Students from the College of Education and Human Services at Seton Hall University honed their teaching skills in an unusual setting this summer: tennis camp. For four nights a week, a group of Seton Hall students would go to the Althea Gibson Tennis Center at Branch Brook Park to head up the education portion of the Greater Newark Tennis and Education’s (GNTE) summer program.
Beginning with five kids and finishing with 70 after the first year. – there are now 130 are registered, and on any given evening, 50+ kids learn the game of tennis for two hours Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday morning.
After about an hour of tennis instruction, campers settle down for a short lesson in anything from history, to working on resilience and developing emotional intelligence. After their lesson the campers (ranging in age from 5 to 12) return to the courts for more tennis.
A free program for both parents and children, the tennis camp uses the sport as a springboard for learning— both on and off the court. The education program was designed by Counseling Psychology doctoral students Pattric Davis and Shaneze Gayle. Seton Hall undergraduates joined Davis and Gayle to teach lessons four nights per week.
Seton Hall undergraduates Valerie Villanueva ’20, Jilliane Laurizio ’20, Maylin Rivera ’20 and Cecelia Pateman ’21 volunteered for the program after hearing about the opportunity from CEHS Dean Maureen Gillette and Associate Dean Omayra Arocho. Pateman said she knew she wanted to volunteer right away. “I immediately hopped on the opportunity,” she said.
Although constructed to leverage sport as a means of learning, the nontraditional educational setting can present some challenges, making it “a little tougher,” Rivera said. The setting “involves a lot more ‘go with the flow'” than working in a classroom, Pateman said.
But both Rivera and Pateman agreed that the unique setting was good experience for them because they have more flexibility with curriculum and are learning to be more adaptable. Pateman said that within reason, “we can do what we want with the lesson rather than following the kind of strict guidelines,” education students are required to follow in a field placement. “You have to be adaptable because you don’t know all of their names and you don’t know what it’s like at home. You don’t know all the important details that you would often have in a traditional classroom setting,” said Rivera.
Valerie Villanueva sees a connection between sports and self-improvement, too. Villanueva said it was not only “enriching” to apply her education training outside the classroom, but also “rewarding to work with the students on communication skills alongside notable tennis figures so they saw connections between these lessons and their blossoming tennis skills.”
“This program goes to the heart of what we do as educators,” said College of Education and Human Services Dean Maureen Gillette. “The community benefits and our students benefit from honing their teaching skills outside the classroom.” She continued, “Teaching at GNTE helps develop our prospective teachers into adaptable, multifaceted educators who are readily equipped to serve others in any setting.”
Jilliane Laurizio said, “The opportunity of teaching at GNTE’s tennis camp this summer made me even more excited for my full-time student teaching in Newark at this fall at the Lafayette Street School.”
“If the program is there, we’ll be there,” said Dean Gillette. “Having seen our students in action here, we wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
