Things I have learnt from teaching swimming...

I think I've learnt many things from becoming a swimming instructor... including somethings that other people don't get a chance to learn until they become parents, which in a way is a good thing. I guess personally, I find great joy in teaching in general, and teaching a life essential skill such as swimming makes it even better. So I guess the first thing I've learnt is how to reinterpret a concept into lots of different analogies and different approaches for people to understand. If a kid doesn't understand what needs to be done with one method of explaining the exercise, you have to reinterpret the exercise or the explanation in another way so that they get it.

The second thing I've learnt would be awareness, and I think I'm still working on it. Being able to monitor all the children in the class and make sure none of them have jumped off and drowned themselves, which proves to be difficult when you are distracted from monitoring because you are trying to explain or correct another kid. It's a real challenge on your peripheral vision as well.

One of the major things you learn is responsibility. In a class you a responsible for the lives of 4-8 other children, and you are also responsible for their swimming "education". So by doing that, you organise your priorities differently, and you learn to put other things aside while you are teaching. No matter how cold I am, when I'm in a class, I've learnt not to care about how cold I am, because there are more important things that I should be concerned about. No matter how I would be feeling on that day, sad, happy, mediocre, depressed, excited, whatever, when I jump into the water, it all goes away and the focus is the kids and their swimming. Which has served as a great distraction I guess, and now that I've said that, I feel like a workaholic... lol...

You learn great endurance, because you learn to be able to do the same thing day after day, teaching the same thing all the time. And although the people change, the stuff stays the same. Like I said before, you learn to ignore your own situations and focus on others, enduring the cold, the heat, the sun, the rain, the wind and whatever else the environment can throw at you. Yer...

One of the major things that you learn is authority. Learning how to lay down the law is important, because face it, water is dangerous if treated wrongly, and you can die from it. You are responsible for their learning so, being able to show authority, and being able to deliver consequences to misbehaviour. You have to be able to command their attention and make sure they do what they need to do so that they can learn.

Gentleness is a major thing as well. You have to be gentle with kids, not in the physical gentle but the way you talk to them and instruct them. You have to be able to show authority and deliver consequences, but gently. Kids have no problems with showing emotions, and often show undue emotions. So gentleness is extra important. Also some kids are scared of the environment or certain skills, like swimming on their back. Without gentleness you would never be able to teach them those skills.

You also learn to multi-task with extreme efficiency as you have to do so many things at once, you gotta monitor the kids, correct their strokes, be yelling at some other kid simultaneously for misbehaving, and the hardest one is to simultaneously run two different programs for the same class if the needs of the individual students are too different. The later happens on a friday, I have 3 6yr old boys and a 10 yr old boy in that class, 1 6yr can swim, 2 6yr olds can barely swim and the 10 yr old can only swim breastroke, which is not the main stroke we teach in Australia but in most asian countries, it's the first stroke. So 3 freestylers, 1 breastroker, and the 10 yr old boy has a fear of water already so he is not capable yet of swimming on his back at all... and so I toss between 2-3 different exercises at one time and keeping an eye on all of them, which can get slightly stressful at times...

Last but probably the most important one, Patience. My patience level has gone through the roof since I've become a swimming teacher. Some kids learn like bricks, they never get it and no matter how hard you try to reinterpret things, they just don't seem to be able to coordinate themselves in any beneficial manner. But they come back to you week after week, and you have to keep trying, and trying... and trying... and hope that one of these days they might understand and be able to coordinate. It can be frustrating when they don't seem to understand and you've changed people several times in the classes yet one extra stubborn child remains while everyone else has come and gone to higher levels. You also have to be patient with their behaviour, you tell them not to do something but they keep doing it, and you keep telling them not to do it but they keep doing them. One of my instructors told me that what they would do if a child refuses to listen to instructions to stay seated for their own safety, you let them put themselves in a haarrdd place... A place where they struggle for air... Just enough to instill enough fear to not muck around anymore without drowning them... Which sounds extremely cruel... But, pain teaches lessons and we learn from pain I guess... I haven't myself tried that one out on live subjects yet and I'll avoid the need to...

I thought I might also include tolerance as a main thing. I have this one child... Who is extremely bad behaved... If you have seen worse, then you deserve a prize, If you managed to teach and make them learn, I will give you a medal. Because this kid and his little brother are hellish. Other children when they are bad behaved, you command them to stop and most will stop, and worse case you yell at them once or twice and they won't do it again. But this kid... The whole complex would be able to hear this class, generally he is by himself in this class too. He will not listen, he always wants to muck around and to wreckless things but he can barely swim. He will scream and cry unless he gets his way, and he will attempt to pinch and bite you should he get to that point. And he's also not afraid of running away by jumping out of the pool and running out. You haven't seen my commanding voice until you've watched this class, because it is hell unleashed. He will backchat every sentence you say. I have pretty darn good patience, and I have pretty darn good tolerance too... but I absolutely dread this class, every saturday. If I was that kid's parent, he'd get owned from slaps ay... I dunno how they were raised but they are monsters. Normally I could make sure he doesn't run away, because he's the only one... and no way I'd let a 4? year old kid get away from me, and I also have the necessary strength to control him as well. You'd be suprised how strong a kid can be when they are desperate, and this kid is desperate to do the wrong thing. Today, I upgraded one of my best students to another level which was to the level of this monster of a child. The good student was an indian kid and would keenly and obediently do everything I told him to do. And he improved so fast and he absolutely loved swimming and he would give it everything he had and he would have been absolutely smashed after his first lesson earlier in the morning with me. Some odd reason he had a make up lesson in his new level later that morning... same class as the hellkid. The absolute best and the absolute worse placed in teh same class... It was a waste of a make up lesson as I had to spend much of the lesson controlling the other kid and could only spare half of my attention and one arm to teach him. The kid ran off once, and almost ran out of the pool centre, though my boss prevented him from exiting, which allowed me to corner him (which meant leaving a child unsupervised which I really shouldn't have done but had no choice, but I knew the good kid wouldn't do anything and he didn't he sat and watched and waited, fantastic kid to teach). I then had to pick him up off the ground and pry him from the door frame which he was holding unto in hopes of not getting back in (not because he hated the water, but because he didn't want to do as I told him to and all I told him to do was to swim with a frigggin kickboard...)... Obviously he wouldn't stand a chance as I pulled him straight off by walking with him, he then started to pinch me, but I was wearing 3 layers of clothing so no chance there either :P... and I saw his head move towards my forearm, and in the most evil tone I could muster, I whispered into his ear "Don't you even DARE think about biting me, Don't you even DARE..." I think that scared him enough to not bite me but still he was a pain... I spent the rest of the lesson teaching the good kid with one arm while I constricted the other kid with my right arm to stop him from moving, which meant I used a fair amount of strength, but the more he struggled the harder I had to squeeze to keep my grip... Not my loss... (There is a time and place for everything, and that was not the time to be gentle... seeing I do have some legal responsibilities as well as moral and occupational responsibilities). But yeah... There was no other way to handle such a kid... I had the most heavy split personality in that class... I would have a cheery soft voice talking to the good kid and correcting him and laughing, and turn into heavy, loud, angry and hoarse commanding yells the next second with the hellkid... While I was constricting him I simply ignored his screaming and crying (fake) and tantrums... but meh... I simply took all the necessary steps in the gentlest way possible, because I generally reason with bad behaviour giving them a chance to change before I pulled out my angry voice/face to stand it down. But that doesn't work with this kid... So I took it to the next level lol... Physical "imprisonment" with a strong arm...

O well... I'm tired from work... I only had 5 hours sleep last night... I worked at reception for 2-3 months before I got my license to teach, and reception is getting busier and busier so my boss is thinking of switching me to reception because I know the computer system stuff and everything else... and thats for saturdays specifically... which means I won't get hellkid.. but that might mean I also lose teaching the awesome kid whom I want to teach cos he's friggin brilliant... so it's a toss up... lol... but given the choice I'll probably do reception... unless the awesome kid comes another day orrr I somehow get rid of hellkid and give his curse upon another unfortunate soul :P

*edit* What was ironic was that the hellkid called me "Bad"... for commanding, yelling, and punishing him for his appalling behaviour that no other kid apart from his little brother can show. Which means that hellkid here, thinks that what he is doing is RIGHT... and that he should be allowed to disobey instructions at his free leisure... And I wasn't about to have my authority undermined by some maniacal child... So I enforced it, with mercy and reason... but then with force when I had no other option... lol... but meh... My brother used to teach hellkid... but he was too lenient, never got him to do anything that he didn't like or didn't want to do... And pretty much just played with him... So the kid is always saying "I want Daniel, I hate you!" or other crap that I don't care about... Different approach I guess... I put learning first and use fun as a medium or reward... And since the kid never wanted to listen and learn, he lost all his rewards. I let my students muck around and have fun... but too a point... and only if they continue to do as I ask when I ask them to do it. So in the time that I'm not getting them to do things, they can do whatever they please within certain safety limits... so most kids like my classes as I am least strict on "free play"... At school, we always got told that whatever things we wanted to do that they let us do was a privilege and if we step over the lines, we lose it (like trip mines, you step over, you get your legs blown off)... I'm simply applying what I know is effective...