Lessons from a Master Educator

What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. My name is Brian Martin. I'm a second grade teacher and host the teaching champions podcast. I just want to say thank you for being here. I appreciate you. And it was a good week, my friend, we celebrated St. Patrick's Day. And we had parent teacher conferences. On parent teacher conference, we had a lot of people in the building. And I had stepped out to my car and was walking in. And as I'm coming into the building, a young man and his mother were coming out. So I opened up the door. And I said, Have a good day young man. And this little guy, he stops, he looks up at me with a serious face. And he says, I'm not a man. I'm only five years old. Then he puts aside now and continues on walk. His mother and I, we looked at each other and we shared a nice laugh over that. Just a little moment to grab a little joy, a little laughter from the day. This week, I want to talk about a master teach someone who we can all take something away from and some of the very best teachers, they don't teach in traditional classrooms. The teacher that we're going to discuss today is the head coach for the men's basketball team of the Duke Blue Devils. And that's Coach Mike Chesky. And if you're not a basketball fan, don't worry, because this episode has little to do with basketball. And if you're a North Carolina fan, who's their biggest rival, I understand if you turn this podcast episode off right now. And the reason why I chose coach Shecky is because he's retiring this year. And just listen to a few accomplishments that this man has. He's a West Point grad of veter. He's a basketball coach who has five national titles. He's been the 12 Final Fours. He's coached the USA Olympic basketball team to three gold medals. And he's considered by most is one of the greatest coaches of all time. And Coach K is stepping away from the game after this season in retire, it's important to understand that a coach is a teacher to and whether it's on a field on the mat, in a rink, around the court, these coaches do amazing things. And it's not only his list of accomplishments that are amazing. If you listen to how his players talk about them, and how they describe the fact that he's had on their life. That might be one of the biggest accomplishments of all. I was listening to one of his former players speak who was now in the NBA Hall of Fame. And he was reflecting on his days back at Duke. And he said how much he wishes he could go back in time. Just to hear Coach K. Tell him how proud of him he was. And that speaks volumes. And the other night, Coach Kay had his last regular season game at Duke. And they had a huge ceremony after the game. And the whole section of the arena was filled with former players and many of whom had played in the NBA. And just to tell you the fact that this man has had the ceremony was after the game, and it was late on a Saturday night. And now one of those college students left after the game was over. In fact, a viewer a Duke fan, it was a tough night because they played their biggest rival North Carolina, and they lost. And as the seconds were ticking off to the clock, it was so emotional that there were college students in the stands that were hugging and crying. And this is the effect that Coach K has had on that university. It transcends being a coach. And there's so much that we could say about Coach K, that you're never going to be able to justify fitting it into a short podcast. But I'm going to share a few lessons that I've learned from listening to them speak to listening to his former players in reading about him. And what I want you to do, is think about what he does, and what are ways that you can take his lessons into the classroom, or his lessons into your life in general. Now, of course, K was a cadet at West Point in the late 1960s. And he's very open about his love for West Point, and the invaluable lessons that he was given at an early age. And as a young man, he learned that failure is not your destination, that as we grow and push ourselves past our current limits, that there's going to be moments of struggle, there's going to be moments where we fall down. But that's all part of the learning process. And he said, well, at West Point, he learned that you're gonna get knocked down. But you get up, you have to learn to be your own best friend. And we have to recognize that we're not going to get to where we want to go alone, that we have to surround ourselves with good people, and not those people who are going to drag us down, that are going to hold us back. But those people who are going to lift us up, that are going to push us that are going to challenge us that are going to bring out the best in us. And one of my favorite lessons that refers to through his days at West Point in the military, is that we have to learn to listen. And he said, when you do talk, converse, and don't make excuses, figure out solutions. And he says, always remember that you don't have to do it just by yourself. And Coach Kay has been coaching for over 40 years. And just like the field of education has changed. The game of basketball has changed during that time as well. And one thing that he's shown over the course of his career is that willingness to evolve. And he says that you have to resist the easy path, as you age, staying stuck on the way things used to be, and refusing to acknowledge how they are. And we all know that one thing in life that is guaranteed is change. And if you've been teaching for a while like myself, then you've seen change. And we're going to continue to see change in an ever changing world, where we can't even begin to fathom what technology is going to be like in 1015 20 years from now, think about how that's going to influence everything we do. So we need them embrace that change, because it's critical for all of us. And it makes me think about some of the more veteran teachers that I work with, who are a little bit older, who didn't grow up with technology like myself, or those who are younger than me. And over the past few years, when schools shifted to virtual learning for a period of time, these amazing ladies were forced to step outside of their comfort zone. They had to learn how to do a lot of new things. And it was stressful. It was uncomfortable at first, but they didn't back down from the challenge. And they did absolutely amazing. And ultimately, we want to evolve, we want to grow, we want to learn. And it isn't always nice and easy. It's going to be messy, it's going to be uncomfortable at first. But if you embrace it, if you push past those uncomfortable feelings, you're going to be learning, you're going to be growing, you're going to be transforming. And those new skills are going to be invaluable. And another lesson to be learned from Coach K is to have fun to be unique with your message. And we all have messages. We all have those things that are important in our own classrooms that we try and talk about with our students day in and day out. And the thing is our students have heard that same message over and over again. And sometimes they can start blocking it out. And for basketball coaches, they have to find new and unique ways to inspire their players all the time. And they keep the same message, but they just deliver it in different ways. And one former do player said that Coach K has some legendary pregame speeches. And he said before one game, the team is in the locker room, and there's a TV in there and it's just the assistant coaches in the locker room with them. They're showing them a scene from the movie Gladiator. And it's one of those scenes where it's taken place before a big battle. In the one character is trying to fire up all these individual in the scene ends. And the player said, they're all sitting there in the locker room. And all of a sudden, a flaming arrow out of nowhere, comes flying through the locker room and hits a dartboard that's on the opposite wall. And he said, all the players, they're just sitting there thinking, what's going on. And then a ball rolls into the locker room. And all of a sudden, Coach K comes storming into the locker room, dives on the ball, and starts screaming, who's gonna fight with me tonight, who's gonna fight with me? And the player said, all the guys started screaming, and they all ran out onto the court, in this story made me smile. And it made me really think about my classroom, the students have heard a message for well over 100 days now. And what do I need to do to make that message fresh work can be done to breathe fresh air into things. There's no doubt in my mind, that my students would love to see a burning arrow fly through the room. I'm just not sure what the higher ups and parents would have the same excitement for that. All joking aside, think about some unique and fun ways that you can motivate your students. And their night, a Coach K's last home game was pretty special. And like I said, his team lost to the biggest rival. And if you follow sports, you know the intensity that these coaches bring, and how much they don't like to lose. So watching and listening to Coach K, after the game, it was filled with so many gems. And after the game, he takes the team to the locker room to talk to them. And then he comes back out about 10 minutes later. And the emotional music is playing. The place is still packed, everyone is standing up. They have seats on the floor for his wife and children. his grandchildren are there as well. And as the music is playing, he walks out onto the court. And he's holding his wife's hand. He walks over to his daughters, and they do a big group hug. And then he goes over to his grandchildren. And they do a group hug. And after that, he walks over to the microphone. The crowd grows silent, the music stops playing. His players are out there on the court and they're listening. And the first words that he says to the whole crowd, he goes, I'm sorry, today was unacceptable. In the crowd on hearing that they begin to shout out, buddy quiet stand down. And he says today was unacceptable. But the season has been very acceptable. And he said this because they won their conference. And in that moment, Coach K was not just apologizing to the crowd. But he was sending more importantly, a message to his players that they have a high standard. And they didn't meet that standard that night. But he also sent them a message that he was still proud of them. And there were two other times in his speech, where he connected with his players to show them how much he cared. One was he looked at all his former players that were in the crowd to address them. He tells them how much those former players mental. And he told them how special it was that brotherhood that they had to do between all the players. And then he looks at all of them. And he says we didn't play well tonight. And there were times when you didn't play well either. And everybody laughed at that. But think about the message that sent to their players, their coach standing up to them in front of all these Duke legends. And the last message was sent directly to his team. Now after the game, no one will knows what was said inside that locker room. But I'm sure he was pretty fired up. And I'm sure he let those players know that. But he looks at them in front of everybody. He says you might not think it right now. But I love you guys. And we're going to learn and grow from this That's just another small moment where he's reinforcing that relationship with his players teaching his relationships. What message are we sending to our students? How do we talk about them in front of others, especially when those students are within earshot? Because are champions, they're always listening. And the words that we speak about them are powerful. And how do we speak to them? When they make mistakes? Do we let them know that we still love them, that we're going to learn that we're going to grow the we're going to become better because of those mistakes. Our messaging is so important. And this honestly only scratches the surface of the lessons that you can learn from Coach guy. There's so much information on YouTube. And there's multiple leadership books that you can get from them in, they're all worth it. And last, my challenge for you this week, is to take one final lesson from Coach K's postgame ceremony. And as he was at center core, he looked at his family and then to the crowd. And he said, Never once did my family say, Dad, you love basketball more than you love us. And he said, that happens though. But never once did his family say that. And he looked back at his family. And he said, I love my family more. And I love basketball. How we make our students feel the message that we send them the love that we give them. It matters. But the messages, the love, how we make our family feel matters even more. So this week, think how can you strengthen that message, and let your family know how much you love them. Thank you for being here for being part of the teaching champions community, we support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you could rate or review the podcast, it just helps other educators see it. Or if you think someone else would benefit from this message, I'd definitely appreciate it if you could share. And always remember whether you're from rural America to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keep me an amazing my friends. And as we go out into the week, May you step into your strength, may you step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody