A commenter gave a great insight from a college PE pedagogy class: "everyone always moves." It's a terrific piece of advice for a sports program. After all, you're not there to write term papers. You're trying to learn how to move!
Of course, this does not mean that you can move in any random pattern, according to your own desires, and whenever or wherever you feel like it. There are always issues of safety, courtesy, and space.
The commenter goes on to talk about a teacher who said yes, but you have to limit activity on a given apparatus, for safety reasons. And this is the crux of the matter. In an ice rink, the entire room is our apparatus. And like other apparatuses- whether a balance beam or a baseball diamond- there are rules about sharing and appropriate use.
Where to skate
In class, you've probably got a restricted area for the students in your level or class only. Unless the teachers give explicit permission to cross into another level's ice, you stay in your own boundaries. (Skating through another class is fairly common in freestyle classes, unheard of in Learn to Skate.) In private lessons you skate where the coach tells you, or according to whatever set pattern the rink has laid out.
When to skate
When the coach says "go." Period. This is not negotiable. It's really easy to move on skates, and kids (as well as a lot of adults) have ants in their pants-- they seem incapable of sitting still. I'd love to see how this works in an office, or a class room, or a car, or at random street crossings. If you've gotten stuck with a coach that talks too much, you still have to stand still. Next time, don't take class from that coach. But frankly coaches that talk too much are not really the problem; most of them don't. The problem is children who simply skate off at random times with no consideration for any of the above safety rules.
What to skate
The task at hand. This means that when the class is practicing spins, you should not be doing waltz jumps.
Who should skate
Everyone, or no one. If you are the only person moving, and have not been explicitly told "we are now going to demonstrate one at a time, and it's your turn" then You Are Doing It Wrong.
How do you know when skate?
Just going to take a wild stab at this, and suggest "listening."
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From a parent's point of view:
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes coaches are a problem. Well, not "real" certified coaches usually, but teen teaching assistants who apparently just don't know how or what to teach. I don't know why at hour rink TAs are often assigned to teach classes with no supervision, and unfortunately sometimes they are not good teachers at all. My almost 3 year old started a tot class recently. Yes, she can't stand still very long. But she LOVES to skate and WANTS to learn. That's why I signed her up for the class at such a young age! Our tot class is tiny, sometimes mine is the only student. Sometimes she is one of 3 or 4. There are 2 TAs there, so it's not like there are 10 kids and one teacher, and mine is causing any distractions. When we signed up, there were other TAs teaching this class, and it was great. When the new term started in April, they switched teachers around and the current ones just stand there for most of the time. Or draw cute pictures on the ice. And the kids are supposed to stand still and do nothing. Sure, the pictures are cute, but that's not what we signed up for. So my daughter starts zipping and unzipping TA's pocket, playing with her skate laces, etc. And then she is told that she didn't behave very well! Sure she didn't! Tell her what to practice, and she will! Glides, swizzles, I don't care. I don't even care how much she actually learns right now. She just wants to go to class like her big sister and be learning something. At least keep her skating!
Maria, mom of two skaters: Basic 7 and Snow Plow Sam
Reconstructed comment from Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteBut sometimes coaches are a problem. Well, not "real" certified coaches usually, but teen teaching assistants who apparently just don't know how or what to teach. I don't know why at hour rink TAs are often assigned to teach classes with no supervision, and unfortunately sometimes they are not good teachers at all. My almost 3 year old started a tot class recently. Yes, she can't stand still very long. But she LOVES to skate and WANTS to learn. That's why I signed her up for the class at such a young age! Our tot class is tiny, sometimes mine is the only student. Sometimes she is one of 3 or 4. There are 2 TAs there, so it's not like there are 10 kids and one teacher, and mine is causing any distractions. When we signed up, there were other TAs teaching this class, and it was great. When the new term started in April, they switched teachers around and the current ones just stand there for most of the time. Or draw cute pictures on the ice. And the kids are supposed to stand still and do nothing. Sure, the pictures are cute, but that's not what we signed up for. So my daughter starts zipping and unzipping TA's pocket, playing with her skate laces, etc. And then she is told that she didn't behave very well! Sure she didn't! Tell her what to practice, and she will! Glides, swizzles, I don't care. I don't even care how much she actually learns right now. She just wants to go to class like her big sister and be learning something. At least keep her skating!
Maria, mom of two skaters: Basic 7 and Snow Plow Sam
My first question with a child that young is *can* she move, and secondly, can everyone else in the class move too? I spend a lot of time sitting on the ice with the little guys-- I'd rather have them sitting and happy than standing and crying. And, I'd rather keep the class together, even if it keeps some kids from moving as much as they want. Finally, if you want a 1 to 1 teacher child ratio, just do private lessons. You can hardly complain that there are 4 students, but only 2 teachers. They probably switched teachers around because they needed teachers on classes that actually had a lot of students.
ReplyDeleteYes, she can move, she can get up, and she has never cried in class. I am NOT complainging about the student-teach ratio, I was just saying that keeping even 4 kids moving, at least slowly, is not that hard when you have 2 teachers and all the kids CAN move (which is the case in our class). The number of teachers never changed actually. They just changed the teachers. I don't care why they rotate the teachers, I don't mind that they do. I was just expaining why we signed up for this class: it was great in the previous session. But two days ago there were 2 teachers and 2 students. Both can move and get up when they fall, neither cries. Most of the class one teacher was drawing cute pictures on the ice, and the other teacher and both girls were standing and watching him draw.
ReplyDeleteMaria, mom of two skaters: Basic 7 and Snow Plow Sam
I've never understood why they put the least experienced teachers on the tot classes, which are often the hardest to teach.
ReplyDelete