National Coaching Fellows

Vital Stats

Philip K

Chicago, IL

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  • People Doing It 25

The Problem

Imagine that you are a high school teacher in a high-needs school in the City of Chicago. Every day you work relentlessly to teach in overcrowded classrooms, earn your students trust, invest them in your high expectations, and meet the diverse learning and personal needs of each student. Still, only six of your 100 students will graduate from college. In classrooms across the nation, our educators face more students, less resources, and insufficient support. Yet, we continue to place the sole responsibility for motivating our nation’s most disadvantaged students on one person – the teacher. Even with excellent teachers and great administrators, students must have the motivation, guidance, and support to attain an excellent education. If we are to realize the dream of educational equity, we must provide educators with trusted individuals committed to inspiring, motivating, and guiding students.

Plan of Action

National Coaching Fellows can be the catalyst of change. Our corps members use athletics to inspire, motivate, guide, and support their student-athletes. Every day they work relentlessly to exceed the traditional expectations of athletic coaches by providing direct academic and personal support. Our corps members are committed to empowering students, thereby, enabling educators to close the academic achievement gap. Our corps of athletic coaches will change the lives of thousands of student-athletes across the nation. Each student-athlete will gain a strong appreciation for education, an unfailing work ethic, a dedicated mentor, and the academic skills necessary to be effective students. In addition, this experience will inform and guide our corps members throughout their personal and professional lives. National Coaching Fellows will provide educators an opportunity to finally close the achievement gap and eliminate the inequalities inherent to our educational system. The coaching commitment is a 15 to 20 week rigorous, intensive, substantive volunteer opportunity. We provide them with our innovative Coaching As Teaching Training Model SM that integrates alternative certification teacher training with traditional coaching training. In addition to conditioning, drills, and techniques, our corps members are taught to establish a vision, set high expectations, invest players and parents, plan practices, manage a team, and track academic, athletic, and personal progress. Our corps members are asked to spend approximately 5 to 10 hours per week (depending on position, grade level, and sport) coaching. During the coaching commitment, we provide on-going support through professional development sessions, observations, and debriefs. Our innovative approach to this insidious problem enables educators to close the achievement gap and inspire a new generation of leaders. In addition to traditional coaching responsibilities, our corps members are expected to create weekly academic and personal workshops that may include goal setting, academic tutoring, health and wellness seminars, standardized test preparation, study skills, college and financial aid guidance, and the like.
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