Highlight-filled career for retiring Slade
Retiring associate professor Dr Dennis Slade from the Massey University school of sport, exercise and nutrition has plenty of highlights to consider in his 50 years in education and sport.
‘‘Writing national curriculum documents and having my text become the standard for senior secondary school [physical education] in New Zealand; my game-centred learning approach being adopted by the Federation of International Hockey as their standard recommended introduction to hockey for novices and being made a fellow of Physical Education New Zealand, are achievements of which I am proud.’’ Slade’s opportunity to be involved in many of these developments initially came through his time as head of physical education at Awatapu College. He was fortunate the principal, John Wall, had a holistic view of the place of physical education in the curriculum and allowed him to implement programmes that led to other national teaching opportunities. At Awatapu College, he integrated children from the special school into their programmes, delivered remedial and extension programmes in movement, mastery and game-centred learning.
He also instituted a comprehensive senior recreation programme and developed a critical thinking programme on the sociology of sport.
For a brief period, he was the director of recreation at IPU, then known as International Pacific College, where he introduced New Zealand’s first tertiary sports scholarship programme.
During his tenure at the Palmerston North College of Education, which later integrated with Massey, he co-ordinated the bachelor of education secondary physical education programme, which provided diverse opportunities to further develop his philosophies of teaching games and sports to young people.
He has run more than 100 workshops in New Zealand and abroad.
Working in Asia, the United Kingdom and Europe, especially the Netherlands and Germany, provided new perspectives and amazing experiences.
Closer to home, some of the contexts have been interesting.
Working with New Zealand’s regional netball coaches, where he was one male working with more than 30 experienced female coaches, was a fraction intimidating.
Another challenge, which proved productive and enjoyable, was game-centred learning for the New Zealand Equestrian Association when he could not ride a horse.
Slade was honoured Human Kinetics published his text, Transforming Play, which has been adopted by universities, teachers and coaches internationally.
A recent highlight was the rare honour of being made a fellow of Physical Education New Zealand.
As a sportsman, hockey has been Slade’s passion as a player, coach and administrator.
He has occupied most administrative and coaching positions in Manawatū hockey.
Additionally, for three years he was the hockey correspondent for the Manawatū Standard.
He is especially proud of founding and running, almost single-handedly, Manawatū Indoor Hockey, which from small beginnings eventually ran to more than 100 teams.
For four years Slade coached the New Zealand under-16 boys’ hockey team, including two years as the head coach.
He ran more than 50 coaching workshops for Hockey New Zealand in game-centred coaching.
The regional coaching director at that time, Brad Jensen, noted Slade was responsible for changing the way junior hockey was coached in New Zealand.
Slade played more than 100 games in both outdoor and indoor hockey for Manawatū .
He also played in the New Zealand minor associations team on an undefeated tour of Australia.
Still playing hockey, in the 2019 international masters World Cup in Australia, Slade was the top goalscorer in his age group.
These achievements aside, there are two other aspects of Slade’s involvement with hockey of which he is especially proud.
His success in convincing the Massey administration of the benefits of building a hockey turf and seeing it through to fruition on the campus was extremely satisfying.
Retirement will bring opportunities for developing other ideas associated with youth sport, particularly in hockey where he was concerned about what is not happening in the under-15 years programmes.
He was also interested in youth cricket and hoped to provide an alternative approach to coaching practice utilising a more game-understanding approach. As an academic, Slade has written five books and more than 160 articles, conferences presentations and coaching workshops.
He considered his forte was making the theory practical.
Initially, he did not envisage his teaching career following this trajectory, but had loved his work and was extremely grateful for his opportunities and for the rewards that his academic career had bestowed.