Shaping Character Through Sports, Volleyball

My belief as an educator

As an educator, I firmly subscribe to the belief that the early years of a learner’s education have tremendous impact on learner into his/her adulthood. I hold fast to the saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Sow a thought and reap an action; sow an action and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character; sow a character and reap a destiny.”

The decisions and actions taken in my work as a teacher-coach are guided by this belief. I want to prepare my students for life and teach them about working together as a team, not as an individual.

My philosophy as a coach is based on my own experiences as a player. Passing on my passion and knowledge of the game to the younger generation as a teacher-coach is my way of giving back to society. I take pride in coaching my students patiently, understanding the individual’s profile so that I can customize my training programme to inject joy of learning through varied training approaches.

As a Volleyball player myself, I had been through traditional training where training was all about skills acquisition and the focus was on winning. Hence, I understand the frustrations that an athlete could face when they are unable to achieve the coaches’ expectations. Such experience has then shaped and guided my philosophy for coaching; the process of coaching and being grounded in values such as sportsmanship is far more important than the pursuit of the outcomes.

I am glad that my work with the school volleyball at the primary schools National School Games was acknowledged by the sports council and given the opportunity to take on the role as teacher-coach of the Singapore volleyball girls’ teams in 2018 and 2019 ASEAN School Games. Just as I did with the school team, I helped to develop the players in the ASEAN School Games team holistically, improve their skills and knowledge, grow their passion for the sport and shape their values and beliefs.

Apart from my involvement in the ASEAN School Games, I had the honour to be a part-time lecturer at NIE to teach a Volleyball module in 2020 to pre-service teachers at NIE PESS. This is an affirmation of the institution’s trust in my pedagogical content knowledge in delivering the primary PE curriculum. Through the 6-week module, I was able to impart the teacher-trainees with the necessary fundamental and specialized volleyball skills to support them to be competent and confident to deliver progressive and effective lessons when they are in school.

A life of learning, it all begins with a teacher

Having personally benefited from being a “trouble-maker” in school to a “changed” person through Volleyball, I hope that by coaching volleyball, I would be able to continue to positively influence more of such “at-risk” or “high needs” students and give back to the society by sharing with the young ones. I seek to provide authentic platforms for my students to develop the desired values, attitude and character such as respect and resilience. At the same time, I want to create opportunities for my students to “taste” success beyond academic results, build confidence and fulfil their potential in their talent areas.

Some teachers faced difficulties in connecting with students who used to create trouble and mix with the wrong company (smoke, create a lot of discipline issues). Acting as a bridge, I tapped on their passion in volleyball to reach out to help them work on issues of low motivation and self-esteem. Building on this caring community, such at risk students feel that their needs are being met. They started to feel a greater sense of connectedness to the school and ownership of their learning as they started tasting success in different domains. Seeing them beginning to enjoy learning in school gives me a strong sense of satisfaction as a teacher-coach.

Curating meaningful learning experiences

Character development is an important part in sport education and sports is one of the excellent training grounds for developing character. A child can only be competent in his or her skills only when he or she has developed the right values such as discipline and resilience and has the desire to succeed in the sport. Anchoring on this belief, I seek to develop character by first teaching my students on what character is, role model and constantly reinforce character values such as fairness, teamwork and respect as well as providing opportunities to facilitate learning of such character values.

I believe all sportsmen must display discipline on and off the court as they’re role models to the rest of the school. Every player on my squad knows that every action has a consequence and every action they do is based on the choices they make. To instill discipline, team members are rotated so that key players do not feel that they are indispensable and that every member needs to be accountable and take ownership of their actions. Today, the seniors are being empowered to keep up this culture of excellence in the team by guiding and mentoring their juniors.

As I desire my students to perform well in both academics and sports, I constantly encourage and instill the confidence in my students to believe in themselves that they can achieve their potential in all areas as long as they give their best and put their mind whole-heartedly to everything they do. During the National School Games season, knowing that training would be intense, I would organize study groups for my students to ensure that they keep up with school assignments and guide them to manage their time effectively. Before each training session, the team members would sit together for an hour to do their homework and help each other as needed. I believe that by teaching others, students will be able to understand concepts better and see improvement in their studies.

Empowering effective staff

There is this proverb that says “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. I often share my coaching knowledge and strategies with my fellow sport CCA teachers for them to inspire the students and adapt them to their own CCAs. I hope to transform not just the students, but the teachers too in the school. I would like to see that the values that the volleyball team espouses, such as resilience, selflessness and caring for others, will permeate the whole school.

Forging meaningful partnership

I believe in engaging various stakeholders and partners to curate learning more meaningfully, relevant, and authentic for my students. With the aim to help every student to harness positive beliefs about themselves and to discover their strengths, I invite motivational speakers -- former and current national athletes such as Mr C. Kunalan to inspire my students through sharing their experiences during annual camps.

I always look for opportunities for my students to apply what they have learnt in training. Such opportunities will create authentic platforms for them to gain experience and competition exposure and build their confidence. For instance, I will organize invitational games with other schools, source for external competitions organized by ActiveSG or the Volleyball Association of Singapore (VAS) and invite former students for friendly matches. My intent in doing all these is not only to provide platforms for my students to gain experience and build confidence but also to promote social mixing and bonding with one another. In addition, I also take the opportunity to use teachable moments to educate my students on dealing with failures when they lose games or have not performed well during a particular match. I want my students to enjoy the game, the process and to apply what they have learnt meaningfully on the court. With all these teachable moments in authentic platforms, students will then understand that winning is not as important as enjoying the game process so long that they have already given their best.

Building strong relationships with parents is also essential in the holistic development of the students. I believe that strong support from parents will allow my students to excel in academics and sports. I work closely with the parents by giving them frequent updates on their child’s progress and inviting them to competitions so that they will be aware of what their children are doing in their CCAs. I also welcome parents to approach me whenever any issue arises so that we can come up with solutions and solve the problem together. Parents and students have been appreciative of these efforts.

Moving forward

The success of a coach is not defined by how many national titles he or she has won or rather how many players he or she has coached, has gone on to become National players but in imbuing students with the values long after they have graduated.

In order for the relationship between teacher-coach and student to work, honest communication, based on trust, is vital. Once psychological safety is built, it is easier to help them to achieve individual potential.

Understanding that every athlete you work with will come with a different life experience and working environment has enabled me to customize my training. Even identical twin athletes should be coached differently based on their individual interactions with the world around them. Therefore, we need to look into the well-being of our students and check in with them frequently.

Lastly, we need to educate our students. As teacher-coach, our job is not only to build skillsets, but also to teach our athletes what values an athlete should exhibit in the hopes that they will become better equipped to make sound decisions grounded by values.

Looking ahead, I believe we as teacher-coaches should continue to have a growth mindset, the eagerness to learn and the commitment so that we will treat teaching and coaching not as a job but as a passion. Let us keep this passion burning and continue to make a difference in others’ lives.

Contributed by

Jason Chua, a PE Teacher, Xingnan Primary School, is the recipient of the 2021 Outstanding Teacher Coach Award. He is currently the Subject Head, PE.

Email: chua_kian_seng@schools.gov.sg

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Back to content page - 2023 SPEA Newsletter Issue No.1 (June/July)

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