I have been coaching in education for over seven years, partnering with individuals, teams and schools in different settings all over the world. In that time there has been a substantial increase in people coaching in education and schools looking to develop coaching.
Over the same period, the coaching and organisational development sector has started to experience a shift. According to the International Coaching Federation (ICF), coaching can now be classified in three forms:
- Human coaching
- Hybrid/tech-enabled human coaching
- AI-driven chatbot coaching
(source: ICF, 2023)
So what is the current state of coaching in education seen through these three lenses?
Human coaching
In education, we love a model, and there appears to be an obsession with inventing basic coaching models framed around 1-to-1 interaction, with a prescribed script at each stage to structure every conversation. There are two potential issues with this: firstly, the biggest growth sector in coaching is group and team interactions and secondly, a model is just a model, it doesn’t mean you can coach.
“The biggest growth sector in coaching is group and team interactions.”
When working with schools we find the “stance” or “way of being” is the most misunderstood and difficult to master element of coaching. It is simple yet complex and a core starting point that many overlook in search of a quick fix. People either want to direct (under the guise of directive coaching) solve, fix, heal and make better. Coaching competencies from bodies such as the International Coaching Federation are generally not widely understood or engaged with.
We also seldom ask what it means to be “human” when coaching. In education we generally think of coaching as a talking profession: someone talks about an issue, and the coach listens and asks questions accordingly. This is surface level at best. Working with the body in coaching – somatic coaching – moves the centre of learning from the head into the body, giving you access to all aspects of your intelligence: intellectual, emotional and physical (source: Strozzi, 2014, The Art of Somatic Coaching). For example, our posture and breath dominate how we think and feel but are rarely engaged with in relation to coaching.
Hybrid/tech-enabled human coaching
The pandemic forced us to adopt online modes of learning, pedagogy and curriculum design. There are now pockets of organisations developing hybrid interactions with real thinking about why and how this should be implemented. There are several ways we can engage in hybrid tech-enabled coaching. For example:
- Technology for collaboration, such as screen sharing and whiteboards that we are all well versed in now
- Introducing visual stimuli into coaching sessions using AI generated images and artwork to support people in exploring challenges
- Virtual worlds to represent systemic mapping and illuminate organisational dynamics
“Tech is just tech without a sound coaching practice to underpin it.”
Focus needs to be placed on why you would want to enact a hybrid approach, how can this enhance your current practice, and how can it be integrated into your context. Then comes the understanding how to use the tools. Tech is just tech without a sound coaching practice to underpin it.
AI-driven chatbot coaching
Chatbots are becoming more common and are now able to be programmed in a variety of approaches to support the coaching process in ways such as:
- Preparation and follow-up for coaching sessions
- Nudges between coaching sessions
- Self-coaching through a structured coaching model such as GROW
Whilst education is still firmly fixated with coaching models, we are now working with chatbots that can do just that: use a scripted model to coach you. This begs the question: who has the role of the robot? Conversations with our partner schools at Persyou now explore how chatbots democratise organisational development and give access to wider groups of people for example. AI can add a lot but it cannot feel. This is where the somatic side becomes more important for us as human coaches.
Transforming coaching in education
In education, coaching can be surface level at best, mostly carried out through 1-to-1 interactions, designed to be rolled out at scale, with a resulting lack of nuance. This is understandable to some degree given a scarcity of time. Generally, we are engrossed in new ways to reinvent basic “model-based” coaching, let alone engaging in hybrid/tech-enabled and AI-driven approaches. Coaching is fundamentally human at its heart and we need to fully recognise this in a more holistic way.
“We need to recognise that coaching is becoming a tech-enabled human endeavour.”
Coaching is so much more than a purely talking profession; we need to learn how and have the confidence to incorporate our physical intelligence into interactions. We also need to recognise that coaching is becoming a tech-enabled human endeavour.
We need to step out of our collective comfort zones, look beyond the status quo and have the confidence to engage in cutting-edge thinking whether in human or digital form (or likely, a combination of both). Education is a mature profession and that requires mature coaching practice.