Mandatory swimming lessons in schools, useful or no?

45 comments

1. Useful. The difference between knowing how to navigate in water and not could mean the difference between life and death. People with zero experience in deep water immediately panic and can’t even travel several meters to save themselves. It’s also just good exercise.

2. Those Europeans haven’t had to deal with the hellscape that exists when learning to swim is purely optional like what we have in the United States. You get massive swaths of the population (especially the urban poor) who go through life where falling into water deeper than neck deep is akin to falling into lava (i.e. death is all but guaranteed). If the government doesn’t provide and mandate swim lessons then you wind up with a population of where upwards of 70% of the urban working class and 50% of working class rural citizens can’t swim (if the schools won’t make their kids learn to swim then many parents either can’t/won’t take their kids to private lessons).

   I lived in Japan for three years and the universal access to public pools and the school mandate that all children learn to swim is a treasure to society. Does it mean that you’ll get redundant government lessons that often aren’t as good as private lessons? Sure, but that’s far better than the alternative of what occurs when swim lessons aren’t a mandatory part of public school. Swimming is a vital life skill and it’s downright criminal to let a child grow up in a manner where 75% of the planet’s surface will kill them if they get immersed in it. Middle and upper class kids enduring redundant state swimming lessons is a small price to pay for everyone in a nation knowing how to swim.

3. I can’t comment on Japan’s school swimming lessons, but you’re always going to learn more from many hours of private or parental than a handful of hours in school.

   That said, it’s absurd that you can graduate elementary school, much less high school, without being able to so much as doggy paddle.

4. very useful – especially if you live on an island nation. . .

5. Every year many refugees die in Germany because they go swimming in the lakes. It clearly shows that mandatory swimming lessons, even if it is just super basic, can save lives.

   During the Corona panic Germany decided that this is not necessary anymore, many students will never learn how to swim. I think it is a shame.

6. Private lessons are bound to be “better” as it’s one to one attention or small group lessons.

   However, what is the end goal? If the person loves swimming and is thnking of joining school swim team, competing, or just wants higher level skilss, then sure. Private.

   But when it comes to just the basics and survival swimming? The required lessons get kids to a point they can float easily, tread water, know basic water safety, do the usual breaststroke correctly and are not afraid of the water. That’s really all you need from at-school lessons.

7. Yes

8. Ultimately depends on the quality of the program in those schools.

   Although usually lower quality than a private teacher, some can get more out of lessons from the school if they put in the effort.

9. As a European I was taught how to swim in public school after my parents failed to teach me (they tried, but I never “got it” with my parents lessons) so I dunno who is saying that mandatory swimming lessons are useless.

10. European here, that is utter nonsense. Sure you are going to get a higher quality when you pay for lessons but the mandatory lessons are not useless. They provide the first and only swimming experience for many children. I know many kids in my class learnt to swim during the mandatory classes. If you are really that worried about it supplement the mandatory classes with pool time with yourself or your partner.

11. It’s also hot as fuck where I’m at right now. Swimming lesson gives the students something to look forward to and cool off. I usually jump in too while instructing. It’s not just about learning how to be a good swimmer, it’s about being comfortable in water and building confidence.

    Ex: With my younger kids we play janken underwater to get them comfortable holding their head underwater.

12. Aussie here. They literally save lives.

    Cannot count the amount of times I’ve seen news stories about people who couldn’t swim drowning. Besides, you’re better off knowing how to swim yet never needing to know, than you are needing to know how to swim, yet not knowing how.

13. I used to work in Japanese tourism in Australia and sold scuba diving courses. In the course they had to swim 200m. The instructors told me that many Japanese people couldn’t do it and let them stop when they’d had enough. No other nationality had such a problem with it.

14. I’m 30, from the UK and I can’t swim. I hate going on boats cause I know falling overboard or sinking is just a slow, painful death for me. I kinda wanna do lessons but learning at 30 is kinda embarassing.

15. It’ll be very basic but worth it, even if they just end up learning very basics strokes and how to thread water. My boyfriend is 38 and can’t swim, and it’s very hard for him to find the confidence to learn now as an adult.

16. I’ve never taken swimming lessons in Japan, and I doubt many others in this forum have either, since this is an English-language forum full of people from other countries.

    It sounds like a good idea to me though. Japan is an island nation, so everybody should know how to swim.

    I think the students only have swimming lessons about 6 times a year. It’s better than nothing.

    I think the various cities across the country just want to make sure their citizens have the basics of swimming down. They’re not out to make Olympic athletes.

    In the old country, I took private lessons, but also lessons through my school. We didn’t have a pool at our school, so we went to the local community pool. People from the pool taught us, not our regular school teachers.

17. I wish I learned how to swim in school….

18. My take is that it’s harmful. I think in Japan some people don’t teach their younger children to swim because they know they’ll learn in school. However, by the time they learn in school, it’s really late, and much harder. I have several Japanese friends that can’t/can’t competently swim.

    To be fair, this is not the majority of the population or anything, but more than zero was kind of shocking to me. Where I’m from I don’t know anyone who can’t swim and everyone learned through lessons prior to elementary school.

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20. Austrian here, we have mandatory school swimming lessons. They are usually not held at school but at reserved public pools with professional swimming instructors. I don’t know a single person who grew up in Austria and can’t swim so there isn’t even a question about its usefulness.

21. The crazy thing is how so many Japanese refuse to get in water past their waist, even when they can swim.

22. It’s very worth it. I went to a private school in Japan and therefore never learned to swim. If you don’t live close to the beach and if your parents never take you to lessons, you’re going to end up not being able to swim. Even if the lessons aren’t as good as private instruction, they’re better than nothing. I really regret it now being older and actually living relatively close to beautiful beaches and not being able to actually swim.

23. To me private swimming schools seem useless. My kids have been attending for months and it’s obvious the purpose is not to quickly teach them to swim, but to have regular customers.

24. Fanboy of the Dutch system here. I was taught how to swim fully clothed, including shoes. Very helpful.

25. Who are these ‘many’ Europeans? Mayve they went to learn ‘too late’. I think I haven’t heard one Norwegian saying it was useless tho… swimming is a very basic skill in life.

26. Basic introduction in school can be good so everyone gets to experience being in a pool. Not every child might otherwise. Hopefully everyone at least discovers an enjoyment of water, over fear, and gains basic safety and floating skills, so you can cope in a fall into a river.

27. I learned to swim in mandatory swimming classes in the Netherlands, which are very much a necessity given the abundance of canals and other bodies of water in the country. Those lessons were intended to teach young children survival skills in case they fell into the water, which is why they built up from swimming in swimwear to a full winter outfit with waterproof jacket. Because the focus is to teach kids how to keep their heads above water and swim to safety, this isn’t a huge emphasis on technique. Tbh, I think that’s practical and smart to implement as mandatory, and everything else can be a choice left to individual families.

28. If you are actually approaching this as a research question, what you need to look at is whether or not schools have swimming programs. Many countries have swimming programs but it is not mandated by the government, or there is some regional variation.

    If you assume that countries without mandatory swimming lessons do not teach children how to swim, you are making a critical error.

29. I’m from Poland and I had once per week seining classes in junior high school and I think it was very useful and more fun than normal PE classes. Unfortunately I had that only one year but I could learn enough basics.

    Now I live in Japan and my son is in kindergarten where they just started pool classes. I think its great to give opportunities to get new skill. No one is asking to be Olimpic champion but knowing how to swim on island, where many disasters can happen is quite useful

30. The mandatory swimming classes in Sweden were definitely not useless. Every child pretty much HAD to learn how to swim and by the end pretty much everyone did.

31. I worked in a few rural schools in Japan and the fact that even some very inaka schools have pools for children to be able to swim in is very beneficial for them. The students I worked with all enjoyed the swimming and everyone learned as it was part of the curriculum. I think that swimming is an important skill to have no matter who you are.

    Basic Swimming is an important skill to have so I won’t begrudge having every student learning it but is it worth the time in a public school? That’s a different debate. I think your question should be framed around what the role of a public school should be because without that starting point everyone answering this question sees the target as different.

    Example: Myself, I feel it is not the role of the state to raise/educate children nor tax their parents to do so. So my personal opinion would be that there should be no public schools run by the state. (see 20th century for further detail) 😉

32. In France near Paris.
    In my experience and area, everybody of my school and school around knew how to swim before having swimming class.
    Swimming class was not there to teach you how to swim, just to practice, at least thats how we felt.
    Too much kids and not enough personel to properly teach to anybody imo.
    At the same time the people not feeling comfortable during those class was getting targeted as the people to mock during those class.

    Basicly, everybody hated it and i dont think many people learned how to swim there. I guess there is but i never saw it or heard of it with my friends from other schools around.

33. Swimming is a survival skill. In no way are swimming lessons useless.

34. Dear god. It should be considered ABUSE if a child is not exposed to the water and encouraged to learn to float and swim. This is not a matter of “how much bang for the buck” or whether the child becomes a competitive fucking swimmer, this is a basic skill, potentially a matter of life or death, that is absolutely not going to teach itself.

35. It’s an important safety skill.

36. I come from somewhere with no swimming provided in school.

    I think it’s an incredibly good policy even if the swimming lessons are less than fantastic. The option is always available to get private lessons to improve, if you can afford it.

    But here there are MANY people who end up never learning to swim and turn into adults afraid of the water.

    I think that exposure and experience as a child is fantastic and important.

37. European (German) here: It was kinda useless in teaching people how to swim for most people in my class, including me, simply because most people had already learned to swim before going to school or at the very least specifically for those lessons.

    The problem was more that there were one or two people who had not yet learned to swim, so one teacher was stuck teaching those two to swim, while the others could do all the fun stuff with the other teacher.

    I imagine it might be a similar situation in Japan.

38. Having the ability to swim: useful or no? You decide…

39. Sounds like you have a lot yet to learn in sociology.. .

40. If I can tell parents to teach their kids anything early on that will benefit them for life.. it is to learn to swim. It is a skill I think every human being should learn, even if they hate the activity itself, because it really can save your life.

41. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

    Especially on an island nation, that has a history of floods. (And for the US that has a whole ‘belt’ that borders the water). Learning not to swim while living on a planet where 75% of its surface is water and active climate change is a rather…fatal fate.

42. Aussie here, born and lived my entire life in Melbourne. I did mandatory swimming classes when I was 8-9 years old as my school was lucky enough to have its own pool on the grounds. Found it extremely useful as I got older since I found myself at the beach more often than not. I think it overall depends on how often you’d find the skill “useful enough”, and having lived within 10-20km of the closest beach all my life I’m definitely thankful to have learned what I did. I generally find that all my mates did the same and I rarely find someone in Aus who can’t swim, or at least keep themselves afloat in water since they also did mandatory swimming lessons as kids.

43. Any chance to teach your children to swim early and cheaply is golden. Take it.

44. Not sure if it’s been mentioned, but at least in my town in Japan swimming at school has been cancelled since covid started, and last I heard there are no plans to ever have it again.

45. Living on an island and not being able to swim is pretty shameful at best and deadly at worst.

    Making basic swimming skills part of all schooling is an obvious good and important part of education.