all comes back to fundamental basics. If they have a firm grasp on the basics of any facet, they’ll succeed at the higher level, be it in sports, trades, professionals, education.
My uncle an education regional director went with a few colleagues back in the early 2000’s to China to see why their kids were scoring higher in provincial testing. They discovered that they were teaching with basic textbooks from North America from the 1960-70’s. The basics.
When a QMJHL goalie that played for Sherbrooke was struggling and got traded to Bathurst, his game got back on track and won a Memorial Cup. When I asked his goalie coach what the secret was to getting him back to his potential, he said,”We just went right back to basics. Like in his peewee years. Once he was doing that he started getting back in his groove.”
If they don’t have a grasp on the basic fundamentals, no amount of advanced teaching will get through in any discipline.
Cheers,
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