Duration
Building Character and Self-Knowledge
Bridging what you know with who you are
Sonthaya Chutisacha
Counseling Psychologist & Reflection Coach
sonthaya@ksipd.com
I work with educators and school professionals to connect what they know with who they are—and bring both more consciously into their practice.
My background is in counseling psychology. As the founder of KSI Professional Development and KSI Academy, my work brings together professional learning, reflection, and the everyday experience of supporting young people.
I believe we deserve the space: to connect what we know with who we are, and bring both into our work.
Outlined below is the thought behind my work. I offer learning experiences (PD workshops) for professionals in the field of education.
Why Reflection
I think of our inner world as something like an operating system that needs to be accessed and updated.
Our inner landscape is shaped not only by our education and training, but by our experiences, relationships, values, and the ways we have grown.
We bring all of this to work, whether we notice it or not.
Yet, in learning how to fulfil a role, we can also learn to edit parts of ourselves out. We become familiar with the language, expectations, and accepted ways of doing things.
For me, reflection creates a space to return to that original encoding.
It is about bringing our experience, judgement, and humanity into a meaningful relationship with what we have learned.
What I offer
My work brings together Core Reflection, Tacit Pedagogy, and Systems Thinking.
Core Reflection gives structure to questions that have accompanied me for years:
What matters to me? What qualities do I bring? What gets in the way of expressing them?
Developed by Fred Korthagen and colleagues, the approach connects professional growth with our inner qualities, beliefs, identity, and purpose—not only with skills and behaviour.
Through Tacit Pedagogy, I explore the knowledge already present in our practice: what we notice, how we respond, and the judgements we make before we can fully explain them.
The invitation is to bring that experience-based wisdom into awareness, where we can examine it, articulate it, and share it.
Systems Thinking brings the wider context into view. In my workshops, we look beyond an isolated difficulty towards the patterns, relationships, expectations, and structures surrounding it.
Looking inward matters; so does understanding the conditions in which we work.
My Methodology
I think of my workshops as a walk beside you.
You bring experience, knowledge, questions, and ways of seeing that deserve attention. My role is to create space for that exploration, offer structure, and help you connect what emerges with the realities of your work.
Not because you do not know how to reflect. Sometimes, what we need is simply the time, the space, and someone alongside us who helps us stay with a question a little longer.
Sometimes that means recognising a strength you have rarely named. Sometimes it means questioning a familiar response. Sometimes it means finding a clearer way to express something you have understood for a long time.
I am engaged in this process myself. Reflection is not something I stand outside and teach. It is a practice I continue to return to.
My hope is that a workshop becomes the beginning—or the renewal—of a dialogue with yourself: one you can carry back into your classroom, your team, and your everyday decisions.
The Workshops
These ideas take different practical forms across my workshops.
With Education Assistants, the focus is on observation and responsive learning support.
With Instructional Coaches and Educators, it is on recognising and exploring the thinking within teaching. Explore
With School Office Professionals, it is on understanding their contribution and developing more intentional ways of working.
My aim is not to add another layer of information. The connection is always reflection that leads back to action: a clearer observation, a more considered response, a different conversation, or a practical change.
Sonthaya Chutisacha