Coaching Conversation – Unit 6, Learning Activity 2

From my conversation with dizzybutterfly (a pseudonym, obviously), I learned she is a committed, dedicated teacher who cares deeply for students with developmental disabilities and particularly those who struggle with reading. She has operated as a servant leader in different situations without even knowing what that meant. Her passion for helping students succeed is clear and even from a short conversation, this is quite evident.

She has a growing desire to run her own company to help students who struggle with reading to thrive. She is convinced that every student has strengths which can be leveraged to help them overcome their weakness. To be able to do this, she would like to open a tutoring service which would require some business training and further research into the field. She feels the success of a tutoring service would rely on developing business skills such as business plan development and market analysis.

She has a solid grasp of her own abilities and how those can help children who struggle with reading. She also understands some of the gaps which exist between what she is capable of now and what will be required of her in the future. The steps to achieve her goal are clear and she has a good understanding of what will be required of her to achieve these next steps.

Response to Monica Grace – Rank, Talk, Write Activity

Monica, I chose the same article to summarize for this assignment and I’m glad to see you enjoyed it as I did. I’m also glad to see we reached similar conclusions so you’re giving me confidence about what I wrote!

Like you, I’m in a ministry setting so I read your post through the lens of this course but also through the lens of not only my current job but really the whole of my life. I’m really grateful for Cahalan’s ability to clarify something I’ve known intuitively about my own work and those around me.

As far as your question, it’s a good one. Should we assume that everyone who enters into some kind of vocational practice has the potential to reach this stage of expertise and unknowing? I’m not sure that’s true. It’s certainly not what I’ve seen from everyone around me who has gone in to vocational ministry.

One encouragement that I would take to heart from your question is the role of mentors for beginners and novices. I’m asking myself how I can be a better mentor for those who are at early stages in their practice.

Thanks again for your summary and your great thoughts in response to this article.

Response to Jessica Sawatzky: Light from many Lamps

Light from many Lamps

Jessica, your post on Henry Francis Lyte helped me remember that failure is much more common than we’d like to admit. More than that, failure is much more powerful than we would typically like when we the impression in the world around us is that success after success is what we should expect.

“Failure has a funny way of bringing out the best in us (Sawatzky, 2018)”. So true. Perhaps not in the moment – the immediate result of failure is likely to be something we are probably not proud of – but over time the deep change that happens through failure leads to growth, development and, ultimately, success.

I also so appreciated your description of the powerful memories triggered by music. As a musician I have had the privilege of leading funerals where singing familiar songs has had a similar resonance for people. Music is an incredibly powerful tool which can embed and surface significant emotions for us.

Reference
Sawatzky, Jessica. (2018, October 9). Light from many Lamps. Retrieved from https://create.twu.ca/jessicalaugsawatzky/2018/10/09/light-from-many-lamps/