I have always had the belief in consolidating what you have learned after your own vast introduction from other coaches /teachers and mentors is to teach your experiences/knowledge to those who are emerging in the same career at a lower developmental base than your own.. When you are suddenly put in a position to teach others your mindset is put in a different space where you have to think about what you have learned and articulate that to others. It helps you think in a different way, It will also help you to look for other resource material and help you process and internalize your own thinking in how you approach problem-solving tasks in what you do in a different way. From maybe passive student to the empowered teacher which will help your own development in what you do.
As a club, I would encourage all the players in firsts and reserve grades to seek out coaching roles in district rugby league to coach or assist junior league teams as coaches and mentors. It is a win-win situation for all those involved. Players who I think would benefit to think like teachers rather than students would be Brown,JA, Penisini Waga and ???. I think it would help their own development with asserting how they approach their own game
We have a number of teachers on this site who are more qualified than me in teaching roles. Any thoughts?
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I like where you went with this Tad. There's definitely a school of thought that supports your view that teaching others what you've learned is an important step in ones own development, and is often attributed to as the stepping stone from competence to mastery.
Research has shown that to learn a particular skill effectively the learner has to go through a learning journey where 70% of the skill comes from actually performing that skill, 20% from observing someone else who's competent/mastered that skill, and 10% from understanding the theory behind that skill.
The best organisations in the world are often learning organisations. Where known best practice is identified and codified, either through peer mentoring, or (where the expert isn't a natural teacher) extracted and plugged into a learning and development system that pursues excellence.
Salary cap rorts not withstanding, this is something the Roosters, and to a lesser degree the Storm do really well. They have a system in place where their champions aren't just pushed into coaching, but rather turned into subject matter experts, and then used tactically by the coahcing staff.