Final Reflection

Learning about Australian sports and culture has been a pleasure for me over the past few months. Having always had a love for sports, I was very eager to learn about the sports culture in Australia. I had gone in with some knowledge of the important role that sports play in Australia, but I had so much to learn. Even the names of the sports were unfamiliar to me, which was surprising because I expected that I at least would have seen them on television. Going in to primary education, it was particularly interesting for me to get to see the youth side of sports and the effect that it has on children in comparison to my experiences with youth sport back in the United States.

My favorite sport experience in Australia was attending the Sydney Swans AFL game. I was very impressed by the Sydney Cricket Ground and could feel the enthusiasm even walking into the stadium. The oval stadium made it feel very full of life because the crowd was completely enclosed and close together. It also made it easy for viewing purposes to watch the game because there really was not a bad seat in the stadium. While it was impossible to find a hot pretzel or an appetizing looking hot dog, it felt very similar to football games back in the US. Everyone around me was in their red and white and seemed to be big fans of the Swans. Although I was wearing a red shirt, I almost felt the need to by a Swans scarf because of all of the Swans gear in my area. Even with the Swans losing the game, the crowd’s enthusiasm stayed strong throughout the game. Many people had giant flags that they waved whenever the Swans scored and the cheers in the crowd were great. I even felt at home hearing the fight song because it brought me back to my own college’s fight song at football games. The actual game, however, was very difficult to follow. While I had finally thought I picked up the rules of Rugby League, this truly through me for a loophole. When I first sat down and started watching it literally felt like anything goes in the game. The more I watched the more I got the hang of it but it was so quick moving that it was hard to understand what was going on. I found the passing strategies and the idea that they could bounce the ball on the field while they were running very interesting. It took me about the whole game to understand that they had the option when they caught the ball to kick it for points or to continue to push it up the field. I was very impressed by the athleticism of the players and the speed in which they pushed the ball up the field. Overall, it was really a great experience to sit amongst big Swan fans and experience their sports spirit.

On a youth level, I found my experiences with sports while teaching at St.Ignacious Riverview to have been the most educational for me. Not only was I able to observe them in sport, but I was able to have conversations about their feelings regarding sport. It was extremely interesting that every boy in the school had to play a sport even if they did not want to. Being one of the top GPS schools in sports, it was not much of a shock but nonetheless very interesting. The presence of sports is greatly felt even walking around the school with flags of the Warratahs and Swans decorating the classrooms. Every week at assembly, the sports achievements for the week are announced and the boys get special recognition from the whole school for their achievement. In addition to this, all of the talk is about sports. Not only did these boys want to talk to me about their rugby games, but they even wanted to talk about everything I knew about American sports. I was very surprised to hear them asking questions about my favorite NBA and NFL team. It was very clear to me that they had strong interest in sports and that the atmosphere of the school supported these interests. When talking to some of the teachers, they explained to me that as the students get older, they pressure gets tougher and tougher in sport. Many of the parents are more concerned about their boy’s sports achievements than any of their academic achievements. This puts tremendous pressure on the boys and can have a strong effect on the way they perceive themselves if they are not as athletic as their peers. I cannot imagine what it would be like to attend this school if you did not love sports. However, there are definitely a lot of positives that come out of the sports environment at Riverview. The school puts a lot of emphasis on being team plays are good sports towards the opposing teams. I noticed that the boys are supportive of each other on the field and always give a cheer to the other team and the referees after they finish their games. These skills can be used off the field when boys have to work in group settings which is very important as they grow into adults.

Overall, my experiences with sports in Australia have been very enjoyable. I was exposed to new sports such as Netball and Lawn Bowling and had a lot of fun learning the rules of these games. When I go back to the US and teach about Australia to my class, I will definitely makes sure I include a unit on Australian sports!

Riverview Sports

This week for student teaching I attended St.Ignatius Riverview College on a Thursday versus my usual Friday. What I did not know was that Thursday was sports day for the fifth and sixth grade. When I arrived, all of the boys were wearing their sports warm-ups instead of their usual uniform. After lunch, all of the boys went to sports practice instead of having class for the rest of the day. This is completely different from anything I have seen in the US. While many schools put strong value on their sports programs in the US, none would allow sports time to take away from academic time. I found it very interesting that every single on of the boys at the school had to play a sport. This season, they got to chose from soccer, rugby, or AFL. Within these sports, they had an A, B, and C team for both the eleven year olds and the twelve year olds. When it was time for sports, coaches came from all over the school. I was surprised to see all of the teachers out on the field because they did not strike me as sports people but they were just as involved as anyone else. The practice ran for about two hours and the boys seemed to really enjoy themselves. I was very pleased to see how much of good sports they were to each other and that I did not witness any fighting. It was clear to me that Riverview must really stress good sportsmanship amongst the boys. The idea of Thursday sports practice is so that the fifth and sixth grade boys do not have to get home late during the week but will still be prepared for Saturday's sports games.

Sydney Swans AFL Game

This weekend I attended the Sydney Swans AFL game at the Sydney Cricket Ground. I was very impressed by the oval stadium and how full it was in comparison to the Rugby League game that I had attended. Everyone was dressed in their red and had their signs out! The game was played on an oval field and there were four posts on each side for the goals. I found the rules difficult to follow, honestly it seemed like anything goes! I was impressed by the passing skills because the players moved the ball along extremely quickly. I also thought it was interesting that they could bounce the ball on the ground after taking a few steps because that was different from any other field sport I have experienced. The players were extremely athletic looking and very very fast. I was a little confused about when the players could kick for a goal but it seems like they can choose once they catch it whether they want to keep the ball moving or stop the play to kick. The score was much higher than I had expected and there was a lot of scoring that occurred throughout the game. The fans were all pretty into the game and every time the Swans scored they all stood up and cheered and waved their flags. It was a very fun environment!

Youth Netball

On Saturday morning I was also able to attend a girl's netball game. The girls that I was watching were twelve years old and the teams they were members of were club teams. Coming from playing basketball all my life, I found netball to be very slow moving. In many ways it was similar to basketball but the main differences were that you cannot dribble the ball, as soon as you catch it you choose a pivot foot and cannot move, there is no backboard, and you have to stay an arms length away from the person with the ball. I think if I tried to play I would be thrown out for being too aggressive! While there is strategy to passing in the game, I felt like there was not much room to really display much skill in the game. I was also surprised by how often the ball went into the hoop when the girls shot the ball. This meant there was little rebounding that occurred which I would think must be very boring for the girls who were playing goal defender. While it seemed like the girls were enjoying themselves, it did not seem like they were very competitive about the game. Similar to the rugby game, the parents seemed to be enjoying themselves socializing on the side and from my experience they were only yelling out words of encouragement.

Junior Rugby at Nagel Park

This weekend I attended a junior rugby sporting event. The games were held at Nagel Park in Maroubra and occur every Saturday. The game I was watching was all boys ages seven and eight. The coaches of each of the teams along with one referee were on the field throughout the whole game to keep the game moving. The whole time I was watching I was nervous because the boys wear no pads! I couldn't believe how hard they were bringing each other to the ground without having any padding on. Even more surprising was that I did not see anyone get hurt the whole time I was watching. The boys had very impressive footwork and were extremely fast. They were not afraid at all to tackle each other or to be tackled themselves. The facility reminded me a lot of youth soccer back in the US. There was about four fields all next to each other with tons of children running around everywhere. The parents and siblings of the players were all lined up along the sidelines and all of the kids were playing around while they did not have a game. What was unlike the US was the freedom that the kids had. There were so many kids running around and playing so rough that I kept thinking I was seeing kids get hurt but they just popped right up. I think in the US the parent are more paranoid and would be watching the kids more instead of just letting them go. It seemed like the parents were enjoying themselves socializing with each other while the boys were playing. Overall, there was a strong community feel at the event and it was a lot of fun!

Lifeguard Training

While on holiday, I was traveling in Airlie beach. On Saturday morning I was relaxing by the lagoon when a large group of children and lifeguards came. The parents were standing around so I went over to inquire about what was going on. The mother I spoke to had two daughters in the program. She explained to me that this was a public program and was very cheap compared to the YMCA prices that she had previously paid. The program was a training program for water safety starting at age eight. Unlike the nippers, it was not for a competition but rather just for preparing to be safe in the water and likely become lifeguards. She said that the only real requirement to be able to join is that the children have to be able to swim. One of the women who was running the program was actually the physical education teacher and her daughter's school so she said it was a very popular community thing. The kind of activities I observed them doing was practicing the correct way to enter the water to save someone, how to hold someone's body if you have to bring them in, and how to use a noodle to help someone float above the water. The children learned these skills very quickly and it was evident that they were all pretty strong swimmers. It is very interesting to me how popular water training is. While most people in the US learn to swim, there are far less that go on to become lifeguards. In Australia, it seems like an extremely high percentage of people get lifeguard certified.

Soccer

During the holiday week for the primary schools in Sydney, there were a lot of camps being held at the University of Sydney. During a break I had one afternoon, I sat and observed a soccer camp. I was immediately brought back to my childhood soccer camps. The whole field was set up with stations of different drills for the kids to participate in. I was surprised by the amount of children that were at the camp because camp is not something many people would do in the US with only a week break. After the camp was over, I went over and talked to a few of the parents. One of the mothers told me that going to a sport camp over break is very popular. She said that her children had to chose between soccer and tennis camp because they really wanted to do both. She also told me that many of the children's friends were also in the camp so they were very excited to be there and it made her life easier while they had time off of school. When the kids came to her, they had big smiles on their faces and said they had a great time. Where many of the sporting experiences I have had have been very different than my experiences in the US, this youth soccer camp was very similar to any camp in the US.

Surfing

You cannot come to Australia and not try the sport of surfing! I did my first surfing lesson at Manly Beach with my study abroad program. We starting with boogie boarding which I have been doing since I was a little kid in the US. However, I found the boogie boarding much harder in Australia. First of all, the waves were pretty rough which is always a challenge. The hardest part was that the boogie boards had no string to attach to your wrist so you really have to hold on to the board. There were many occasions where I was not able to do this and my boogie board went flying. I was able to catch a lot of waves though so it was a lot of fun and a good warm up for surfing.

The first thing the instructors had us do was practicing getting up on our boards on the sand. I had difficulty on the land popping straight up and instead kept pushing myself up and then taking a step. It definitely required more upper body strength than I had anticipated. Eventually I got the hang of it and was ready to get into the water. I was lucky to have an instructor right by me when I was in the water because he had me lay on the board and helped me to time the waves. I was able to get up five times! I stayed closer to the shore so that I could catch smaller waves but I was still happy to be able to get up. It was a lot of fun to be able to ride the waves all the way in. Overall, the sport required a lot of patients and the timing of getting on the board was crucial. It amazes me the type of waves really surfers can get up on!

Cricket

Throughout my time in Australia so far, I have had a few experiences with the sport of cricket. The first time I came across it was when I was in Brisbane for the weekend and it was on in the hotel room. I tried to watch it for about an hour but struggled because I could not pick up the rules from the broadcasting. I camera kept following the ball after it was hit but it took me a while to understand how the players were getting runs. I eventually realized that if they hit the ball to a certain point they get either four or six runs automatically depending on how far they hit it. After I understood this I had an easier time watching it on television. Since then, I have seen it on TV a few times at the bars and a lot of people always seem to be watching it.

I also came across cricket when I was at the Sydney Olympic Park for a field trip. There was a lot of families out in the park because it was a nice day and many of them were playing cricket. It looked like with the little ones they had a plastic paddle and plastic ball because the ball was not going very far. It was nice to see the adults playing with the children because it really seemed like a fun social thing for families to do. I also noticed at the school that I have been teaching at that many of the boys play cricket during their lunch period. They organize the games themselves and seem to really enjoy it. I would like to try and hit a ball with a cricket paddle because I am curious how difficult it is to make it go far!

Roosters v. West Tigers

This Sunday I attended a rugby league game to watch the Roosters verse the West Tigers which are both teams out of Sydney. What an experience! I though American fans were wild, but they do not nearly compare to the fans in my section at the Roosters game. Everyone around me was covered in the Rooster's red, white, and blue and it seemed like every group of people had a giant flag with them that they pulled out every time the Roosters scored. I absolutely loved how fast pace the game was and that the clock never stopped because there was non-stop excitement in the crowd. I also could not believe that the players do not wear padding because it was an extremely physical game. There were also a ton of young kids at the game that seemed to be just as into it as the adults. The Roosters ended up killing the West Tigers so I was happy to be surrounded by the enthusiastic Rooster fans. The stadium reminded me of football stadiums in the US with all of the food vendors and people drinking beer. I found it funny that the "bullshit" chant is universal and was surprised by how frequently it was yelled throughout the game. Overall, it was a great experience and I would love to go back to enjoy another game!

Physical Education in School

The last couple weeks I have been in Sydney I have been volunteering at the Newtown North Public School right next to Sydney University Campus. This week I got to observe a physical education class and it was much different than any class I have ever seen before. This week they were doing gymnastics and it amazed me how much the children seemed to enjoy it. They were participating in activities such as bars, balance beam, and doing handstands. I think if this happened at a gym class in the US there would be many complainers but here there were none! Every child was willing to participate and their skills were impressive. When speaking to the physical education teacher, he said that they work on a lot of different sports in physical education and that the gymnastics is used to develop the students overall skills. When talking to the kids at recess time, they all seemed to love sport. Almost every kid I talked to was on a swim team, and these were young kids! The importance of sports was very evident to me when I heard how enthusiastic these children were about sport.

Maroubra Beach Nippers

This Sunday we had our first field trip to Maroubra beach to watch the nippers. On the way there I got a $100 fine for using a student bus ticket because apparently study abroad students do not qualify for the discount. Needless to say, I was not the happiest person arriving to the beach. However, I had a great day and am very glad that I made it.

The nippers are children ages 5-12 years old who compete in beach patrol activities that include physical competitions such as running in the sand and water. When we were there on Sunday, the older kids were at a competition so only the nippers ages 5-8 were on the beach. The first competition we saw them do was they had to lay on their bellies in the sand and when the whistle blew the hopped up and had to run about fifteen meters and dive for a stick that was sticking out of the ground. The kids were organized by cap colors and they competed in different heats. After this event, the kids had to go down by the water and parents stood in the water to create a path for the children to run. It seemed like all of the children were putting a lot of effort into the activities but it did not seem like they were extremely competitive about it. Because it was only the young kids, there were no winners and it seemed like a laid back and fun environment.

After watching these events, we went into the beach clubhouse and one of the volunteers talked to us about what life is like at the club. I was very surprised to hear that it is all volunteer run but I thought this was really great. He explained to us that there is a very strong sense of community at the club and with the nippers not only are the kids learning safety and become stronger on the beach but the parents are also being educated about how to keep the kids safe. The sense of community was very obvious as I watched the parents cheer on all of the kids and even have fun with other parents. Overall, it was a really great trip and a lot of fun to watch the nippers.

Welcome to my adventure!

My name is Kelly and I am currently studying abroad for the semester in Sydney, Australia. As an elective, I am taking a course called "Sport and Learning in Australian Culture" and I will be using this blog to share my experiences with Australian sports. Being a big sports fan at home, I am very excited to attend sporting events in Australia and compare them to my experiences with sports back in the US.