Sylvia's Journal

There is a circle in the making. It’s turning out rather big, but not quite round, and not even a real circle as it isn’t closed. It is more like my 3 year old granddaughter’s attempt at a circle, the two ends, not ends when you think of a circle, coming close to each other, or maybe intersecting, missing their mark of becoming a circle. 

This is how my professional life tries to become a circle. I started re-reading authors who I had to read in the first few years as a student in psychology, people like Kegan, Klein, Freud, Bowlby, Adler, Erikson, Skinner, Thorndike. All of them had shaped the field of psychology and so I had to learn about them and then there was always a test. I did pass all the tests because I was good at memorizing. During the first few years of my study there were no videos, no collaborative projects, no experiential learning except for Physiology 101 where I had to dissect a frog, and stand on a block that was pulled from under me while a camera took the picture of my falling to record my reflexes kicking in.

The lectures, with 149 other students, in giant lecture halls were didactic, my studying was based on memorizing facts and frameworks. Development in pedagogy since then recognized that this was learning in an incomplete way. Facts and theories, without getting them anchored in personal experience, simply float away over the year. For years, I wondered whether I had wasted 7 years by picking a study that I could not use in my professional life as a program officer in international development. But that turned out to be a premature conclusion.

45 years, after my studies began I was offered an opportunity to learn to become a coach. I was hardly enthusiastic. I always had liked to work with groups, as a teacher, a trainer or a facilitator. Coaching individuals didn’t appeal that much to me. But the offer was too good to let pass – my employer was willing to pick up the tab, and so I said yes.

Learning to coach is first and foremost a learning journey into the self. It required for me to become aware of my behavioral patterns and determine which ones were helpful and which ones were not if I was serious about coaching.  Coaching individuals pushed me into a new orbit of learning and re-discovery. And so, 7 years after this journey started, here I am re-reading classic texts from my psychology studies and connecting the dots. I am recognizing that the call for vulnerability from Brené Brown is great, but it is not for everyone as I am learning in my early ventures into group and team coaching. And now I am on my way to South Africa to explore and discover some more.