The Power of Doing nothing

                                                            ZERO

At stage one children are just coming to the pool for the first time and finding out what it is like to be in a new and challenging environment without being able to hold their parent's hand. It goes without saying that they can find it too much. This is why my stage one lessons are such a pleasure for me to run because I can reassure these young people that the pool is the place to come back to for a highly rewarding experience. It is always so fascinating to see "the power of doing nothing" working it's miracles over and over again. By this I mean establishing the idea that there are no expectations for what the child has to do other than to be safe, feel safe, have fun and listen to friendly advice about the environment and the other little people that they know so little about at first. The term length is 14 weeks, the lessons are only half an hour long and yet the children make progress at an exponential rate when this simple rule is applied rigorously. After all it is about building trust and that can only grow under a warm shower of consistency and honesty. Typically very tense children take between 2 and 4 lessons to be able to start engaging with the water and as long as you stick to your lack of intervention guns they will delight in coming and then really begin to tackle the meat of their learning. What small price to pay, just a few weeks, or rather just a few water hours. Some take much longer but their issues and how to solve them become clearer when you are mentally travelling slowly enough in your observations to see.

I yearn for the day that all swimming lessons are longer as progress rates would increase yet again but for now I have to work with what I have available to me and help people to the best of my ability. I would also like to call the first stage of learning to swim stage Zero as it gives the parents a clear message about the expected lack of application of ANY pressure to the child. Then once firmly established I would like to allow this golden thread to run through all of the other stages so that it is no longer confined to the preschool domain. To be in charge of yourself is to be a powerful learner and free to choose to never stop learning. It is something that has been missing from so many lessons for so many years and I spend my time fighting for the rights of my students to have it. Zero is one of my heroes!