ICA is an amazingly diverse global community of coaches. Just yesterday I was talking to our trainer Helen Omand about the Teleclass she had just taught. She listed the names of the students in the class and the countries they were from. In total I counted 9 different countries. In one call! This really is amazing and it got me thinking about our “hidden curriculum”
One of the things all training programs have but never talk about is their “hidden curriculum” I remember a linguistics teacher I had in college who was obsessed with Italy; every example he gave, every sample text we read had something to do with Italy. So even though the official curriculum was Systemic Functional Linguistics I learnt a lot about Italian culture that year.
At ICA our hidden curriculum is almost as rich as our official curriculum. When you enrol in an ICA training program you not only learn coaching skills but you also learn:
- how to communicate across cultures
- how to coach with ease on the telephone
- how to read and navigate a class schedule that includes 4 time zones
- how to use time converter software to make coaching appointments
In short you become a global learner and this is an incredibly valuable set of skills in our increasingly global marketplace.
I’d love to hear from our students and graduates on this topic. I’m sure there is a whole lot more to our hidden curriculum than I’ve listed here. If you can think of something leave a comment in the field below and let me know.
Ana Davičo
Indeed… remember the excitement I felt during my very fist class at ICA as I was writing down the names of the students – we came from the US, Canada, India, Switzerland, Egypt, South Africa, UK and Serbia… There's something deeply moving about this human connection that cuts across time zones, state boundaries, languages and cultures. I love that.
Robyn Logan
Dawn – I agree. Do you think this is something people can understand with out experiencing it? We are always trying to find ways to explain to people that in fact, online can be a RICHER experience than face to face.
Robyn Logan
Dawn – I agree. Do you think this is something people can understand with out experiencing it? We are always trying to find ways to explain to people that in fact, online can be a RICHER experience than face to face.
icoachacademy
hi Dawn, hi Winston
Yes I agree – this is a much undervalued aspect of our training. We need to find a way to communicate it better to prospective students (who sometimes cant see beyond face to face) … or do you think there is no way you can really understand until you experience it?
Interested in your opinion on this.
cheers
Robyn
Dawn Waldron
Great article. I was really grateful for all these aspects of the ICA course. I came from a therapy background where face-to-face was considered to be the only way to help people. I changed my mind about that one! And I'm now confident coaching clients all over Europe and even one in the US.
Winston Jacob
A very powerful way of Lifelong Learning & being a disciple of “Action Learning” I appreciate it all the more.ICA is certainly making great strides in this new era.