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Yo'd Wish You'd Been There
THE NATIONAL BRIDGE TEACHERS' CONFERENCE
What makes a National Conference? One aspect is meeting up with others from around the country who share similar interests and goals. Another is being able to listen to speakers knowledgeable in their subject, an opportunity many do not normally have. A third is to go home with new ideas, new enthusiasm about the subject which brought everyone together.
In all three aspects, I believe the recently held National Bridge Teachers’ Conference succeeded.
Three of the organizing team: Shirley Newton, Alan Turner and yours truly
The last such Conference was over two years ago in Christchurch. This time, 60 bridge teachers and administrators gathered at the Franklin Bridge Club in Pukekohe for an interesting series of talks and topics. They came from as far away as Oamaru, Queenstown, Dunedin and Riverton in the south and Dargaville in the north. It was a pity that several local clubs were not represented at all though a third of our affiliated clubs were.
The three guest speakers were different in style and content but were all very engaging. Local Franklin member, Will Fulton, of an age we covet for all our clubs, spoke very eloquently of what got him to bridge and has kept him there. He has brought his family to play at the club and talked about the difficulties they along with most new players encountered in the three years since they learnt the game. He spoke of his surprise at how long it took to learn (“10 lessons”!) and of how one can feel so ignorant and apprehensive about going to sessions of bridge. Will and his family have survived (we hope) though the dangers are there in all our clubs.
Margaret Curnow specialises in teaching adults how to teach. Many bridge teachers have no training in teaching while bridge playing school teachers may find teaching adults rather different from their normal day. This was the subject of Margaret’s hour long talk, the best way of teaching adults to teach bridge.
Margaret Curnow with Taradale's Lynne Bowcock and New Plymouth's Christine Burton
Among the many excellent points she highlighted were the dangers of making learners feel stupid and of over-using bridge terminology. Bridge Teachers must think of the outcome, what they want to achieve, from a question, from a session. She talked about the different learning styles adults have: we are all so different. The three “tell them” stages of a lesson was extremely interesting. So were all the “do’s” and “don’t” like saying to the class “permission to feel overwhelmed”. It is a natural feeling and hardly special to any one player.
Margaret assists in the bridge teaching at the Wellington Bridge Club and gave her audience at the Conference plenty to think about.
The Conference concluded with an entertaining talk from Michael Courtney who is a relatively recent import to first Hamilton and now Auckland from Australia. He has a wealth of knowledge about the history of the game, a very quick mind and some strong views on how the game should be taught and played. Anyone who thinks our top players are all wound up in artificiality should spend a few minutes listening to Michael!
As well as these main speakers, Shirley Newton led a very important session on the retention of new players in our clubs. Tina McVeigh chaired a session on bridge resources. There is so much now available for bridge teachers or those who want ideas on improving their clubs. Douglas Russell (Auckland), Rona Driscoll (Taupo) and Chris Glyde (Franklin) talked about issues affecting large, medium and small clubs. Alan Turner related where the Teaching Committee was at and what will be coming next as far as website modules are concerned.
one of the many valuable group discussions during the weekend.
Amid all of this was the all -important exchanging of ideas, problems etc which can best be achieved by a face to face couple of days. If the future of bridge teaching in this country is in the hands of the group of people who were at Pukekohe this weekend, then it is in very good hands.
New Zealand Bridge would love to see regional Teachers’ Conferences or sessions occurring in the “off year” as the next National Conference will not be for another two years. Watch out for the venue and timing. It is well worth the effort of attending.
Richard Solomon
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