Dave Mollard's Change is Constant: We need to pass water wisdom onto our tamariki

The Hokowhitu School Community Pool has survived Generation X decision makers.

OPINION:

We were really fortunate growing up that our mother was on the Kiwi Swimming Club committee.

Not only did we have swimming lessons, but we had the holy grail of Palmerston North - the key to the Intermediate Normal swimming pool!

Those hot summer days were spent playing the roughest games of water polo you have ever seen, alternated with bravely diving into the unheated and seemingly bottomless void of the diving tank.

During school days on those hot February afternoons, our class would line up outside with togs and towels clutched to our chests and we would march the 60m to the swimming pool.

Our school pool was, as the caretaker jokingly put it, "solar heated". What that really meant was if it was sunny it would be warmish, but if it was cloudy we would be breaking the ice as we jumped in. The teacher, standing on the side wearing walk shorts, long socks, sandals and a towelling hat, would then attempt to teach us the basics of not drowning.

Swimming styles ranged from the timid who did not even get their hair wet, through to doggie paddle and those sleek creatures who were more dolphin than human. The class' favourite in-pool activities were the washing machine and the legendary whirlpool where we would run in a clockwise direction until the water turned into a vortex of fun.

It must have been 3 feet deep at best but we held our school swimming sports in it every year and we loved it! We pushed ourselves to be brave and we all learned a little more each lesson about being safe in water.

Usually my opinion piece is about how the present is better than the past, but in the case of school pools it's the opposite. In the past five years our kids have had their last dips in almost 170 school pools that have been shut down, filled in, or left to decay.

Principals blame the cost of running pools and the liability that comes with it as the reasons for closing pools. Our grandparents and parents built and maintained these taonga at almost every state school in Aotearoa but now, as Generation X takes over the decision making, we have said our time and our money is better spent elsewhere than the humble school pool.

We can blame the government, the council or the officious health and safety officers with their clipboards, but the real culprit of this crime is both writing and reading this piece. As individuals we need to acknowledge the benefit we got from our school pool, and do everything we can as a community to pass this water wisdom on to our tamariki and mokopuna.

The only constant is change.

• Dave Mollard is a Palmerston North community worker and social commentator.