Alpental Leadership Program

by Allan Tencer and Barak Rosenbloom

The Alpental Leadership Program (ALP) is a program offered by the Summit Learning Center of the Summit at Snoqualmie. Its goal is to provide a comprehensive season long training program for teenagers, age 13-17, who would like to teach in the ski or snowboard programs. It includes training for the Level I certification in alpine skiing or snowboarding. The following is a short description of the content and our experience with the program.

The program merged from two separate sources. Over many years, a program to teach a limited number of 3 year olds to ski had developed with a detailed curriculum. An informal apprentice program had existed as well, with kids too old for the ski school classes, but too young to teach, shadowing classes and aiding instructors. It was felt that the apprentices would gain considerable experience by teaching a 3 year old, under supervision, and then having the afternoon for more formal training.

The program’s daily content is shown in Table 1. It is integrated with our limited access 3 year old Alpentykes program. Participants are called ALPys for short. Each ALPy is assigned a 3 year old and becomes his or her "ski buddy". The ALPy greets the child, helps him/her get ready, plays in the snow and teaches him/her to ski. Because of the one-to-one contact and the better rapport with the APLys, who appear more like big brothers or sisters than adults, the great majority of the 3 year olds are skiing by the second session and going up the beginner chair by week three or four. ALPys may also be assigned as assistants to instructors teaching classes. The photos show typical ALPys with their ski buddies. They stay out for an hour, 9:30-10:30, then have a 1 hour break when the ALPy can free ski, eat or just rest and then a second skiing session follows from 11:30-12:30. Because there is no 3 year old snowboard program, ALPy snowboarders are assigned as class assistants.

The afternoon session, which lasts 3 hours, consists in part of improving their skiing in the challenging conditions of Alpental’s upper mountain, including bumps, steeps, chutes and deep snow. Practice teaching sessions are included and are designed to address problems they may have in their own teaching. Topics might include how to prepare a lesson plan, the ski teaching progression, practice teaching of the group, selecting terrain, easy routes in more difficult terrain and movement analysis problems. Leadership exercises are designed to help them discover their own leadership styles and to relate to themselves as leaders. We have found that by giving an ALPy a very challenging situation-such as being told to lead the group down the mountain, after having told the other ALPys to pretend they don’t speak English and are terrified of the terrain-gives them a chance to struggle, fail, learn from their failure and succeed with no pressure from adults. They have a tremendous amount of fun in the learning process. Through the leadership exercises and lots of one-on-one conversations on the lifts, many of the kids begin to see who they are at their cores, and what leadership and teaching styles are most natural for them.

Another major goal of the afternoon session is to expose them to other aspects of the operation of the mountain. For example, during the program they will have a clinic with our ski school director. In a session with the ski patrol, they learn a bit about avalanche control, first aid and rescue, and the danger of tree wells. They have a session with a professional boot fitter who can assess the performance of their ski boots and give them some insight into ski boot design. These sessions (usually less than 30 minutes long) are meant to give them a broader understanding of different aspects of skiing or snowboarding which also are relevant to their own performance. Finally, the last hour is devoted to practicing PSIA/AASI Level I ski or snowboard tasks. There is also an indoor session during one of the afternoons devoted to preparation for the Level I written exam. Since there is significant content to the program, it runs over a 10 week period followed by the Level I written test and on-snow exam.

Even though there is a lot of content, the emphasis is definitely on having fun with lots of skiing on Alpental’s challenging terrain. Taking the Level I test is optional, but for the great majority, attaining their Level I certification and becoming an instructor is a definite goal within the group. Over the years, the program has evolved from being specifically centered on the Level I ski tasks to encompass more leadership exercises and teaching practice, so they become more well rounded instructors since the Level I exam does not have a teaching module. The success of the program is measurable by its continued popularity along with the significant number of new instructor graduates from the program who join the Summit Learning Center the following year, estimated to be 50-60% of the previous year’s group.

Table 1 - Daily schedule for the Alpental Leadership Program

8:30 am - 1:30 pm

Sign in at the Mini-Hut. In the morning you will have two hours of practical teaching experience with either Alpentykes, Mini-Mites or Mighty-Mites. You’ll have time to take breaks and free-ski.

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm

Meet at the Mama Bear on the Main Plaza. In the first half of the afternoon, we will explore what it means to be a leader; practice teaching; explore the mountain; learn from special clinicians; meet with leaders from around the mountain and more. The specifics each week will be based on conditions and guest availability.

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

In the second half of the afternoon, we will prepare for the PSIA Level I on-snow exam. Some of you may choose to be in the regular instructor clinics that run from 3:15 pm - 5:00 pm instead.

The ALPy is learning to teach, under the supervision of adult instructors, and monitors the 3 year old for "proper" ski technique. They teach them to turn their skis by "point your toes" references and keeping their weight over their skis by either standing next to them or skiing backwards in front of them. They (ALPy) are taught to always make sure they are holding the magic wand at a level appropriate to the correct hand height for the 3 year old to properly balance over their skis (not up high and not pushing them back).

The program has significant benefit to the ALPy because he/she can leave the program with a nationally recognized certification as well as a year of teaching experience. Most also gain a significant sense of accomplishment by experiencing their 3 year old "ski buddy" actually learning to ski. We have found that the kids respond very positively to our message of no pressure, happiness counts. Many of them don’t get that these days. We want the ALP to be an opportunity for 21st century kids to learn that they don’t have to be stressed all the time, that learning and work can be fun and playful and their lives can really be about being happy. In fact, we tell them that they have two fundamental jobs: don’t lose your 3 year old, and be happy.

From the viewpoint of the Learning Center, the program provides a significant number of quality instructors every year who are already well known to the Learning Center supervisors. We believe that this "farm team’ approach will improve the quality of new ski instructors, especially young ones, coming into a ski school. Over the next several years, we will be refining the ALP curriculum, developing new approaches to all aspects of the program and expanding the numbers so it becomes a major source of our instructor base.

(The input of Dave Beckwith, Lloyd Bauer, Sue Bauer, LaWana Quayle and Drue

Allan Tencer is a Level III Alpine instructor who has taught at Alpental for 19 years. He is a trainer for the Alpental Leadership Program. Allan is also a professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery & Sports Medicine and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington.

Barak Rosenbloom is the Snow Sports Coordinator at the Summit Learning Center and the program lead for the Alpental Leadership Program. He has taught at the Summit for 13 years. His professional background is in personal and organizational transformation, with many years experience in leadership development.