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Coaching Your Student
As you prepare for the 2023-2024 Stoa competitive season, we know that it can be challenging and sometimes overwhelming. Often as parents we feel inadequate to coach our children in speech and debate, but like so many other subjects in your homeschooling journey, with some time and effort you can teach and coach them. With that in mind here are a couple of suggestions to get you started:
First, consider getting involved with a local club to help you with coaching. There are many established clubs with experienced leaders on our Stoa website [insert link here]. They offer a structure that will help you in the coaching process, create a strong foundation and provide a supportive community. It will also give your students a place to build camaraderie and give them some sparring partners to build their skills. Clubs are vitally important in a student's development.
Second, remember that God has entrusted your children to you, and we believe you are more than capable. Stoa wants to come alongside to help you coach your students, or even help you run a club.
In some cases, you may want to hire an outside coach or alumni to help you with your students. There are wonderful alumni and private coaches which can sometimes serve an important role. However, it’s important to choose a coach that is the best fit for your family and your values. If you choose this direction, we recommend looking for a coach that teaches with a biblical worldview and has a focus on technical skills, character development, and spiritual maturity. It’s also vital that they understand and support the rules and mission of Stoa, in order to foster the healthy spirit of competitive collegiality that makes Stoa such a rich and wonderful community for its members.
This season, Stoa has added a Student Code of Conduct to Family Membership. Be sure to review it with your students and ensure that any coaching, from clubs to private coaches, include teaching and upholding it.
We hope this helps as you navigate these important steps and please don’t hesitate to ask for help or resources.
Your Stoa Debate Committee
Great insights on student coaching! I remember when I mentored a student struggling in math. We used games like 2048 classic to make learning fun and engaging, and it transformed their confidence. It's amazing how interactive games can encourage logical thinking and problem-solving.
This is such a practical breakdown of coaching a student step by step. When I run drills, I sometimes use a bad quality picture maker on purpose to show riders how a blurry, low-detail image hides the small cues they should be looking for, and the point lands much faster that way.
In friday night funkin accuracy is essential as players match arrow prompts to keep the beat and outperform their musical opponents.
Great breakdown of how to coach a student step by step. I keep lesson notes in Markdown and use md to text to strip the formatting before sharing handouts with my riders, which keeps everything readable.
Such a thoughtful and encouraging guide on coaching speech and debate students! Balancing constructive feedback with positive reinforcement is key to helping students build confidence and strong communication skills. Whenever I need a quick mental break after helping with speech practice, researching arguments, or reading parenting blogs, I like to pop over to minigame for a fast casual game to decompress. Thanks for sharing these wonderful insights!