Saving Children's Lives through Swimming Lessons by Isabella

Saving Children's Lives through Swimming Lessons by Isabella - December 2019 Scholarship Essay

I started out at Hubbard as a summer camp coach and eventually switched to the swim school. I decided to start working there my junior year and absolutely love it. Training to teach swim lessons was about 50 hours over the course of a couple weeks. I would begin with observing and listening. Eventually I became more hands on. Each class I would become more and more involved until I started to teach the class independently. It was not just one level, it was four different levels. Each level has its own skills and different levels of how comfortable the kids were. I shadowed many different teachers, learning many different techniques and that there are various ways of teaching. In the beginning of working I was a little worried that there was other stuff I should know. But as I continued to work I saw the improvement in my kids. Each kids grows and learns at a different place but it is one of the most rewarding feelings when one of your kids move up to the next level. But this is much more than kids just learning the different strokes of swimming. This is safety and accident prevention. I live in Arizona where all summer kids are swimming. But with swimming comes drowning. Drowning is truly devastating and can be prevented. Swimming lessons is a accident prevention. We start with kids who have never even been in the water before; they are uncomfortable and want nothing to do in the water. Over time they get more and more comfortable. They learn to rollover to float on their back in the first level so they can get a breath. If a kid were to fall in the pool they would be able to rollover to float. Kids also learn to jump into the pool, get a breath, and swim back to the wall. All of the things we teach kids is for their safety. Furthermore, we not only teach kids to swim. We go over safety with swimming; such as, not swimming without a lifeguard, what number to dial in case of an emergency, and much more. We are teaching kids valuable skills that will last a lifetime.