I've been a teacher of swimming for 25 years and worked with a variety of students starting as young as two and as old as seventy-five. My students have been my greatest teachers. They're the ones who have taught me to break skills down into bite-size chunks and the importance of providing an environment of encouragement and possibility.
Beth is teaching me the head float. With my chin and forehead out of the
water on my back, I push off from the wall into the back float while
keeping head and chin in a neutral position. She wants me to kick my
legs while floating on my back, but quickly sees how locked my knees
are. I get out of the pool, sit on a chair and Beth helps me move my
knees, experimenting, moving them for me so I can feel how it should
work.
Beth is a talented teacher. I’ve been an educator my whole life, working with all ages, including as a professor—so, I think I’m qualified to say this. I specialized in teaching reading [we’ll get back to Beth in a minute]. Some kids learn to read organically, a larger group learns as a group in the classroom. The remaining struggling readers need specialized instruction. It takes a talented teacher to help them achieve reading fluency. In addition to teaching the mechanics of reading—lessons must be tailored to meet individual learning styles, get rid of heaps of emotional baggage [including shame, fear, frustration], build confidence and finally, help the learner experience the joy and empowerment that reading brings.
I think a lot of this is true for teaching non-swimmers to swim.
I didn’t learn how to swim organically. I need specific, personalized instruction.
Beth has years of experience teaching swimming to draw on, but she personalizes her lesson. For example, after getting me out of the pool to practice kicking she could tell I still didn’t get it—we got back into the pool and she gently moved my legs for me so I could feel the correct motion. She continually experiments and observes: you are locking your knees--here are some ways to relax them.
While Beth moves my legs, I relaxed and floated which built my confidence and joy in the water. I could feel how high on the surface I am floating. I wonder how I can achieve that on my own and will practice it between lessons.
Maybe natural swimmers don’t think about the many small movements and minute adjustments go into the process—just as most fluent readers don’t think about phonics. Most couldn’t show them to a non-swimmer. Beth can.
Beth is a talented teacher. I’ve been an educator my whole life, working with all ages, including as a professor—so, I think I’m qualified to say this. I specialized in teaching reading [we’ll get back to Beth in a minute]. Some kids learn to read organically, a larger group learns as a group in the classroom. The remaining struggling readers need specialized instruction. It takes a talented teacher to help them achieve reading fluency. In addition to teaching the mechanics of reading—lessons must be tailored to meet individual learning styles, get rid of heaps of emotional baggage [including shame, fear, frustration], build confidence and finally, help the learner experience the joy and empowerment that reading brings.
I think a lot of this is true for teaching non-swimmers to swim.
I didn’t learn how to swim organically. I need specific, personalized instruction.
Beth has years of experience teaching swimming to draw on, but she personalizes her lesson. For example, after getting me out of the pool to practice kicking she could tell I still didn’t get it—we got back into the pool and she gently moved my legs for me so I could feel the correct motion. She continually experiments and observes: you are locking your knees--here are some ways to relax them.
While Beth moves my legs, I relaxed and floated which built my confidence and joy in the water. I could feel how high on the surface I am floating. I wonder how I can achieve that on my own and will practice it between lessons.
Maybe natural swimmers don’t think about the many small movements and minute adjustments go into the process—just as most fluent readers don’t think about phonics. Most couldn’t show them to a non-swimmer. Beth can.
Toward the end of the lesson, while I’m floating on my back, Beth asks
me to exhale air through my nose, then she turns me from my back to
the belly position, where I blow bubbles in the water before returning to
my back to breathe. I try it several times and suddenly, jubilant I get it—I
do it! Beth grins and I feel her authentic joy in my learning.
In a recent interview one of Beth’s students told me she hears Beth’s voice in her head when she swims. I laughed remembering my reading students who used to tell me they heard my voice when they were reading—that’s what a good teacher does, lends you her voice until it is replaced with your own.
In a recent interview one of Beth’s students told me she hears Beth’s voice in her head when she swims. I laughed remembering my reading students who used to tell me they heard my voice when they were reading—that’s what a good teacher does, lends you her voice until it is replaced with your own.
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