Fish Out of Water

The end of term one also meant the end of swimming season. The past few months I’ve been coaching the high school swim team. The funny part is I’m not a swimmer at all. I took swim lessons as a kid and spent my summers in the swimming pool, but I’ve never practiced the formal strokes. So how did I end up doing this? It all started when I took my life skill students to learn water safety. I am good friends with the local swim coach here and I’ve helped him with several swimming activities since he also coaches the kids I teach at the private school. Thus I asked the coach to come one afternoon and teach my high school students. Once he saw how good they were, he decided to continue working with not only that class, but the entire school—that’s when the swim team began.

                Due to the coaches schedule, he couldn’t be there everyday, that’s where came in as coach. I worked with the students every Tuesday- Thursday. Friday is when the coach came to watch them. I knew what the proper technique looked like, so standing on the outside of the pool I would tell them, “Chin up, kick from the waist, toes together, and thumbs out!” I also run drills with them, taught them the correct way to dive, and how to swim without holding their noses.  After two months of training, we took the kids to a gala (swim meet) where they competed against 4 other schools. They raced in back stroke, breast stroke, butterfly, and freestyle. Every single event they did, they won first place!

                I’ve tried different projects here, you know, ones that we’re my ides, but haven’t been as successful as this. This time around, I wasn’t pushing swimming on the kids, they were the ones who wanted it and took ownership. Four days a week the kids were in the pool. I didn’t have to drag them there. I even saw them practice alone on the weekends. These kids were excited to do something other than play soccer or netball.

                Like I said, there was some real talent in these kids.  There were a few who looked like torpedoes in the water. We even dubbed the nickname “Superman” to one of the boys because of how fast he was.  I wish I had more time here and had more help to let these kids explore their options available. As you’ve read in other blogs of mine, I started teaching dance lessons, the kids loved it—they were learning something more than just the traditional African dances. African kids are more than just soccer and learning home economics. Just like the youth around the world, they want to be exposed to gold, music producing, to technology, to art, etc. We can not limit their creativity or their interests, if we do, than we limit their future.