Kids Teaching Kids

Oh, I got so mad at my girls' swimming instructor last night. I've been taking my kids to this particular pool for 4 summers now. There is a pool closer to me, but I prefer this one, as they keep the class sizes smaller and I feel the lessons are better. So I drive farther for lessons. This year I signed up for lessons all of July, Monday through Thursdays. It's a lot of swimming, a lot of driving, and it was a lot of money. But since we aren't really taking a vacation this summer, I knew it would work just fine. I looked forward to how much they'd improve with their swimming.

Anyway, they are in the same swimming class, which makes it nice and easy for me. They have a young guy instructor on Mon\Wed, and a young gal on Tues\Thurs. The gal is a good instructor, as I find that the young women are. But the guy...He's very full of himself, for reasons I simply cannot fathom. He is no Adonis, you know? Apparently he is a diver, and he literally spends just about the whole lesson session standing on the diving board, bouncing. He doesn't much get down at the kids level and give the pointers necessary for them to become better swimmers. He stays up on the diving board for all of us to see, and, apparently, to admire. Sometimes he sits on the diving board, and still bounces up and down on his largish behind. He irritates me.

But last night was the thing that clinched my dislike for this boy. The kids have been practicing doing a "kneel-dive" off of the low platform. Both instructors have been having the kids do this-it is something they work on at this level. Emily seems to just about always do a "belly-flop" when she dives from the low platform. She obviously needs the instructors to give her pointers to become better at this, or perhaps to do it more often, as they wait until the last 5 minutes of class, and the kids do it once.

But, as usual, in the last 5 minutes of class last night, the kids were to do their kneeling dives off the low platform. Emily went off, and you heard just a loud "slap" that I knew must have hurt her thighs. Right away, HER INSTRUCTOR AND ONE OTHER GUY INSTRUCTOR NEARBY began to clap and cheer! Now what was the purpose of that? The only purpose I can see is to embarrass and humiliate her. Did the instructor give her tips to avoid doing belly flops in the future? Not that I could see. And they apparently did the same humiliating thing to Stella-I missed it, as I was angrily telling this gal in the office about the whole thing.

Since when has humiliating a child become a teaching technique of theirs? I am angry. I will not have anyone humiliating my kid. At a decent hour, I'm calling the pool and speaking with the manager.

Stupid kid.