teacher, coach, mentor, founder
Joe's Story
Growing up in outback Australia I was a kid who grew up playing every sport that I could try. I was competitive at a few but never the star of any team. As a student I was never a great student or much cared for the way schools were run and the emphasis teachers would place on different aspects of the curriculum and classroom routine. I could see school's did not cater for a whole lot of kids out there. So I became a teacher and continued to enjoy my passion for sports, competition and the camaraderie that came with working as part of a team and club. After finishing my teaching career i was fortunate enough to work across a number of unique educational environments from boarding schools, single sex schools, first nations peoples school, technical schools through to a detention center. In all places i found sport, when used in a particular manner as the perfect vehicle to bring about changes in children's attitudes, self belief, resilience and attitude towards life. Being a coach across many sports and also a teacher in classroom I was able to see the massive change in students who were using SSCLS principles in both areas of the kids lives. I noticed SLS had a massive affect on kids who didn't fit fit the general school expectations, kids like myself. Kids who never thought they would graduate were graduating, kids were becoming the first in their family to go to college and in some cases find employment. Kids who had been involved in fighting, unsociable activities were finding a new side to themselves, the real side of themselves. People were changing their life directions and life paths for the better. The SLS app is the easiest, quickest and simplest way I have been able to create that I know can make young peoples lives better for the future and change their lives. I truly hope anyone reading this gives SLS a try, I can 100 percent guarantee you will make a positive change in other peoples lives if you do.
MY FAVORITE SSCLS SPORTS STORY
As a young school sports teacher and also behavior engagement teacher I was tasked with a challenge of increasing female school attendance in a particular aged cohort and also their engagement in the classroom. The cohort i was working with came from culturally different areas, low socio-economic backgrounds and were identified as at risk students. The girls were often involved in fighting and also often kept to their own community and culture group similarly to groups of students across many multicultural countries.
After interviewing the girls and asking them what would make them want to come to school they overwhelmingly indicated that if they could play AFL (Australian Football) they would enjoy coming to school. I created a team and had a huge turn out of girls wanting to play. The only problem was that there was no league in our city for girls AFL. Desperate to keep the girls focused I entered the girls in the local boys competition run on the weekends. As could be expected when the girls played against the boys they were very well and truly beaten, by over 100 points in each game for the first 6 weeks.
After the first game I had a big decision to make, having the girls see themselves lose by 100 points was embarrassing to them, not good for their self-esteem and not helping them feel positive or proud of themselves or each other. The girls could not see or feel the optimism that I could see and feel for them because as is always the case the scoreboard said they had failed and then everyone reinforced that to them.
The next weekend was the first time I rolled out SLS. I took down the scoreboard and allowed the other team to keep score. I made clear to the girls that I would be recording every time they did something we spoke about during the game and that all i cared about was them doing as many of those things as possible and earning a bronze, silver or gold award on assembly. I told the girls i did not care about any scoreboard at all. The girls began slowly and at quarter time i told them each how many involvements they had and showed them how many they needed to qualify for the different awards. The girls still officially lost the game by well over 100 points. However they proudly stepped up at the school assembly to receive their individual awards recognizing what they had done.
Each week the girls kept coming back, kept getting more involved on the field to earn points for their awards. The girls walked around proudly at school, the teachers and their peers were congratulating them, they now felt confident and happy, they were happier coming to class, girls whom had been enemies or others before were now team mates, sisters and friends.
I had achieved my goals of having the girls come to school more often, do better in class, fight less and feel better about themselves. Now while all this therapeutic work on the girls social and mental well being had occurred they had actually improved their on field performances so much that they actually beat four of the boys teams whom had beaten them boy over 100 points earlier in the year! And this was with a coach whom had never played the sport before and only watched it occasionally on TV.
I knew now that SLS was just such a simple thing to do and it could help me not only as a coach win football matches, but most importantly help my athletes in the most important game of all... the game of life.
I have used this system across many, many, many sports now. All with the same success of growing my players on and off the field.
MY FAVORITE SSCLS TEACHING STORY
Eventually as a teacher I worked my way into the position of a Head of a Secondary School. Having SSCLS run through all my schools sports and getting built into other extra-curricular activities such as culture and academics I was able to see my students perform at school better every term they came. They were more settled, more confident and had higher expectations, aspirations and belief in themselves I had far less suspensions and exclusions. All of my students who began to make positive choices and choose a positive future and i saw thrive and smile from what SLS gave them, they are all my favourite story and always will be.
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