Working Together
As my summer job, I was a figure skating teacher for “Learn to Skate Lessons” at our local Ice Skating Rink. After skating my whole life, what could be better than having a job getting paid while ice-skating! My initial thoughts were that this would be a piece of cake; just helping others do what I do best. However, I soon realized that there were many more aspects to coaching than just ice skating alone. Understanding individual personalities, having the ability to make quick decisions, and perceiving the relation of different emotions and moods on how the students are performing, all helped build my leadership skills.
One particular incident I remember applies to the Unit 2
readings very well. It was a Friday and I was teaching my last group lesson before the weekend. My usual six students all around the age of 5 were all bundled up and ready to go for their basic ice skating lesson. I was tired from a long week, however in order to be a good leader I needed to put a smile on my face and be enthusiastic so that my students, as well as their parents, are excited about ice skating. If I’m not in a good mood, then my students aren’t going to want to learn and the negative energy will spread, which is not what I want as a coach! After about the first 10 minutes, the most talkative boy in the class fell on his knee after attempting to do swizzles (For more information on what swizzles are go toà http://figureskating.about.com/od/glossaryofskatingterms/g/swizzles.htm . He immediately started crying and I had to use my quick decision making skills
to solve this issue (For steps to learn about Rational Decision Making go to -- http://www.the-happy-manager.com/rational-decision-making-model.html . After witnessing the fall and knowing that it wasn’t a painful fall, I picked him up off the ice and started talking to him. I tried to distract him from what just happened by tickling him and joking around, saying “Oh I think your knee is still there, yep its still there, don’t worry you’re fine!” The boy started laughing and I knew right away the pain didn’t upset him; rather he was just scared from the fall. Instead of rushing him off the ice to his parents when he started crying, I made a better decision of helping him over come it and moving on with the class.
The rest of the ice-skating lesson went well and the whole group did great. As a coach, I need to motivate and encourage my students. This is the key part to their success on the ice. I used continuous reinforcement to in my classes by giving the kids high fives every time they successful completed a task. I also used the operant conditioning learning style for the kids by giving them a sticker at the end of each class (For more information about Different Learning Theories go to à http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/theories.html. This encouraged them to work hard to receive a sticker of accomplishment. Even though each student had their own individual behavior and learning abilities, we worked together as a class to push the others who needed help. As a leader I can now take all the experience I’ve learned from the summer and apply it to my daily life, whether its working in a group project or teaching lessons again next summer.
