Evaluating the School Year

The school year may be almost over and although you will certainly need a break from the noise, kids and administrative chores, hopefully you’ll find time to take stock of the year just finishing – how it was, what worked (and why), what needs changing (and why), and if you met your professional goals or need to set new ones. Among other things, this means figuring out why some classes were a joy to teach and why others less so! Why? And more importantly what can you do to improve next year?

Part of the reason some things did not go as well as you hoped might relate to facilities, equipment, time, or curriculum. But perhaps the explanation is related to something harder to clearly point to such as difficult relationship with some of your students? What might be called for is finding more effective ways to address the physical, social, and emotional needs of all of your students.

A good starting point is to remind yourself that all of your students are different. You undoubtedly have some great athletes, some creative thinkers, some social butterflies, some kids who comply with your directions because they’ve learned that moving is good for their health or because they like you, some who hate competition though they love to move, and some who show up because they have to and have no other motivation.

You also probably have some who could not give a damn about PE, the class, their classmates, and you! You may also have students who desperately need more confidence before they will get any joy from class activities, some who are alienated from their peer group, others suffering from challenging living conditions and deeply in need of a role model, a few who are so darn overweight that moving is torture, and others who for various reasons have personality traits that make them incredibly difficult to relate to.

Despite trying our best to reach everyone, no matter how hard we try we can’t always immediately connect with every student the way we want. But with the school year over and time to reflect we do need to remind ourselves that making the effort with all students is worth it. Once you find a way to connect personally you have a hook, and that hook which varies for every student, allows teachers to build a supportive, understanding relationship that can win students over forever.

When students realize that we really care and that we respect them for who they are, they start to realize that we are in “it’ together, that you want the best for them, and are willing to work with them to make that happen. Each of the challenging kids you successfully connect with will probably never be challenging again – unless there is something seriously wrong elsewhere and they are desperately in need of more than just your support.

Something else to consider is to take stock of the issues of the day and how what’s happening outside your school might be impacting group dynamics. For instance, it is easy – especially for kids – to become immune to violence because they see it everywhere and constantly: During professional sports when athletes try to “take-out” their opponents, and in the news, movies and during TV shows. Kids – being kids – often don’t recognize the dangers of their own, sometimes violent behaviors and that what they are doing is risky, unacceptable and wrong. These behaviors – particularly in physical education – can be very serious.

Equally serious, but in another way is when belittling language and personal attacks seem acceptable because they’ve become so commonplace. As we’ve seen this year, even today’s political debates have candidates lambasting one and other rather than discussing issues.   Then, to increase exposure and capture attention, mainstream media saturates the newscasts with replays of adult vulgarities. Looking to the future, if violence and personal attacks become commonplace outside of schools, we are going to need to develop strategies to address them in ways that don’t appear to make us enemies of our students.

Why do I bring this up? Because physical education settings are the most social of all public school classroom environments and I don’t believe we cannot succeed as teachers if we cannot effectively communicate with the people we are working with. How can we effectively teach our subject matter if we are unable to relate to our students’ needs and if we will not or cannot control the dynamics of the social environment we teach in?

In honesty, not every student loved me or my class, despite my sincere efforts to attend to their needs and also to achieve my professional goals. Many were angry when they got me because they knew they could not sit around and do nothing. Honestly though, when most who were unhappy being assigned to me for physical education realized that they were important to me, that there was a place where they were needed in gym every class, that it was important to me that they were there, their behaviors started to change. It often took some weeks but eventually they did start to enjoy classes.

Thinking back, I remember one girl, who with all the girls in her class was transferred to me for two months – one month of dance-aerobics and one month of girls’ basketball. Boy, was she angry! She let me know it too – in language and inaction. For a few weeks she went through the motions with a scowl. But gradually she wasn’t scowling. The week before she and her class were to return to her other teacher she came to me and said, “Ms. Kleinman, do we have to go back to Mr. S? Can’t you make it so we can stay with you for the rest of the year? I never knew sweating could be so much fun.” I still get the chills when I remember her saying that to me!

Conclusion

I taught for most of my career with limited indoor facilities and many classes of fifty or more students. I was determined that my kids would not come in, be urged to hurry to change, and then be forced to wait. I didn’t want them sitting out because there wasn’t enough room and I certainly didn’t want to give in to the limitations we faced with space, time, and large class size. I also wanted to encourage full participation, playing by the rules, and learning to work together. To do it right, I needed to be in two or three places at one time. Well, that was impossible! So I’ll end with an idea that gave me the freedom to not only teach classes but also devote more time to teaching the most needy individuals.

Create a Leaders Club

If you have boys and girls who love being in the gym, who love being active, who are smart, responsible and don’t mind doing homework at home, investigate whether they can volunteer their study hall time to help in the gym. I discovered the truth behind the expression “If you build it, they will come” when I created a “Leaders Club.”

A successful Leaders Club needs an advisor willing to meet outside of school hours, direct play, encourage camaraderie, and teach leadership skills at the same time. Most kids learn quickly from role models but some things do need to be taught. Here are just a few of the things student leaders can learn and become responsible for:

• Setting out and respecting equipment, learning what to prepare and where to return it, and in some cases how to maintain it.
• Being confident and comfortable standing in front of the class to lead warm-ups and stretching. This frees the teacher to move around to correct mechanics that need fixing.
• Understanding game and activity rules and developing the confidence to officiate and score for class teams.

In short, a Leaders Club encourages and develops student leadership skills. If in the process these student leaders actually learn officiating techniques, they get a head start in gaining extra earning potential skills. It prepares them to go for an officials’ rating where they can get decent part time wages for officiating in a sports environment they love.

Finally, what does a class get out of having student leaders assisting in their classes? They see student role models, learn an appreciation for following rules, experience more student-teacher contact, and perhaps even get more playing opportunities because if teachers have student leaders to rely on, they can set up more teaching stations and give more individual instruction.

This is all food for thought and I invite you to share your thoughts and suggestions with me and others in the comment box below. Have a great summer!