One of my best friends is a high school wrestling coach. He is a tough little guy with a no-nonsense kind of attitude that gets results from his athletes, and has little patience when it comes to things like laziness and arrogance. All I ever thought of him as was a wrestling coach.
It occurred to me one day that, being a coach at the high school level, he was also a teacher, and I had no idea what he actually taught. Too embarrassed to go and ask him, I talked to one of his assistants and found out that he was a special education teacher.
I have to admit that I chuckled a bit at the thought of one of his students getting out of line and him putting the kid into a choke hold or leg lock. I could imagine my friend teaching history or math, but it was difficult to envision him being a special education teacher.
I asked the assistant coach about my friend's demeanor in the classroom, and if he was as serious with the students as he was with his wrestlers. After all, I had seen my friend put some really big boys in their place when they got out of line or were not wrestling up to their potential.
The assistant coach told me that, as a special education teacher, my friend was the embodiment of patience and understanding. He said that he worked hard with the students to build their self esteem and make them believe in themselves.
He added that this wrestling coach/special education teacher still had his serious side when students stepped out of line, but said he was not nearly as hard on his students in the classroom as he was on his wrestlers. At about that time, the wrestling meet broke for lunch, and my friend came hustling over to shake hands.
I told him that I never knew he was a special education teacher, and he said he had been ever since he started teaching 15 years ago. I kidded him around about being soft on his students, when he was hard on his wrestlers, and he made a very good point.
He said that he always tried to get the best from his kids, whether they were wrestlers or students. He always tried to make them believe in themselves and build up their confidence, but he just went about it in different ways.
The wrestlers, he said, were already tough and could handle and often responded very well to a forceful approach to motivation. I knew that to be true, because I had seen him hollering at many of his wrestlers, and then watched them go out in their next match and pin their opponent. When that happened, he was always the first one to run over and hug them.
As a special education teacher, he said, he had to have more patience. A lot of the kids had self-esteem issues or felt isolated being in special education, so he tried to do the same thing, but in a more gentle and understanding manner.
I had always admired my friend for being able to get results with the wrestlers the way he did, but when he told me that, I admired him even more.