…fun – when they try to outsmart me;
…scary – when they look at me as the ultimate expert;
…tiring – when they’re not enthousiastic;
…annoying – when they’re not willing to learn.
About this blog
This is my personal blog which I started in 2003. At first it was called Communigations, a variation on Communicative Investigations. The blog transformed itself more into a personal investigation than being a blog on communication and therefore needed a new name.As a fencer, the name of this blog reflects how I write my thoughts into coherent stories, fence them off from all the sidepaths and rapidly go back and forth, covering various topics that interest me.
Read more about me or about my work at elminewijnia.eu
6 Comments
FSTA? what kind of acronym is that? :-p
JK was intrigued with the not wanting to learn part. I didnt want to learn the piano (or tennis). still pissed of about it.
whats your view on that?
As you know I coach every friday night at a fencing club up north in our country. Every now and then they’re so NOT motivated to participate during practice. They only get 1,5 hours a week of fencing practice, which is too little anyway. So I would expect some eagerness by the end of the week, working yourself into sweat, letting out all week’s frustration.
Instead, they’re always complaining of little pains, have no stamina, and approach me as if I were the average teacher at school: Making them do stuff that they don’t like.
I guess most of the kids see the fencing practice as compulsory, just as school is. To some extend we encourage that attitude, because our club is so small, we need all the kids to participate every Friday night for them to be able to practice with their peers.
The downside of it though, is with that attitude they approach fencing practice the same as school: I must go to fencing practice (because my parents tell me to).
So if you’re dealing with teaching kids some new skills for fencing and half of the group enjoys hanging out on the benches talking to eachother more than practicing fencing, it gets downright frustrating as a coach.
I’m not the kind of coach that wants to drag them by their hairs and make them do stuff. So I don’t. Instead, I’m now in the process of making them aware that fencing practice is not the same as school. They chose to go fencing, and yes, sometimes we do stuff that is not the best fun to do, because in any sport repetition is a large part of the practice. But some of the kids easily forget that they chose for fencing themselves and that it can be very rewarding if, after doing all kind of stupid excercises, they all of a sudden are able to defeat their peers in a tournament.
Long story short: I needed to vent some of my own frustration
ouch a difficult one. exactly as my piano and tennis pains.
for me the tipping point was when sports (that I wasnt interested in) stopped being some sort of play with my friends, and started to get (very) serious.
(I dropped out of every sport I was doing)
then after a while I found something that really interested me.
I believe in any education there is some form of “dead zone” that needs to be crossed.
After a while you get the point that your sport/hobby is a metaphore for life. (my dad and I use motorcycle racing as a metaphore all the time). And I’ve learned that from those early sports. (so there still is something to be gained)
please keep posting on your coaching woes. for me it’s very educational. (I have the same problems with teaching
(how did the beanbag training go?)
Yes, I recognize the dead zone. A couple of years back we had an issue with some other kids (13-15 yrs) who came solely for “hanging out” with eachother. That would have been OK, but they were annoying to the other members. In the end the board wrote them a letter, asking them to either behave or quit. They all quit fencing.
The atmosphere immediately improved, but I’m a little scared that we’re at the same point with the current group.
Question is how we drag these kids past the dead zone, obviously they’re not entirely motivated anymore.
Managing between the different skill levels is definitely an issue for me as a coach. A few go to tournaments (and are capable of winning), others are mere beginners.
I will keep you posted!
(the beanbags are a difficult one, so first learning it myself before teaching others
)
“If a problem has no solution, it may not be a problem, but a fact – not to be solved, but to be coped with over time.”
I’m afraid kids are not very “draggable”
have you tried recruiting new kids? some “fresh air” (maybe some new contenders?…)
will look at you video now…