The word philosophy is derived from two Greek words. The first word, philo, means “love.” The second, sophy, means “wisdom.” Literally, then, philosophy means “love of wisdom”.
At SunLight Academy we love what we do and we bring this love in our classes and in our interactions with our coaches in training.
We are aware that each individual has an attitude toward life, towards learning and has previous personal experiences that informs and shapes their set of beliefs. This set of beliefs informs how we live, work, and interact with others. We know that what we believe is directly reflected in our teaching and learning processes. That is why our Academy staff is first of all committed to work on themselves, to have clarity on their beliefs and about what they want to bring in their educational roles.
We do know that philosophy and education are interrelated and to become the most effective coaching educator we can be, we must understand our own beliefs, while at the same time empathizing with others.
At SunLight Academy we apply epistemology to examine how our coaches in training come to learn what they know. We consider metaphysics to allow our coaches to put questions about the physical universe and the nature of ultimate reality. We promote a student-centered philosophy, so that our coaches can embrace a client-centered approach to coaching and a society-centered philosophy to promote ethical behaviors.
When giving birth to our Academy and courses we put ourselves the following questions (and found the answers to them):
– What is the purpose of coaching education?
We empower individuals and organizations worldwide and we equip people with their ability to use coaching skills in their profession and in how they interact with others.
– What is the role of our educators/mentors?
To deliver high quality coaching education at master levels for those who are ready to shape their life and let their talents to thrive. To be a role model in relation to the ICF Standards and Ethics so that through our behavior our coaches can learn ‘to be’ and not only ‘to do’.
At SunLight Academy we are committed in developing a structure that will enable us to determine how well our students are learning the ICF core skill requirements and ethics, in order for them to fully be aware of how to embody a coaching mindset in their profession and become ambassadors of the ICF coaching standards.
We support our students through writing, speaking, critical thinking, and information literacy.
We allow the participants to our courses to practice the coaching competencies right after the first 15 hours of training, by creating a safe and supportive environment where they can practice with their buddy students.
We also support our coaches in training to develop their own learning philosophies and their preferred ways to approach the work that needs to be completed in order to reach their certification. We encourage them to write learning autobiographies, articulating a best learning experience, and becoming meta-cognitively aware.
We have identified some positive learner characteristics: good learners are curious, they are comfortable in being uncomfortable and they know that failure is beneficial to be successful.
Good learners make knowledge their own, they put lots of questions, and they share what they’ve learned. That is why we have created a global Community of coaches and coaches in training, who support each other, get together to share resources and coaching practice, they share what they have learned along their journey for the benefit of the new students.
Our Community members meet regularly to ask questions, share their experience while enhancing their level of competency in coaching and with their first clients, and they partner to create synergies to market their services.
We encourage and allow our students to write about the coaching competencies and about coaching topics that they are passionate about: they write dissertations to share with the Community, they write articles that we publish in our Blog, they create their own coaching model and business plan in order to give shape to their identity as coaches.
We discuss learning philosophies with students in our courses. We ask them to consider what might be included in their learning philosophies and in order to support them, we generated a set of questions that we suggest they ask themselves after any learning experience, especially after every session they record and submit to their Mentor for an evaluation:
- What are you aware of after this exercise that you were not aware of before?
- How did you learn this?
- What did you learn about the mastery of the ICF Competencies?
- How will you apply this new awareness and learning into you next coaching sessions?
- How can this new learning be used by you to expand your talents?
- How are you different now after learning this then you were before?
- How did learning this make you feel?
- What is the impact that this new learning is having on your coaching clients?
And here are a few questions we encourage them to ask about their courses (and the choice of embracing a coaching career) in general:
- What is the purpose for you to take this course?
- What does success mean for you?
- How is your participation to this course helping you become the person you want to be?
- What do you need to be doing now to make yourself the kind of person you want to be when you complete your certification?
Join us and be part of our Academy! You can book a free meeting with our Trainers to explore how our courses meet your needs and expectations – use this link to contact us.
If you are interested in joining our Faculty and become one of our Trainers, send us your CV and book a free chat with our Director.
