Mandatory swim instruction for adolescents and adults has been of interest to me for quite some time. Many high schools and a few colleges require students to pass a swim test or take a swimming course in order to graduate. In the past, more colleges and universities has this requirement than at present, but most have dropped it, but a few still do, including several Ivy League schools.
It is always said that such a requirement is good because it helps to insure that more people become safe in the water. I wonder about the effectiveness of this. Do such swim tests/courses really work--do they really do the job they're supposed to do? Do they really get people to swim with ease or be safe in deep water? And what about fearful students, those with no aquatic experience and who are often studious or unathetic? Please go to the following websites and post your comments:
MIT Department of Athletics, Physical Education
Time to Swim or Graduate--Boston Globe
Welcome MIT Department of Athletics, Physical Education (watch video)
YouTube video: Adult Learn to Swim
Parents
Former Member
...Do mandatory swim classes really work? How well do they work? Do they produce people who can swim with ease and cconfidence, or do they produce people who have half-learned the skill, to the satisfaction of their instructors, perhaps, but are not really competent or safe in the water...
Looking around the city-owned pools during lap swimming times, I don't see very many people at all who swim with ease - and that's in people who have presumably learned enough to voluntarily choose to swim laps. I went through several years of childhood swim lessons and ended up as a clumsy, thrashing, 38 strokes per length type of swimmer. This is partly because of flaws in the teaching methods, and partly because human beings simply don't move well in water - we are designed for running long distances.
Still, I don't feel those early lessons were a waste of time. All of my siblings do some sort of aquatic activity (canoing, SCUBA diving, snorkeling) with confidence because, even though they don't share my passion for swimming, they've learned enough to swim to shore if they ever fell out of a boat, and they don't feel panicky in deep water.
As the shoe ad says... just do it!
...Do mandatory swim classes really work? How well do they work? Do they produce people who can swim with ease and cconfidence, or do they produce people who have half-learned the skill, to the satisfaction of their instructors, perhaps, but are not really competent or safe in the water...
Looking around the city-owned pools during lap swimming times, I don't see very many people at all who swim with ease - and that's in people who have presumably learned enough to voluntarily choose to swim laps. I went through several years of childhood swim lessons and ended up as a clumsy, thrashing, 38 strokes per length type of swimmer. This is partly because of flaws in the teaching methods, and partly because human beings simply don't move well in water - we are designed for running long distances.
Still, I don't feel those early lessons were a waste of time. All of my siblings do some sort of aquatic activity (canoing, SCUBA diving, snorkeling) with confidence because, even though they don't share my passion for swimming, they've learned enough to swim to shore if they ever fell out of a boat, and they don't feel panicky in deep water.
As the shoe ad says... just do it!
