Lifeguarding & Teaching Swimming Lessons
"A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He (or she) does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his (or her) actions and integrity of his (or her) intent."
Douglas MacArthur
The Peter Kirk pool in Kirkland. Photo Credit: Kirkland Reporter
Overview:
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For my first two years of college, I worked as a lifeguard and a swim instructor. Lifeguarding and teaching lessons was my very first job. I started working at my local pool when I was in high school and once I was in college I worked at a couple of other indoor pools during the school year. As an instructor I taught children of all ages and skill levels how to swim and as a lifeguard I enforced the rules of each facility and routinely practiced emergency protocol with my coworkers. This first job was valuable to me because I learned skills that I have been able to apply to every job and leadership position that I have held since then.
Personal importance of work:
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I had wanted to be a lifeguard and a swim instructor ever since I was in 6th grade. My local pool (the Peter Kirk pool in Kirkland) was essentially a second home to me when I was growing up because I was there every day for swim team practice. I wanted to be a lifeguard and a swim instructor because of how much I enjoyed being on the swim team—I wanted to help people learn to swim and be safe at the pool so that they could enjoy swimming as much as I did. Even though I took up these roles mostly because of my personal interest in swimming, I still ended up learning a lot and becoming a much stronger leader. I learned how to be a strong verbal communicator, how to interact professionally with the public, how to provide constructive criticism, how to supervise others, and most importantly, how to work effectively in very high stress situations. I never expected to learn as much as I did from my very first job.
Tasks accomplished:
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Obtained American Red Cross certifications in Lifeguarding, CPR/AED, First Aid, Emergency Oxygen Administration, and Water Safety Instruction
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Taught swimming lessons and water safety to all age groups and created lesson plans for two-week sessions.
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Provided written evaluations for up to 60 students each session.
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Carried out EAP’s (Emergency Action plans) during emergencies with the lifeguard team, which included calling 911, using a proper technique to extract the patron from the water, and controlling the situation when there were several patrons observing.
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Performed minor first aid and simple rescues at the pool and beaches.
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Interacted with patrons in a friendly and professional manner.
Leadership Competencies:
Appropriate Interaction
Because lifeguarding and teaching lessons was my first job, it was also my first experience interacting with coworkers and patrons in a work setting. I learned excellent customer service skills by answering patron questions about pool and beach roles, as well as by interacting with children and parents during lessons. With teaching lessons, I also learned how to keep my lessons on track, even if the kids wanted to talk to me about things other than swimming. I also learned how to stay calm and act professionally in situations that became chaotic. In emergency situations, I helped direct patrons away from the emergency. There were also occasional patrons who were verbally abusive. In those situations, I learned to stay calm and confident while directing those patrons to my supervisor.
Mentoring
Responding to ambiguity
Providing feedback
I served as a mentor to every single student I taught. Though teaching my preschool aged students mostly involved playing a lot of games, I still feel that I served as a mentor to them. I was more of a direct mentor with the older kids and adults that I taught. I would ask each of them what their goals were and I would tailor my lessons to help each of my students practice their individual goals. I had a girl who was in my class 6 times during one summer. Because of that, I ended up doing a lot of work with her individually. She was struggling a lot with her swimming during our first class together, but by the end of the summer she could confidently swim in the deep end on her own.
As a lifeguard, I always had to be paying attention to my surroundings. I knew that an emergency could potentially happen at any time during my shifts, so I was always alert. When emergencies did end up happening, my coworkers and I had to make quick judgements about which actions to take in different scenarios (calling 911, deciding how to treat an injury, etc.) In addition, teaching lessons was always unpredictable. I could never be sure which students would need to spend extra time practicing a certain skill or if there would be a disruptive student that would cause my whole class to get behind (there was also another time I got hit in the face with a plastic boat and got a bloody nose while teaching a class). In short, I was constantly having to alter my lesson plans to accommodate the circumstances from each of my classes.
As a swim instructor, I was required to provide written evaluations (report cards) for each student at the end of every two-week lesson session. I paid close attention to the skill levels of all of my students during each lesson and spent a lot of time thinking about how each student could improve. The most difficult part of providing feedback to my students was deciding whether or not someone would “pass” my class. It was always difficult to not pass a student that always worked hard in class and had a positive attitude, but I also knew that if I passed a student who wasn’t truly ready for the next level, I could be putting that student in danger. I would teach 6 to 12 classes per day, which could get very tiring, but I learned how to stay alert and pay attention to the swimming skills of all the students I taught.
One of the beaches I worked at, Juanita Beach in Kirkland, on a hot July day
Supervision
As I became a more experienced swim instructor, I learned how to teach in the most effective ways so that children of each age group (and adults) would understand what I was asking of them. I was obviously much more transparent about the purpose of each exercise in my lessons with the adults, but with the children I would often turn those exercises into some kind of game that they would enjoy. Of course, with the children I taught I also had to take many more disciplinary measures to effectively supervise them. I struggled a lot with disciplining my students when I first started teaching. I didn’t want to be a “mean teacher” that hurt their feelings, but parents were also complaining to my supervisors that I wasn’t doing anything about the kids that were disrupting my classes. As I became a more experienced instructor, I overcame the discomfort I had about disciplining children because I knew that enforcing the rules was ultimately about ensuring their safety. I also acted as a supervisor to middle schoolers who were volunteer junior lifeguards.
Resiliency
In order to become a lifeguard, you have to take a class from the American Red Cross and pass a final exam, which involved a written test and performing a set of lifeguarding skills in the pool. I took the lifeguarding class for the first time when I was 15 and I didn’t pass the final test. One of the skills I had to perform involved swimming a person in the deep end over to the side of the pool and strapping them to a backboard. I wasn’t physically strong enough at that time to effectively perform that task, so I didn’t pass the class. I was the only one in the class that didn’t pass and I felt so humiliated. However, I knew that if lifeguarding was something that I really wanted to do, all I had to do was simply retake the class. I started lifting weights and getting stronger so that I would be able perform the skill that I failed. When I took the class again, I was easily able to perform that skill and I passed the class.
Verbal Communication
Being able to communicate verbally was very important for both lifeguarding and teaching lessons. As a lifeguard, it was important to speak assertively to patrons if they were not following the rules. If someone was too far away for them to hear me, I would use the megaphone. In addition, verbal communication was also incredibly important when I was working with my coworkers during emergencies. We all needed to be on the same page about what actions needed to be taken for the particular scenario. Teaching lessons also involved a lot of verbal communication (so much so that I would frequently lose my voice or get chest cramps from talking too much, in which case I would then practice my nonverbal communication skills by writing each exercise out for my students).
At an all staff in-service training for the City of Kirkland beach lifeguards.
Lessons learned and future oriented statement:
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Although I am not currently lifeguarding or teaching lessons, I learned a lot about what I want in my future career from this job. Before I became a lifeguard, I thought I wanted to pursue a career that involved working at a hospital. However, after responding to real emergencies and performing a lot of first aid on children at the beaches, I realized that a hospital career was not for me. As much as I loved lifeguarding and teaching lessons, I ultimately quit because of the incredibly high-stress nature of the job. However, I did learn from teaching lessons how much I enjoy working with people and serving as a mentor.