I'm hoping others have these moments too!

My latest came yesterday, waiting to get on the ice w/ a learn to skate class. I have a little girl, 3 years old, in one class. I had her last session too. She's cute as a button, but any time I asked her to do something she'd just stand there looking at me, even though I'd just explained it to the class. If I got in front of her & showed her, then she'd start skating.

I wondered if, being 3, she just wasn't listening well, or maybe even if she was a little slow.....until yesterday when I heard her parents talking to her *in Chinese!* HELLO! If she's only 3 and speaks Chinese at home, how much English does she really have a grasp of? My guess is, not much!!! Duh!

Please tell me I'm not alone in not always grasping the whole picture when it comes to teaching students!

You're not alone. There are a lot of children (and adults) who say "okay" when it really means "I know you're talking to me, but I have no idea what you're saying." lol

I used to coach swimming and I had one very sweet young lady who just didn't get it when I would tell them the next step in the workout. She always had to go last and even correcting her strokes one-on-one didn't work. It was as if she wasn't listening.

I saw her at a church function once wearing really thick glasses. I mentioned them to her mother, who said that it had really helped the girl's schoolwork. I suggested prescription swimming goggles and the change was almost immediate. Suddenly she could SEE what was being demonstrated or what I was describing. She became a really good swimmer once her strokes were "fixed."

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It never ceases to amaze me how many parents will throw their child into a group lesson without bothering to inform the coach that, "Oh, btw, Suzi has a severe hearing loss and needs to see your face to read your lips." or "Johnny is easily frustrated and will launch into a full-blown, kicking & screaming tantrum when you least expect it."

We have a huge international population at our rink so it's always a challenge in the first few weeks to determine if the kids are not listening or are not understanding.

And then it's a challenge where kids who really aren't listening play it off as "don't understand English" when you know that the previous week they understood it just fine!

A few coaches at the rink who have an ear for languge have learned to ask kids for their attention in a few of the languages we have at the rink: Russian, Korean, Japanese, and that always shocks the heck out of the kids who really are just goofing off- because they don't expect it- and makes the kids who are younger and just having a hard time focusing on English snap back into the lesson mode. Unfortunately, this is not a talent I have. I've played a few games with my youngest kids who speak a little English but mostly Mandarin involve them telling me how to say words and them laughing at me trying (Ever try to learn a tonal language from a 4 year old?)

For one basic skills skater, who does understand English, but has a lot of attention problems, and the lack of good English doesn't help- we have a freestyle skater who also speaks Japanese to help with his class. Not specifically with him, but she's there to translate when he really zones out.

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Not to mention the low-muscle tone student who broke wind during lessons. Poor kid.


BTW coaches, don't believe the students when they say they never learned about inside/outside edges, checking, or bending at the waist when you're substituting for another coach.

I can't tell you how many times I've covered classes for coaches that I KNOW use these terms every class. I've had other coaches who covered for me make a point of telling me that the students didn't know those terms. I can't imagine why not - I explain and use them every week! lol

Selective hearing or stalling, I think!

Now I've begun doing quizzes, to make sure they're paying attention. "What does it mean to check the jump entrance?" "What edge should you be using?"

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How about letting coaches know when kids have major diagnoses, such as conduct disorder? Or my very favorite--the kid who absolutely refuses to make eye contact or speak to ANYONE. Are they painfully shy or suffering from some form of autism? My approach would be really different if I knew which one it was but heaven forbid a parent should TELL me, even when I say, "Is there anything you can tell me that will help me work with him/her?" They always say, "No, not really." I guess I should be flattered that they think coaches are MAGICAL!!!!

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You miss 100% of the shots you never take.--Wayne Gretzky

I have been very lucky because any student that I have had who has had special needs, their parents have told me about it. In the past I had students who had:
* a stroke as a baby, so didn't have use of one side of her body
* Down's Syndrome
* Tourette Syndrome
* Deaf (used an interpreter on ice with her)
* and currently I have a student who only speaks Italian, she understands English, but speaks Italian.

But, it can be hard to give attention to everyone in the group while appropriately helping those who need a little bit of extra help.

--Kim

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Skating Dreams

"All your life you are told the things you cannot do. All your life they will say you're not good enough or strong enough or talented enough; they will say you're the wrong height or the wrong weight or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this. THEY WILL TELL YOU NO, a thousand times no, until all the no's become meaningless. All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. AND YOU WILL TELL THEM YES." --Nike

Yeah, and I've got a new one---new adult class yesterday. Young woman, in a heavy wool coat that *might* be cut for pregnancy. Or maybe it just has kind of an empire waist & she's a bit heavy. I certainly can't ask her if she's pregnant, but if she were I would greatly discourage her from starting up skating until after the baby comes!!! So I just watch her, and worry. Maybe one of these weeks she won't wear the coat, & I could tell for sure.....

My son has intermittent glue ear with hearing difficulties and I always tell the coaches.

Its interesting to see the different reactions/approaches although my favourite is always the coaches who ask me what works (which by the way is making eye contact and being relatively close before talking... not skating away mid conversation or talking to him with back to him etc. and not shouting loudly either).

One coach who is very quiet does really well with him (which I was intially surprised about) although she bends down to kids height when she talks (son now has a teddy called after her).

Some of them shout loudly at him which generally causes offence to him as he feels humiliated.... (He asked me today why does K always shout "attention" to me in a really loud voice?)

It is a big learning experience and I do feel sorry for coaches - after all - school teachers have a kid several hours per day every day and get to know him/her where coaches have much, much more kids for shorter periods of time and must be so much harder to figure all the kids out.

My 10 year old daughter has very clear things she looks for in her coaches and discusses her different ratings and reasons behind them quite eloquently. (Probably something for another thread if anybody interested).

You know, I feel the exact opposite. Coaching groups has given me new insight to the difficulties of teachers facing classrooms of 20 to 30 kids. It's hard to teach a group of 5 or 6 when they are at different skill levels and have different strengths and weaknesses, but it can be done. How can any school teacher possibly do justice to every child in her/his class?

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School teachers, having the kids over longer periods, have more time to individualize the lesson, not to mention more space to break into groups & conduct more than one exercise at a time.

Yes! I would really like to hear about your daughter's coach rating system!! Is this for group lesson instruction or privates?

It's too late now, but you could have done something the first day. Picked up a piece of paper and stare at it like you were reading something the rink made you say. Then say something like

"May I have your attention?" Then, in a sing song voice, "We want to remind you that skating, like any other athletic activity, is potentially somewhat dangerous. In our first lesson, we will practice falling gently and getting up, and moving on a slippery surface. If you have any kind of medical condition that could make that dangerous, such as extremely brittle bones, knees that can not bend or completely straighten, narcolepsy, pregnancy, etc., please speak to the instructor about it. Each of you please say yes if you understand."

Place no emphasis on "pregnancy". Record what you say, and everyone's agreement that they understand.

Maybe you can still say something like that.

If you are in the USA, remember that everyone has a right to sue anyone else. Imagine what a jury would think of a coach who ignored obvious pregnancy, and helped create a miscarriage.

That's the problem--it's not obvious, not by a long shot.

I have never worked at a skating school that did not require a signature on a rather scary warning - things like "could result in serious injury or death." That said, of course there is no waiver against negligence that could be proven in a court of law. More importantly, though, it's not so easy to provoke a miscarriage with a fall. If it were - there would be no abortion clinics. I think a greater risk would be the need for anesthesia in the case of a serious accident.

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I agree with you there- and thought the same thing, but I think those signatures are pretty worthless if they have money for a good lawyer. However, I would be very scared to learn after the fact that I was teaching a pregnant adult. I don't have any problems with adults skating during pregnancy (with a doctors okay), especially early on, because it likely wouldn't cause any harm to the baby. (Learning to skate, however, seems a bit odd...) But to not tell anyone could be very dangerous in that freak situation where something happens. Many women choose not to announce their pregnancies until after the 1st trimester, but it would be nice if there was a way to tell a coach confidentally in case anything happened.

If she shows up in "pregnancy clothes" again next week, Would you feel comfortable, in a joking manner- asking "Now, you don't look it at all, so I feel silly saying this, but just noticing the cut of your clothes lately- is there any chance you might be pregnant? We just want to make sure we are watching out for your safety while skating."

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-Jessi
What I need is a montage...
Visit my skating journal or my Youtube videos (updated with 2 new videos Sept 26, 2009)

Hmmm, I'm not sure I'd recommend that; you could really offend her if she's not pregnant. You have to be careful, b/c clothes sometimes look like maternity clothes but really aren't, or some people just have large stomachs.

One time, when I was at a professional association event, I noticed someone I knew, but not that well, wearing a knit top that was kind of snug, and her stomach was sticking out to the point where she looked about 4-5 months pregnant. Seriously. Except that she wasn't. I went over to her and some others I knew and said hello, and then to her "Congratulations." She looked kind of confused and said "For what?" Yikes. I quickly said something like "Ooops, I had you confused with someone else, I must be losing my mind" and all was well. She must just be one of those people that is apple-shaped and not pear-shaped, lol. Thankfully, disaster was averted....but it goes to show that you can't assume anything.

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Terri C is a Bronze lady!
Gold Moves, here I come!

Do you have liability insurance through the PSA? Our rink requires us to carry all instructors--group and private--to carry insurance.

You can get liability insurance through the USFS and ISI as well.

Most definitely!

Is there any arena that will let you teach without liability insurance? They are crazy if they do! I actually did have a pregnant woman in my LTS adult class last spring. She and her husband were both in the class, and she was much better than her husband, generally relaxed and caught on quickly to everything. Because she was an observant Jew, she wore loose fitting clothes and long skirts. I didn't have a clue she was pregnant until she told me that she would only be attending two more classes because she was going into her 7th month ! I also had a few students tell me they were stopping because they were either pregnant (just found out) or trying.

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Glad it's just not parents around here that do that! I've had parents not tell me a whole slew of things, including that their child was autistic.

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- Ashley

She is in a group setting although has a "personal coach" who we mainly liaise with and who does an occasional one to one to give a competition program to. My daughter is VERY verbal (she tells me she loves words) - so this will be a marathon read. I spend my life hearing too much information from her.

1. (The most important for her) - How well she understands what they want her to do. She doesn't do great with long lists of verbally presented instructions. Her best is the coach saying the words while demonstrating the move at the same time. She gets muddled is they say "do x on a this edge , cross, followed by a backwards 3-turn, followed by a skip and another 3 turn and 2 more edges....She says she has forgotten by the third instruction if it isn't demonstrated.
2. She likes it if they gently move her arms/posture into position when she has them slightly wrong as she doesn't always realised that an arm is trailing somewhere.
3, She likes to feel "pushed" and to work hard during the session.
4. Mood - she likes coaches to have a predicatable, relatively stable mood. Even some of the nicest coaches have the odd bad day but she hates it if somebody is very variable and unpredictable. (Jokey/friendly one day and angry and shouting the next). She is happy to put up with a variety of temperaments provided she knows what to expect.
5. Coaches who are fairly even in the amount of attention they give to various kids. She says its fine if somebody is struggling and possibly needs extra help but there are some coaches who are practically giving a one to one to a favoured pupil in a group class and this "bugs" her. She dislikes it even if she is a particular coaches favourite because its unfair on her friends.
6. Absence of sarcasm/belittling/insulting etc. She is quite sensitive and if fighting back tears or struggling with feeling cross she falls a lot more and doesn't skate her best. She says spins and jumps affected more when she is upset that other skating. She then gets cross with herself because her skating has gone bad and then it gets even worse.
7 Feedback/comments individualised within a group setting - some coaches are great at telling each kid what they personally need to work on (e.g. shoulders down/hips forwards etc.) while others make a very general comment which may or may not apply to everybody.
8. Coaches who praise a lot - even if they just tell her they can see she is trying hard. She is a perfectionish who puts in tons of effort and coaches who know her realise this and find something positive in her skating. (She is very self-critical as a child and finds loads wrong with her own skating but feels very encouraged if they praise). She doesn't like false praise though.
9.Additional extra's are coaches with a sense of humour who may joke or tease just a bit during sessions or have a bit of banter sometimes with the pupils.

There are about 4 - 5 coaches at her rink who get top scores in all 9 scale items. Two of them are teenagers!

Thanks Cazzie!
No big surprizes in her comments, but great to hear all this directly from a young skater. She knows what she likes and is able to express it very clearly, down to the details! Thank you for taking the time to transcribe her thoughts. My guess is the coaches all find her a joy to work with.

What is funny to me, and helps explain to all of us why some kids work better with different coaches ... a lot of the stuff your daughter dislikes, my kids LIKE, and some of the stuff she likes they would dislike and would not find effective. Goes to show that there is never going to be a one size fits all coaching solution.

Absolutely - so many kids have different temperaments and learning styles. DD's all time favourite coach is hated by about half the kids who refer to this person by a truly horrible nickname. (The other half could form a fan club).

Interestingly my 6 year old seems to like similar coaches to his big sister. Not completely the same and I have concluded that there are coaches who don't like terribly young kids in general and young boys in particular although I sympathise - they are in some ways a harder group to teach.