What situation allows a person to be successful in one place and across the street that same person hits a wall?
My colleagues and I talk about many different things. We are aware of personal situations, problem at home, disabilities, poverty. A very long list can be built. Unfortunately, we have little control over these factors. So, I try to focus on the things that I can directly affect.
And yesterday, we were talking about how one student succeeded in one class but is not in another. The response from a friend of mine was, “It’s relational. That student formed a relationship with the first teacher and is having difficulty related to the second teacher.”
A primary task needs to be to create a relationship with each person we work with.
Coyote mentoring 1 gives some sense of how this can be done. Of course, everyone has his own method, bag of tricks, personality that he uses to establish relationships. The coyote metaphor is just another image to keep in mind in working with people:
- Begin in the student’s comfort zone and then push to the edge. “Stretch the person.” 2
- “The trick to coyote mentoring is to watch and listen and get to know well the people you guide.” 3 What are the implications for counselling and teaching?
- Straddle Two Worlds – the Human world with its rules, curriculum, scientific ideas and progress, and the instinctive, emotional, and spiritual world of the Soul. Are we wrapped up in only one world?
