School teaching kayaking in its own indoor pool

By Eric Kerr

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    Ausable Forks, New York (WPTZ) — While most may be skiing down the mountains right now, some people at Ausable Valley School District are doing something a bit different this winter.

The school became the second in the north country, alongside Northeastern Clinton Central School, to start a kayaking physical education course inside its own indoor pool. Starting this October and continuing this winter, the new class has provided something new and exciting for all who tried it.

“It’s a little different than the usual everyday stuff,” said Ausable Valley 10th grader Anthony Semeraro. “Being in the Adirondacks there is a lot of kayaking, so we wanted to learn how to do that.”

The school’s inspiration to start the course came from a demonstration during an annual New York PE teachers’ conference at Turning Stone in Verona, New York, back in November 2018. The presentation of how kayaking could be taught in a pool impressed Ausable Valley PE teachers like John Pierson, influencing him to help get it started and teach the course.

“Their pool is much smaller than this,” Pierson said, referring to Ausable Valley’s pool. “They did some really good demonstrations: entering and exiting the kayak by themselves, turning, ruddering, all the skills you would need when you are out in the open water … we were hooked and hoping we could do the same with the kids.”

With help from a $2,000 donation from the Clinton County Health Department’s “Creating Healthy Schools and Communities” grant, the school received four kayaks to get the course going. Pierson has taught over 10 kayaking classes already with around 20-25 students giving the new class a try.

“I think it’s a lot of fun,” Semeraro said. “We should definitely get more kayaks because everyone wants to kayak now.”

Semeraro has spent his gym classes paddling alongside fellow Ausable Valley 10th grader Chase Ganter. Ganter appreciates the addition of the course to know how to Kayak with control, but also appreciates the chance to try something new among the regular gym class activities.

“Normally we just swim around and do laps,” Ganter said. “Definitely having different challenges likes this definitely helps out.”

Around a quarter of his students have paddled through the Ausable Valley pool, but Pierson is hoping that more of his students will look to give it a try in the future.

“We’re definitely going to use word of mouth,” Pierson said. “Get these kids who are enjoying it to try to get them to talk to their friends and tell them ‘hey this is pretty good’… hopefully by the end of this year we’ll have a good share of kids that will want to advance their kayaking skills.”

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