This past year, Coach Becky LeGate led a weekly study for
female coaches from the book, InsideOut Coaching by Joe
Erhmann.
Coach LeGate shared, “The purpose of this study was
for our coaching staff to deeply examine the reasons why
we coach, why we coach the way we do, and what it feels
like to be coached by us. The book refers to a process
called transformational coaching. In contrast, some
coaches in today’s culture are transactional, meaning they
focus mostly on winning and meeting o ther personal needs
through coaching.”
Transformational coaching is in alignment with the
Academy’s philosophy of providing a holistic education
through a Christian worldview, as outlined in CPA101, and
fully supports the goals of the athletic program, which are to
promote the development of individual students with regard
to discipline, willingness to sacrifice personal desires for the
overall benefit of the team, and the pursuit of the highest
degree of excellence possible.
Coach LeGate emphasized, “As a coaching staff at CPA, we
believe it is our responsibility to leave a lasting legacy with our
athletes by helping them understand their identity is based on
who they are in Christ, not just the accomplishments they attain.
Transformational coaching leads to lasting, fulfilling relationships
between coaches and their players and teaches our student-athletes
to discern and prioritize what is really important in life.”
Rhonda Smith, Head of Middle School
Growing up into a whole, healthy, and responsible
adolescent is a challenge and a joy. As middle school teachers
embrace our commitment to know students, value them as
individuals, and love them in the process of maturing, we
seek innovative ideas that create opportunities to see into
their hearts and minds. Character is continuously revealed
as we pursue students in dialogue, inquiry, and reflection.
Middle school is a time when students are trying hard to
figure out what they believe, and they are not always sure how
to express themselves. This year in eighth grade English, we
decided to follow a lesson plan based on “This I Believe…,”
a National Public Radio essay competition.
Our objectives were to challenge students on several points
while giving them a chance to experience the power of their
personal story. We challenged them on writing style: how to
use rhetoric and language to convey a personal voice, writing
brevity: how to express a complex idea with a word limit,
and writing purpose: how to communicate a belief without
turning it into a rant or sermon.
Students had to think about a personal belief and apply
the skills they had learned to express themselves rather than
write what they thought was required for a good grade.
This assignment was challenging for many students,
absolutely freeing for others, and offered growth for all.
Each student turned in his or her essay without a name.
Students arrived in class to find the essays placed on
individual desks. They rotated around the room reading their
classmate’s essays and writing comments on post-it notes.
Being able to communicate one’s beliefs and ideas in a
concise, distinctive way is crucial for our students, as they
engage culture now and as adults. Their expressed beliefs,
based on personal convictions, were powerful. We were all
privileged with the glimpses trustingly laid before us.
A Middle School Essay
This I Believe...
True Colors
If you’re like me, you’re a little awkward, unconventional, withdrawn,
and irritated with the six-hundred word limit. But mostly, you’ve got a
whole lot to say, and you don’t know how to say it.
More than often, I find myself holding back. As someone who feels
and thinks with depth, it’s so, so easy to get tangled up in thoughts,
mentalities, emotions, perspectives, and have nowhere to go with it
all. I’m not exactly what you’d call a people-person. I do prefer to keep
to myself. And, while I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s exhausting.
There are points when it feels like people only see a fraction of me; they
only see what I allow them to see. Consequently, it’s anything but diffi-
cult to get trapped. Without expression of what you’re going through, or
of what you have to say, feeling stuck is almost inevitable.
So, how do you create your own source of freedom? Throughout my
life, I’ve come to believe creativity is a form of liberation. When creating
art, boundaries don’t exist; there’s not a single limit. I can incorporate
thoughts and emotions into visuals. I can design a message with meaning.
I can tell a story only I understand. I can let go of what I keep to myself.
I can say everything without having to say a single word.
It’s incredible to me; there isn’t any pressure, just expression. I keep
a mixed-media sketchbook that holds pages of art that only my eyes
will ever see. It’s filled to the brim with illustrations bound with depth;
these are no ordinary drawings or margin-doodles. They are my voice
when I long for words I don’t have or have no desire to speak. Each one
is interlaced with different technique-be it unique ways of blending,
shading, highlighting, palette choice, etcetera, that form different
pieces of compelling and intentional art. Put them all together, and you
have bits and pieces of a story. You have bits and pieces of my story. It’s
a story that is only growing (and, with time, is going to require anoth-
er sketchbook,) with every new piece of inspired creativity I allow to
form. I can be me. With art, there are no worries of holding it together;
let it fall apart, right onto the canvas. With every new piece is a new
possibility. Perhaps I’ll learn something about myself I didn’t really
realize before. Possibly I’ll discover interpretations I didn’t even intend
to create. Maybe I’ll find an answer to one of my endless questions. It’s
all happened before.
Creativity is really something powerful.
Above all, it’s freeing in every sense. I can’t even begin to explain
how liberating it is to have the ability to channel what can’t be said
with words into a piece of creativity. Art isn’t just a hobby, or a talent,
or a skill. It’s so much more than that to so many people, and to me.
It’s all of the words that don’t exist. It’s the freedom and source of un-
fathomable possibility I hold out for. I feel so incredibly blessed to have
a creative mind and a creative heart; I don’t know how I would get by
without it, (and I’m running out of words,) but it’s brought out the best
and the worst in me, and that’s a scary, beautiful thing.
If you’re like me, you’re constantly reaching for something to cling
to in this wonderful, terrible world. And, if you’re like me, you’ve found
it; because I truly believe with all I am that creativity is not only an
asset, but its own wonderful freedom.
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