DISCUSSION BOARD

Definately,

if a coach does not understand the system how can they opperate inside it. If the system lays down the rules for the sport operating outside the rules devalues the efforts of others. A coach operating outside the system may put their  athlete at a disadvantage if the system then penalises them for not following the rules.

Personally - not really. I can't say I've ever looked at the UK sport system when it comes to the work I do. The beauty I have working within an independant school is that I have full and complete choice over the curriculum I develop and deLiver. Therefore it has little relevance to the coaching no I undertake in that specific context and is something I've never even considered until now. It's been interesting to delve more into this and note how the countries I would consider as achievers structure their systems. I will probably have a more well rounded view after completing the research of the task with Mark. I notice this has happened a lot during this course - things I never considered or knew about before hand are now things I actively use on a daily basis.

I think an understanding of broader and less focused sporting systems are beneficial to the coaching process. I can't say that the SRU sport system has ever impacted me, i wouldn't even know what it is. I always find these kind of questions a bit tricky, because I'm an S&C coach I'm classed as support staff which keeps me at a distance or separate from a lot of the governing body systems and rules. 

While this can be a positive in that I don't have to deal with the issues that can arise from these aspects (as mentioned by Chris), S&C has it's own frustrations. A big one for me is that you can end up with a head coach that doesn't value S&C, sees it as a danger to their athletes and only grudgingly allows minimal contact time with the athletes and never engages with you as a coach (this is particularly bad in swimming with old school coaches, there does seem to be a realisation coming in that it is useful and worthwhile.).

So, sorry for the tangent, in short an understanding of the broader principles behind the sport systems would be very beneficial, not essential though, to effective coaching and in my experience it's not hugely relevant in my context. Where it would help is working in larger organisations (SRU, pro team) just so you understand what those around you are working towards and understand their actions in a clearer way.

Like in sport where the French government plays a major role in sport policy making (Hallmann & Petry, 2013, p. 70),  dance also follows the same policy with the Ministry of Culture and Communication being the main actor. The state provides funding through different communes where dance is taught in different public conservatoires. There are private schools, however it is the state that overseas the laws of how dance should be taught.

For a teacher to teach in France they need to have passed their teaching diploma and need to know the Schema d’orientation Pedagogique (DMDTS, 2004), this paper sets out the guidelines of what needs to be taught in what levels and the philosophy around the teaching. However, what is written and what is possible has now become two different things. At the beginning when this document was written in 2004 many of conservatoires were obliged to change their curriculums and include dance to keep their particular statue, however, now in these times of budget cuts to culture in France this document has seemed to be forgotten by the directors as they fight to keep their music departments afloat. In some conservatoires dance has either been cut or hours reduced. For example in the first cycle (ages from 8 to 11 year olds) it is suggested that the students study from 3hours and a half to six hours per week, in many conservatoires it is now two hours, and in this needs to be taught music appreciation, classical and contemporary dance. An impossible feat! I fortunately teach in a private school that is attached to a ballet company, and even though this year we are attached to the conservatoire the school has kept its own training curriculum.

When I first started to teach my first work was in a small city conservatoire outside of Paris. After eighteen months I resigned, the obstacles placed in front of me were too difficult to work with, and being a young teacher I did not have the experience to find a solution. Being the director of the dance department I answered to the Conservatoire’s director who then answered to the cultural representative of the city, neither of them knew a thing about dance and viewed the conservatoire as a social centre where all the problems of the young could be mended by culture. I did not mind this philosophy, but what was hard was they interfered with artistic decisions that they had no competence for. Also, there were teachers who had been in their positions over 20 years and had not done any self-development since, they were not ready for change and having a young teacher with over 20 years of professional experience they felt threatened form the beginning. Now looking back if I had more experience I maybe could have handled the situation better, but then I had just stopped dancing and had a different idea of what teaching was, and was not fully aware of the system and how the French conservatoires worked.

Now I have been teaching for eight years and understand it is not just about passing on knowledge, it is working within a system and making it effective. Even though I enjoy teaching what I learnt in those 20 years of professional experience I am slowly starting to understand how being supportive, enthusiastic and having a realistic approach to whom I am teaching is helping me to become a teacher who see’s who is in front of me. 

So to answer the question above, yes, it is very important for a teacher to understand the system in which they find themselves. Without it a teacher has no idea where they stand in society they are teaching. The system gives them a base to develop from, which is my case; the Schema d’orientation Pedagogique gives me a base of what I should do.