Today was the first swimming lesson of the new session, the last one having resulted in this post. Having literally lost sleep that night, with my brain buzzing with imagining a conversation with their swimming teacher and me unable to switch off, I decided that I had to talk to him. After a couple of days, I'd manage dto put it to one side to the point that by today, I only remember that I wanted to talk to him when we were at the swimming pool. Fortunately my girls' lesson is their teacher's last one of the day, so I was able to ask for a quick word afterwards while they were in the shower.
I don't know if it was coincidence, but there wasn't a 'swimmer of the week' this week, as they were finishing with a dive into the pool one at a time and he sent them off to shower after they'd done. I didn't manage to say everything I wanted to and I hope I didn't come across as lecturing him too much, but he did seem receptive to what I had to say. I said that I wanted to explain a bit more about why I didn't like it and that it wasn't just because it upsets M. I told him that I thought he was a good teacher and that the children worked hard and asked if the 'swimmer of the week' thing was supposed to be a bit of extra motivation and he agreed that it was. I pointed out that at one extreme there are those like M, who gets upset by it, and that at the other is K who, while happy to get the sweets, is not bothered in the slightest by the idea of being 'swimmer of the week', so that it really wasn't necessary and didn't really work. Finally I suggested he could google 'extrinsic and intrisic motivation' if he was interested in finding out more. He didn't say much, but seemed open to what I was saying, so I hope that he took it as the constructive criticism it was meant as and of course I hope he will stop doing the 'swimmer of the week'. I'm not sure whether I will take it any further if he does continue, but I am happy that I have said my piece.
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