Back in high school when I was on the swim and water polo team, a lot of my teammates ended up working as lifeguards and swim instructors after school and during the summer. We could all swim for hours without breaking a sweat (yes you do sweat when you swim), and the extra money was always nice so at the time it was the perfect job.

Being a swim instructor was the more relaxed and fun of the two jobs and for obvious reasons. For the most part you get to swim around all day, the kids are hilarious and cute, the parents are always so grateful when they see their kid make progress and learn to swim, and your co-workers are actually fun to work with. The problem is that almost all the kids love the water, but there is always that one that unfortunately is terrified and is crying as their parents lower them into the pool.

The moment that made me question if something unethical happened was when I was assisting one of the teachers on my first day so I got an idea of how we were supposed to teach. We were in the shallow end with a pretty young class and what the instructor was doing was having them put their face completely underwater and blow bubbles to have them get used to the water and help eliminate some of the fear they had of the water. Unfortunately in that group there was that one kid that just was terrified of the water and refused to listen to his instructor and kept yelling that he was going to drown. So after trying to encourage and this kid that there was nothing to be afraid of and that we were there so that nothing would happen, the instructor turned to me saying “some kids just need some extra motivation” while he carefully forced this poor kids face underwater just for a split second and then back up. To my surprise the mom who was watching came over all happy and clapping while cheerfully yelling  “YAY! Good job Mikey!” All this time I’m just standing there dumbfounded thinking did he really just force this kids face underwater who is already absolutely terrified of the water in the first place in front of his mom? Do I have to do this in my classes when I’m the instructor?

If I could have done something differently in this situation I would still have to get the kid underwater somehow because that’s part of the job but I don’t think just forcing him unannounced would be the way to do it. I might have put my face underwater first to show the Mikey that there’s nothing to be afraid of, and then both quickly go underwater at the same time together for a split second and then back up. That way he wouldn’t have been forced to do something he didn’t want to do alone.