Within this category, essays and articles focus on effectively teaching children in the pre-school and elementary grades. It’s a great place to find teaching tips and get advice from experienced practitioners.
Paul Zientarski has dedicated much of his life to getting people to think differently about the value of physical education. He was responsible for developing the hugely successful PE program in Naperville IL, and today continues to share his passion for physical education through a TEDx Talk.
Watch the video and be inspired.
“Where is your passion?” I recently asked this of a group of physical education undergraduates who were halfway through their student teaching. In putting together my presentation to them, I wanted something that would grab their attention right away and get them thinking about their chosen profession. I think this question did the trick.
When I asked for their answers, I got many of the response I anticipated. Most of them said something along the lines of “physical activity,” or “physical fitness,” or even “teaching kids about sports and fitness.” But then one of these students gave me the answer I was hoping for. His answer was “to teach kids.” When I pressed him to tell me more, low I thought he would say something PE related. I was both surprised and impressed when he answered by saying “anything!” That was the answer I was hoping for and what I wanted to get all of the students to think about.
You see I believe that there is a big difference between our passion and our expertise. Our passion needs to be kids. First and foremost our main focus should be on the kids we are fortunate enough to see daily (even the ones that seem to go the extra mile to make our jobs difficult). We are there to create an environment where our students can thrive. As basic as that sounds I believe this should be our main focus.
Our expertise is in the subject we teach. For us and for those undergraduates it is physical education. Physical educators spend their entire careers honing this expertise. Many of us have taught for years, regularly reviewed our lessons and constantly made necessary adjustments. We’ve attended countless conferences to learn how to expand our expertise. We’ve picked the brains of colleagues always looking for a better way to teach something. But none of this is any good unless it’s aimed at our passion: Helping to improve the lives of the kids we see daily!
I just returned from a successful weekend road trip. I say successful because of the 5 hours that I personally drove; I only missed one exit, resulting in a short 10-minute detour from our destination. For those of you who know me this is a huge accomplishment. In recent years, I rarely make it to a destination without multiple U-turns. The worst was when my husband woke from a nap in the passenger’s seat to find that I had traveled three quarters of the way around the Washington D.C. loop and was heading back north on our trip from New York to North Carolina! I emphatically insist that if the co-pilot stayed awake during the entire trip these things wouldn’t happen. But the truth is that once I get on the highway and point my wheels between the dotted white lines, the driver in me goes on autopilot and my mind travels elsewhere toward solving the problems of the world.
Okay, maybe I am exaggerating. Truthfully, I could be thinking about grocery shopping, my next bulletin board, or our new puppy, but over the last 2 years I have also had a recurring philosophical debate with myself – “What geometric shape best represents physical education in today’s society?”
This internal discussion began after reading Knowledge/Skills and Physical Activity: Two Different Coins, or Two Sides of the Same Coin? (Blankenship, 2013). In it, Bonnie questions the direction of physical education. She refers to physical education and physical activity as being two sides of the same coin. The image of physical education as a coin with two sides got me thinking about my beloved Springfield College Triangle and the Humanics Philosophy.
“The kids are the future, we have to make sure we invest in the future…show them how important they all are.show them to be more than their upbringing.”- Shelly Hoffman
In 2014, Shelly Hoffman of Franklin Elementary School in Wichita, Kansas was recognized as SHAPE America’s National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year (TOY). Shelly has been with her current school district for 26 years.
“I love teaching. I love seeing that light bulb turn on when the kids finally get it. That moment when they achieve it, that is what I love the most. I am the toughest teacher, but it’s because I love the kids and want to see them excel.”
As we sat down to write about this month’s topic of drugs and alcohol awareness, we decided to examine it through a different lens than the typical approach. Rather than examine drug and alcohol issues and their potential harmful effects, we decided to look at a potential harmful substance that is readily available in our society. The substance we chose to focus on was caffeine, and more specifically to examine the effects of caffeine that is found in energy drinks that are readily available to our students.
In this day and age, we are probably all familiar with the vast array of brand name energy drinks in stores and vending machines. They are advertised widely through television, the Internet and a variety of other advertising outlets. Energy drinks with names that evoke thoughts of high risk adventures and dangerous excitement, are often marketed as products that will increase one’s overall awareness, sharpen focus, and of course, provide much needed energy to succeed at what one is doing. These energy drinks are sometimes also referred to as sports drinks; obviously intended to lure athletes to purchase them.
The promise of added energy and alertness to a fatigued athlete or a tired student aspiring to get the edge is appealing. However, a closer examination of the ingredients in these products, specifically the caffeine, reveals that energy drinks also have potential negative effects on one’s body. Therefore, in this article we aim to:
April is drug awareness month and as I sat down to write I wondered what you ideas I might have to share on the topic. Kids do lots of things they would never do on their own simply to be part of the crowd. Trying to keep them away from being in the in-crowd is like trying to choose their friends. It won’t happen. You cannot be everywhere as a parent or as a teacher and you cannot make them see things the way you do, especially when they are trying to break out of being Mommy’s little kid. They want to choose their own friends and for at least a lot of those formative years, many youngsters will decide to do things that will make them appear more grown up in their friends’ eyes.
In short, kids often make bad choices, unaware or unconcerned about the consequences. Sadly, all too often their actions not only ruin their adolescence, but sometimes their whole lives. While we would love to stop them from self-destructive behaviors, the most influence we have as teachers is to help them gain the wisdom to know the consequences of what they are choosing to do. We can also help give them the strength to resist dangerous peer-pressure. There are always the kids who think they are doing something good for themselves and shock us all when it turns out bad. Let me share a personal story of some dear friends.
My friend’s twin boys adopted in a foreign country and taken out of poverty at the age of eight had to overcome many obstacles when assimilating into this country and their school. First there was their unguided and poorly supported childhood. Before coming here, they had been pretty much on their own, having to fend for themselves, which often meant trying to procure food for themselves and their younger sisters. In their old life, there was often no one to feed them, set rules, or hold them up to any set of standards. Once here, they had to learn a new language and an entirely new set of behaviors. This need along with their impulsiveness and learning disabilities made it difficult for them to fit in. No one knows how they would have fared if they had not had each other, but the power of two makes more things possible – some good, some bad. Over the years they came up with some very original schemes, the last of which occurred as a result of something they thought they was good – taking protein supplements – but turned out not even close to being good.
Note: Reprinted from the Ahwatukee Foothills News, March 17, 2015, reprinted by permission.
Over the last few months, much has been written about funding for Arizona education. The seventeen percent decrease in funding in recent years and diversion of funds designated for education have prompted a variety of comments. Rarely mentioned, however, is the fact that art, music, and physical education programs have been dramatically cut as funding has decreased. Improving test scores in math and language arts seems to be the primary goal and “special” programs such as art, music, and physical education are the first to go when budget shortfalls occur. If and when funding is restored, these programs sometimes, referred to as “frills” are rarely restored.
But what does the evidence tell us about these “special programs?” It tells us that they really are special, not frills. Lets take a look at the evidence. Students who participate in the arts read more often, are four times more likely to do public service, four times more likely to be in a math or science fair, and three times more likely to bet elected to a class office than other students.
