Athletics season is fast approaching, where we will all be involved to some degree, no doubt. It is a wonderful sport as it allows all pupils to find an event that they can participate in – the ones who cannot sprint may be able to run long distances; the ones that struggle to run may be able to throw; the ones who cannot throw may be able to jump. And all events can generate immense excitement!
Athletics is also a wonderful analogy for education; after all, our education should be geared to ensuring all children find their particular strengths. However, the High Jump, in particular, can maybe provide the best example of what education is all about. As a pupil goes through school year by year, he looks to go to a higher level of understanding; more than that, each pupil is encouraged to gain a higher mark each time they sit a test or examination.
It is interesting and insightful to consider the history of the High Jump in athletics. Initially, competitors approached the bar head on and sought to hurdle the bar; later, athletes chose to approach the bar from the side and jump using the Scissors technique. Then, jumpers introduced the Western Roll as they rolled their body round the bar before the Straddle was introduced. And then, as we may well remember, one day at the 1968 Olympic Games held in Mexico, a certain Dick Fosbury stepped forward and changed the course of High Jump, winning the Gold Medal with a leap of a new Olympic record of 2.24 metres. Unlike other competitors, Fosbury jumped off the ‘wrong foot’ (the outer one), arched his back and cleared the bar backwards, before falling to the mattress.
While a different technique undoubtedly enabled Fosbury to jump higher (assisted as he was by the technological advance of foam landing platforms, as opposed to the traditional sand pit), he and all other jumpers have the opportunity to jump higher every time they go out into the arena if they adopt certain approaches. These include listening to their coach who will be watching; focussing fully on the task; believing they can reach new heights; training and practising day by day by day. All of those are essential if new heights are to be reached.
The same principles apply to us as teachers. We should be looking at finding new and more effective ways of raising the bar of education with our teaching (with the added assistance of technological advances). We need to have our ‘coach’ watching us and helping us pick up on small little things that we might be doing wrong; we need to focus on the high level that we wish to clear; we need to believe we can help our pupils reach those heights; we need to train and practise with Continuous Professional Development whenever we can.
ATS member schools adhere to the ATS Vision of (among other things) “High Quality Education”; so we are all committed to going higher with education through a great deal of training, perseverance, belief, encouragement, innovation, insight. For further reflection on this subject, you can read the article ‘Quality Feat’ on: http://www.atschisz.co.zw/ats/executive-director-newsletter/quality-feat/
The High Jump is uniquely the one event where everyone fails – the person who fails the last wins! However, Fosbury’s “Flop” was anything but a flop; it had a massive impact on high-jumping. If we do not learn from that, that will be a worse flop – and we will be for the high jump!
Have a wonderful term and thank you for what you are doing for the children of this country.
TIM MIDDLETON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ATS
