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Lakeside School

Seattle, WA – Lakeside School is an independent school serving 800 students in grades 5 through 12.  Derrek Falor, the Girls Soccer Program Head, previously worked with The Art of Learning Project in his position as the women’s soccer coach at Cleveland State University in Ohio.
Coach Falor gave his Varsity Soccer team at Lakeside an assignment to read The Art of Learning over the summer and explore the correlation between Josh’s experiences with chess and Thai Chi and their own experiences with soccer.  This assignment provided his athletes with the opportunity to develop an understanding of their relationship to the learning principles and gave Coach Falor a window into their own perceptions of their strengths and challenges on the soccer field.  He has shared a collection of student responses to chapters 4-6, chapters 7-8, and chapters 9-11 on our Resources for Educators page.
In response to the challenges that arose on the playing field as well as the ideas that came up in the student responses, Coach Falor developed a season-long, holistic program focused on examining how the players handled moments of transition throughout their days and developing strategies for working on Stress and Recovery in all aspects of their academic and athletic lives.  In future seasons he plans to work on The Power of Presence and The Downward Spiral to help his athletes remain in the moment rather than focusing on what just happened or what will happen next.  He is also hoping to expand the program to include Program Heads from a range of athletic departments in the school so that the students will encounter these learning principles across the various sports they play throughout the year.

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