Fred Shoemaker's Wisdom about Teaching, Learning, and Life

Fred Shoemaker is considered one of America's best golf teachers, but in this provocative conversation about teaching, learning, and life you'll discover how his success has come by helping students discover their own capacities for performance and enjoyment and not by fixing what's wrong with their golf swings. 

Much of what Fred has learned can be applied to parenting, coaching, and classroom teaching at any level. Here are a few notable quotes:

“…the cult of the expert is a dangerous position because we just get stuck there, and we're afraid to look into places or to be vulnerable or to see that what we're saying may be done in a different and better way.”  (8:58)

“My experience of young people is that they want to contribute. They want to know what they say matters to another. They want to be heard, and if it does make a difference, it just turns them on just like it does to you and me to know we've made a difference for another person.” (8:13)

"[Timothy Gallwey, Fred's teacher] created an environment for the first time without evaluation or judgment in which curiosity became more valuable to me than doing it right.” (12:50)

On the importance of accurate feedback, Fred asks, “How many teachers get filmed for a day and can see it themselves? Not the principal seeing it, just themselves. Boy, that's a shock. I didn't know I spent all that time looking at one person and ignored everybody else basically and tried to make sure that the lesson went well because I kept calling on that person.” (1:08:47)