Trainer Annie

Silly Supervisors...

Ok, so i'm a swimming instructor at State Swim. When i first started, i spent weeks as a 'trainee' in an attractive blue solar tops (as opposed to the beautiful yellow and navy ones that i get to wear now, that hug your figure and cut off your circulation in the most unattractive way possible) until i was ready to leap out of the boat on my own.

On friday, i was given my very own trainee! Stripped of my adorable kindy kids who i've had over the last few weeks, i had a new class that had been forewarned to be terrors. So, i was a little wary when i was given a trainee... until i found out who it was :P enter the cute new guy who i've mentioned a couple of times. He was my trainee!

Half the kids were away, so there weren't many criers, thankfully. But i was attempting to train the NewGuy... now, my swimming methods are closer to 'go-with-the-flow' than they are to 'structure'. So teaching someone else was more than a little scary. I tried my best to tell him how i manage to get wriggly kids from point A to B, but i think he was less than impressed by 'skills'... hmm... we did get some conversation in, but it mainly revolved around teaching methods and such. Let's just say that i still don't know 'what he's doing this year' (the difinitive question that clears up the issue of whether he's in high school or uni). I really don't know if the supervisors were clever to give the NewGuy to me! However, he was so great with the kids that i hardly had to do anything all lesson - he was great with them! I felt terrible when a few of them would only let me near them, but that's just because they're used to me. He felt awful!

On the plus side, the kids were cute and seemed to like me - not the screaming terrors i'd heard about at all! One of the mothers told my supervisor how fantastic i was and how much her daughter loves me. A child from my old class screamed so loudly when his new teacher returned that she had to give him to me. Yes, he initially kicked me hard in the chest, but after that he gave me cuddles and i eventually got him into his floaties and have a swim. His mother loved me. I felt very successful in the eyes of the parents and kids (even if not so much in the eyes of my trainee)!

I've had classes with the NewGuy on the past four shifts - he seems very dedicated to learning the ropes. I've shown him around, answered all his questions, talked a little about other swimming stuff and said very little else. We swap classes occassionally - like yesterday, when i had to half undress one of his little girls to get her into her bathers properly; he didn't think it would be appropriate for him to do it. When we swapped back one of my little ones was crying :P he really doesn't do well with that part. And he runs his classes so strictly! I feel like a bad teacher when i see his kids lined up silently and mine are jumping all over the place... but oh well, i know that my kids are learning just as much... i hope!

Anyway, that is my swimming update for the week - hopefully next week i get past the 'swimming talk' with the NewGuy :P in the meantime, i shall rely on the love of my little ones to get me out of bed and to work on time!

Annie

Oh - and i went to Noodle's this arvo... where we manages to set off both the fire alarm and the house alarm in the space of ten minutes. Think that proves just how cool we really are.