The story of Mary trying to avoid a challenge

I’m coaching a group of children between the age 8 and 11 who have recently or are really near achieving their regional standard (under 4:00 in the 200 IM).

In the period when this story occurs, the focus in practice is to learn to read their times and to follow intervals with the clock. We’ve been working on this for a few weeks already.

I got all the swimmers out of the pool to make it easier to get their full attention for this lesson on how to calculate time.

After a brief explanation I randomly asked Mary: “if you start at 40 and you go 30 seconds, what will the clock show when you arrive?”

Mary, without saying a word, proceeds to move behind Eve to try to hide so that she doesn’t have to answer.

I ask my question again and she crouches trying to disappear even further behind Eve.

Considering Mary’s behavior, I realize I have a golden opportunity to teach a valuable lesson to her and the group. Therefore, instead of dealing with the clock reading, I decide to deal with Mary’s behavior.

I ask the rest of the group why is Mary hiding behind Eve.

Did she give it her best shot to answer or did she give it her best shot not to answer?

(We never use the word try, we always replace try with giving it your best shot)

All the kids, including Mary, understood that the way she had behaved was actually giving it her best shot to avoid having to solve the problem.

Then I took it even further and asked them why did she give it her best shot to not do the calculation?

Right away the kids shared that it was probably because she was afraid of not getting it right. Some even said they thought it was because she might not want to be ashamed of herself if she got it wrong.

Following this I asked everyone:

“Is that something you might do too when you have a tough challenge on your hands?”

Trying to avoid it instead of testing yourself out by giving it your best shot?

The swimmers were nodding and Mary now feeling more comfortable was out of her hiding.

So Mary, do you now want to give it your best shot to solve the problem?

She nodded and started figuring out the answer.