Very close friends of mine have cultivated their children's interest and affinity for swimming. More than a dozen years back, the parents asked me what was really important to cultivate self-motivated and excellence oriented kids. Among several key pieces, I noted the importance of developing commitment to something beyond school learning...music, art, physical performance.
This family chose swimming and the girls were enrolled in a structured swimming program throughout their school careers. In high school now, each young lady competes in meets leading to Olympic proportions. Naturally, their parents have invested in, have indeed stewarded their daughters' interest, affinity, and achievement.
Time, talent, and treasure have backed them up and launched levels of achievement that are synonymous with The American Dream. The older daughter, about to enter her senior year, is being courted by five universities this summer. Financially, she will be supported -well deserved for the five a.m. risings that characterize her hard-earned success across her high school years. Financially, her parents will be partnered throughout their daughter's college career -well deserved for their steadfast persistence to being the parents that fashioned an extraordinary environment that made dreaming realistic and within reach and worth working for daily, monthly, annually since first grade!
My thrill comes during visits with this family in Colorado. I witness first-hand the fruits of my professional advice merged with their faith in such, their focus, persistence, and steadfastness in their family pursuit of The American Dream. Each teacher development program should witness then study the learning-training elements of swim practice. Witnessing the mindfully coached workings of early morning swim practices, combined with focused interviews during meets, has made it clear to me as a veteran educator and psychologist, that student performance in schools would benefit greatly.
This is particularly true for urban classrooms where we find the majority of learners arrive at school woefully under-prepared for the curriculum destined to be delivered. The introduction of skill, modeling, mirroring, and zone of proximal development combined with formally structured drill of skill sets, and culminating in regularly scheduled real-life and self-informing "meets" matches the structure missing in under-prepared school kids.
In a file on my laptop, brews a practical handbook for urban teachers devoted in spirit to delivering the classroom learning structure that will do what stickers have failed to do: build and drill skill combined with motivation swim-style. What's more, we can do this not only for a room filled with children who arrive and develop via different personal schedules, strengths and needs, we can do this on a school-wide basis. As skill acquisition and drill design structuring advancement within and among widely varied individual swimmers successfully buoys them daily upstream in their pursuit of bronze, silver, and gold -so can we channel the advancement of literate and self-propelled learners.
Let's hear it from the swimmers among us...
This family chose swimming and the girls were enrolled in a structured swimming program throughout their school careers. In high school now, each young lady competes in meets leading to Olympic proportions. Naturally, their parents have invested in, have indeed stewarded their daughters' interest, affinity, and achievement.
Time, talent, and treasure have backed them up and launched levels of achievement that are synonymous with The American Dream. The older daughter, about to enter her senior year, is being courted by five universities this summer. Financially, she will be supported -well deserved for the five a.m. risings that characterize her hard-earned success across her high school years. Financially, her parents will be partnered throughout their daughter's college career -well deserved for their steadfast persistence to being the parents that fashioned an extraordinary environment that made dreaming realistic and within reach and worth working for daily, monthly, annually since first grade!
My thrill comes during visits with this family in Colorado. I witness first-hand the fruits of my professional advice merged with their faith in such, their focus, persistence, and steadfastness in their family pursuit of The American Dream. Each teacher development program should witness then study the learning-training elements of swim practice. Witnessing the mindfully coached workings of early morning swim practices, combined with focused interviews during meets, has made it clear to me as a veteran educator and psychologist, that student performance in schools would benefit greatly.
This is particularly true for urban classrooms where we find the majority of learners arrive at school woefully under-prepared for the curriculum destined to be delivered. The introduction of skill, modeling, mirroring, and zone of proximal development combined with formally structured drill of skill sets, and culminating in regularly scheduled real-life and self-informing "meets" matches the structure missing in under-prepared school kids.
In a file on my laptop, brews a practical handbook for urban teachers devoted in spirit to delivering the classroom learning structure that will do what stickers have failed to do: build and drill skill combined with motivation swim-style. What's more, we can do this not only for a room filled with children who arrive and develop via different personal schedules, strengths and needs, we can do this on a school-wide basis. As skill acquisition and drill design structuring advancement within and among widely varied individual swimmers successfully buoys them daily upstream in their pursuit of bronze, silver, and gold -so can we channel the advancement of literate and self-propelled learners.
Let's hear it from the swimmers among us...
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