A conversation with Anne Marie, Amala volunteer coach

A valued part of the Amala community are our volunteer coaches, who help Amala Learning Facilitators develop their capacity to be self-directed. A core part of Amala’s philosophy is building people bigger than the challenges we face, and this is exactly what coaching can enable. 

Anne Marie Chow is a volunteer coach who works with Lamis Abuaziza, Programme Manager at Amala’s Jordan site. Anne Marie spoke to us recently about her experience of Amala coaching, why coaching is important for gaining new perspectives and reveals something that even as an experienced educator and coach, Anne Marie has learnt! 

Can you briefly introduce yourself?

I’m Anne Marie Chow. I am currently a full-time student working towards my PhD in Education at Seattle Pacific University. My husband and I moved to Camano Island, Washington, USA in July 2022 and are enjoying getting to know this area as our new home. I appreciate the time to study, volunteer with Amala, connect more with my family, and train our almost 2-year old rescue Austrian Shepherd dog. 

Before this, I was teaching for 18 years in international schools around Asia. During that time I taught grades 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8. In Middle School, I taught English Language Arts and was the Literacy Coach. I also worked as the Head of Digital Learning for K-12 (4 to 18 year olds) and then as the Middle School Vice Principal of Academics.

How did you find out about Amala? When did you start coaching at Amala?

I first learned about Amala when I was teaching at United World College South East Asia (UWCSEA). I think it was during the first year when the school was collaborating with Amala to host Hackathons for course writing and the first student group came together to support the development of the curriculum. I joined the student group as one of the teacher facilitators the following year. Later I collaborated with a team of teachers to draft the Powerful Narratives course. Since May 2021, I have been coaching with Lamis, the Programme Manager at Amala's Jordan site.

How would you describe Amala coaching?

From my experience coaching with Lamis, I would describe it as a space for her to pause and reflect on how she has and how she wants to approach her leadership, her collaborations, and her work. She chooses what she wants to focus on during coaching conversations. I use paraphrases and questions to help her organise her thinking, consider other perspectives, zoom in onto details or zoom out to overarching themes and values. There are times when she has identified some next steps but is unsure of the details and I will ask if she would like me to share some ideas. Since coaching at Amala is grounded in supporting Lamis to be self-directed, it’s important that I don’t jump in with advice and instead give her the opportunity to draw on her knowledge, experience, and reflection to choose her next steps. 

Why do you think coaching is important?

First, I think coaching is important because it gives us the opportunity to reflect thoughtfully on events and how we think and feel about what has happened. Oftentimes in our busy lives, we come out of an event and we might let one negative piece dominate our thinking, or we have an overwhelming sense of joy from the success but have not noticed the reasons for that success. By engaging in a reflective coaching conversation, we can take both the negative and positive elements and learn from them as we grow and develop. 

Second, I think coaching is important because it helps us think about things in new ways. Stuart MacAlpine, Amala Advisor and Founding Director of Education, used to talk about coaching like shining a flashlight around a dark room for someone. By using probing questions, coaching can help us consider different perspectives, approaches, and possibilities. It can help us notice things we have not yet noticed. 

Finally, I think coaching is important because it helps us build habits of thinking that we can use independently when reflecting, planning new projects, and approaching challenges. Sometimes in our coaching conversations, Lamis will say, “I knew you were going to ask me that.” This is great, because it means she is already asking herself those questions. While our dedicated time together is a valuable space for her to pause and give herself time to reflect and plan ahead, she can apply these habits of thinking independently. 

"Working with Anne Marie as my coach was an incredibly positive experience. I had a few goals that I wanted to work on, such as improving my leadership and time management skills, and finding a better balance between my personal and professional life. Anne Marie helped me achieve these goals by asking me guiding questions and allowing me to discover my own next steps through reflection. I learned that taking the time to reflect on my actions and decisions with someone else was incredibly helpful for both my personal and professional development. Overall, I am very grateful for the coaching sessions with Anne Marie, and feel that I have grown a lot as a person through our work together." - Lamis

What do you most enjoy about being an Amala volunteer coach?

I love being part of the important work Amala is doing to provide quality, relevant education to displaced youth. As an Amala volunteer coach, I get to use my skills to support Lamis as she leads the teacher facilitators in Amman, Jordan. I love watching her as she makes connections, thinks of her own next steps, and broadens her thinking in our conversations. It is always encouraging to see the shift in her emotions during a coaching conversation because she has been able to identify how she can use her strengths for her next steps. 

Have you learned anything about yourself since being an Amala coach?

As a coach, we learn the importance of not giving advice or sharing personal connections and instead using paraphrasing and questioning to facilitate thinking. Ever since I started using cognitive coaching, I learned quickly that I like to give advice and share how I have dealt with similar events. As a teacher and educational leader at UWCSEA, I found it easy to excuse myself if I started giving advice because our contexts were so similar. Since being an Amala coach, I am learning to be more intentional about staying in the coaching role and letting Lamis reflect and think about her next steps in a way that is relevant to her context. In each conversation I am relearning the value of listening to support her thinking. 

What would you say to others interested in becoming an Amala coach? 

Being an Amala coach is a great way to support the education of displaced youth from your corner of the world, wherever that is. It only takes about an hour every two weeks and you get to be part of an organisation that is making a real difference in the lives of young people. You get to build a relationship of shared trust. You end up getting little glimpses of the daily, on the ground work that goes into Amala Education. It can be challenging not to ask a bunch of curiosity questions as the context is quite different from yours. It can be a great way to increase your coaching skills by really focusing on listening, paraphrasing and questioning to support the thinking of someone in a different context and from a different culture. 

If you are interested in becoming an Amala coach and contributing to the development of facilitators who are supporting refugee youth to access transformational learning, you can express your interest here.