Always Learning More...

In class on Monday and Wednesday our class went to very in depth conversations. I thoroughly enjoyed Wednesdays a little bit better because it opened my eyes on some of the diverse issues we could be faced with in our classrooms. Going into class I just thought diversity was the different backgrounds and the different social issues kids faced, but our class came up with a whole list that I didn't think would be considered diversity, but after we discussed it for a while I had pretty in depth knowledge of what all diversity was and how it was going to affect us in our schools. One of the examples used was about a kid who had behavioral issues and how the teachers had to accommodate to his needs. I learned what least restrictive environment was when I had never heard that term before.
The teachers of the near future need to have the 2015 mindset of diversity not of 20 years in the past because our society has evolved and we are seeing issues I thought we would never encounter. I didn't think I would face that many diverse issues in a PE setting, but when I thought about it I will just as many as a normal teacher would. Kids not having enough money for PE clothes, kids fighting in the locker rooms will be tests to prove how I will handle diversity in my PE class. Diversity is something that will occur in every classroom its how well you adapt to it that shows what kind of teacher you really are.

Journey to a PE Teacher...

This past week's class I went into class not knowing what we were going to do, but I can tell you this that it was one of the best classes I had been in a while. I took away information that I had never even thought about before. One of the main concepts that I found intriguing was that teachers try to cram all the information in during test time at the end of the year, but if they would have taken care of the gaps during the school year they wouldn't have to be filling in the gaps in the end. Dr. Parker used the analogy of having a cavity and if you let the problem you will eventually have to get a root canal. I had never really thought about this idea before because when I was in high school this happened every year and crammed so much at the end of the year. When we crammed like that we couldn't remember all of the information, but if the teacher would have taught us all the info and made sure there were no learning gaps there wouldn't be as much stress at the end of the year. There were many other concepts talked about during class, but this one really stood out to me. I hope to fill all the learning gaps in my classroom and have the kids learn the most they can.

Moving up...

             This past week we went to the high school. Going into the high school I had already made my mind up that I wanted to teach a middle or high school PE class. After we got done at the high I am think I want to be in a high school setting. The kids seem to be a little more mature when they reach the high school level than at the middle school. I sat in a Junior Chemistry class and it was a very interesting, but boring at the same time. The students in the classroom seemed very mature, but liked to have fun also. The teacher did a very good job of keeping the students attention and he had a way of reaching the students on their level. When we got to the classroom he was putting problems on the board while the students were answering the problems on their individual white boards. The students were working with each other to try and figure some of them out. When a student would get a problem he would talk them through the problem to see where they went wrong. The only thing that I didn't like I about the class was at the end he had given them a worksheet prior to us coming to class and they were to work on that packet for the remaining thirty minutes of class. The students got restless and so they just started talking and playing around the rest of class, while some students were still working.
              The teacher of the class was also an assistant football coach, which I enjoyed very much. When I go into teaching I also want to be a coach because when you have a coach figure in a classroom the students have a sense of respect and the coach can build a certain relationships with other athletes. You could just sense the presence of a coach in a room when I was in there and the students had respect for him when he talked. I really enjoyed the visit because it showed me what a coach in a classroom effect has on students, which I had never really thought about before. It was a eye opening experience from my standpoint and justified what I really want to do in my career.

The Journey to a PE Teacher....

This past Monday we went out on another school visit this time it was to the middle school. I thoroughly enjoyed this visit and it opened up my eyes to what I really want to do in life. Before I went I was contemplating on which grades I wanted to do, but after visiting the middle school I know that I want to teach the middle and high school age. These students seemed to be a little bit more mature and will not need as much instruction as the kids in elementary school would need. I also want to be able to coach a sport especially softball and it would be a lot easier to develop those relationships already with the students that way when they play sports they might have a little bit more respect for a coach.
When we got to the school we met with one of the assistant principals and she was going over some of the instructions what we would be doing. I was the first in line when we went down the sixth grade hallway, so I went to the first classroom, which was a Language Arts classroom. This class was your typical Language Arts class with your vocabulary and writing in your own personal journal. One thing that I really liked that the teacher did was she used a fun vocab game known as mad libs to help them learn the parts of speech. She then took her students down to the computer lab to let them be interactive and help them learn at the same time. The kids really enjoyed this time and while I was walking around the kids were working with each other to figure out what figure of speech was what and they were actually using very descriptive words that some high schoolers wouldn't even think about. I don't want to teach Language Arts and was wondering why some of us couldn't go to a PE class. I also didn't understand what this class was going to do to help the PE majors, but it wasn't so much the type of class that taught me something, but the environment we were in is what really opened my eyes to my future.