We all remember THAT teacher.
He or she was the one who seemed to spend hundreds of hours on the netball court or the rugby field or the cricket pitch.
They lugged the gear bags around, put up the posts, coached the A team and the juniors and teams in between, ran the sausage sizzles, gathered up the jerseys and socks left behind after training, and generally did everything they possibly could to help us get better and, if not win, at least be competitive.
They loved sport, and valued the life lessons it could impart. So, to them, this wasn’t a job — though it was part of a job, certainly — but a passion.
It was once simply expected of teachers that they would coach a sport. Many of a previous generation, in fact, recall the job interviews where the first question, after "Why do you want to teach here?", was "What sport will you coach?".
It was a win-win. The kids got a dedicated and passionate coach who, more often than not, had played the sport they were coaching; the school had ample coaching resources to offer a multitude of sports.
And then something changed.
Traced, perhaps, to the increase in paperwork for teachers, then amplified by the demands of NCEA, the number of secondary school teachers who coached a sport started to drop.
It had fallen to 46% by 2000 — but if that seems low, consider the fact it is actually the high-water mark of School Sport New Zealand’s annual survey of teachers.
This year’s figure, released recently by the organisation? Just 29%, the lowest figure on record.
Small wonder School Sport New Zealand chief executive Garry Carnachan told RNZ the situation was of real concern.
He suggested a couple of reasons for the trend downwards. Skilled sportspeople had more attractive options than teaching — once it was almost the career of choice for gun athletes and footy players and phys ed students — and NCEA demands had made teachers "time-poor".
"Formerly, for sports lovers, teaching was an attractive job," Carnachan said.
"Now sport is a career in many, many organisations as it’s become more professional ... "
Some 95% of coaches had a playing background in their chosen sport, Carnachan estimated, so having fewer of those people in teaching was an issue.
And, yes, the dreaded NCEA — well, the dreaded demands of NCEA — was playing a big role.
Teachers were "telling us it’s time pressure".
They recognised sport had many benefits for secondary school pupils but often simply could not fit it in around the other demands of the job.
This has serious ramifications for our youngsters, the overall wellbeing of the nation, and our various sporting codes.
Having fewer coaches translates to fewer pupils playing sport, and that is not something to be happy about.
Perhaps we have lost our way a bit. Wouldn’t our teachers, outside their core role in the classroom, be better served coaching sport than doing endless paperwork? Can’t a better balance be found?
