Coaching kids has probably been one of the most rewarding and fun things I've ever done. It's also taught me a ton. Most people probably think of coaching as a kind of leadership, teaching (skill development), and mentoring activity. And it is to an extent.
But really, at the core, it's a design exercise.
I do tend to see everything as a design exercise, not surprisingly :) I also tend to think that everyone is a designer to an extent and everyone can contribute to better, more appealing experiences.At any rate, as a coach (like most coaches frankly), I want the kids, more than anything, to have a positive sporting experience.
I want them to come back each week, each season, each year with a smile on their face. The impression of a positive experience comes from many things: a perceived sense of personal development and achievement, the team's overall success (yes, winning), camaraderie and sense of belonging, supportive and encouraging instruction, etc.
Personal development is a really key foundation of that positive experience. And that's where I'll focus for this discussion. Kids need to get better, to develop as much skill as they can. Don't get me wrong, this is not about producing superstars. Not every kid needs exceptional skill to find happiness in sport.
This is more about getting each kid to a level where competing becomes fun, where a kid's skill level, coupled with the run of competitive play, can yield personally rewarding moments.
Because that's what it's all about... ultimately I want them to take joy in competing... not winning... competing. I want them to come to love the activity not for the end result but for the fun they can have in search of that end result.
The experience of sport, incidentally, happens less at a macro level (winning/losing) and more at a micro level. The perception of a joyful experience is an accretion of small wins. Our memory is not a perfect snapshot or recording of actual events. It is an emotional recollection. The more small wins I can help them achieve, the more I can create the relationship between sport and satisfaction.
Here's the obvious thing though... before I can get them to love competing, I have to first design that environment where they develop the requisite skill level to enjoy competing. Even more important than that, I want to help them develop the skill of getting better.My typical pattern for this is to understand kids' inherent qualities and capabilities, set appropriate goals and challenges, encourage and support them through the struggle, and let structured activity teach them (let them learn by doing).
I need the kids to know that I understand them, care about what their doing, and want them to get better, to improve, to grow. I do need to be demanding to an extent and set goals for them that help continually expand the bounds of achievement. But, naturally, I have to be there to support them, encourage them, make sure that their path toward achievement is a happy and fun one even as it is challenging and frustrating at times.
Most importantly, they need to spend a lot of time doing the sport, not listening to me. Any instruction is always in the context of an activity with a specific goal. I want them to learn from the activity more than me.
What I'm doing here is setting up an environment of safe and fruitful exploration.
Learning is almost always a kind of personal journey. No one really teaches another person. You really only create an environment where someone has the best opportunity to teach themselves; everyone is ultimately self-taught.
In the end, we don't want students, we want skill seekers.
When you are a seeker, the very act of doing something teaches you how to do that thing better and the state of being better increases the extent to which you enjoy it, which further drives you to do it more.
In this way, we are really talking about designing an environment that fosters a tendency toward self-optimization. And of course this all applies to anything that is designed... particularly interactive things like applications and devices.
In every way, an experience should probably be a framework that turns users into self-propelling engines of success (however they define that). They should feel compelled to explore, safe and supported in those explorations, and ultimately learn and grow by doing (interacting).
When that occurs, activity drives personal proficiency, which drives satisfaction, which drives increased use and exploration... and on we go toward happy, skilled humans (big and small).