The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Last week I started my erstwhile swim teaching job. It's just two classes meeting 7 times each over the next few weeks (ending about when BarBri ends), but as usual I'm glad I'm doing it. For one, it's helped structure my time - I've been getting a lot of studying done during the gap between the morning BarBri lectures and my afternoon teaching. Plus I can stay and swim some laps when I'm done, which is also consistent with my summer mission of becoming less squishy (I miss muscle tone...), and it will allow me to extend my certification another two years.

And then there's the teaching itself, which is its own reward. I have one non-homogenous Level III class and one class of little kids (3-5 years old). I think that's my favorite class to teach. The kids are always lots of fun and learn so much so quickly. And I get to play Zoo, which is my favorite game. I sometimes think I like to teach just so I get to play Zoo...

I was a little anxious before I started teaching because this is a new facility for me. I've taught at relatively few facilities, I think - this is only my 4th since 1989! Every facility has its own ways of doing things, it's own culture, and it's own physical constraints. I was afraid, culture-wise, that I would be too much of an outsider since I'm new here and only doing just those few lessons and not guarding. But the aquatics people are all really nice, and the people in charge of the swim program have good pedagogical values so I feel comfortable working for them. (In the past there have been a few occasions where that's not been the case, and I've been instructed to teach in a way inconsistent with my better judgment).

The physical layout of the pool is a little frustrating though. There's just not enough shallow area, and that makes teaching the 3-5 year olds a little difficult. This tends to be a problem in pools, where "shallow" is considered 3' or 3.5' deep, but they really need 2.5' deep water. Pools just don't seem to have enough sufficiently shallow areas like that, which is not only bad for teaching but limits these kids' rec swimming options too. I very much miss the first pool where I taught - the one where I learned to swim myself - which was a natural pond landscaped into a swimmable lake (600 square yards or so?) with a gradually sloping sandy bottom. It eventually got to 3.5'-4' deep, but not for a long time. There was plenty of space to line up the kids in waste-deep water before that point, and you never had to worry about them keeping "two hands on the wall!" at all. But I haven't taught there since 1992... so instead I'm learning to adapt my curriculum for this particular pool's constraints.