Well it has certainly been a journey. 8 months. I have been in this classroom for 8 months and it still feels like I walked in yesterday. I honestly could ramble on about lessons learned, reminisce about that one time that student did that thing, or think back fondly on all those long, wonderful hours spent marking probability packages. Alas, that is not why you are here so I fear I must focus this tirade of memories on one important area. Competition.
My final week was capped off by taking the students I had coached in Track and field to the District Track Meet at Swangard Stadium. I had worked very hard with them over the course of the season to steadily improve, work on tricky aspects like the baton pass in relays and cadence in events like 800m, but most importantly, we worked on SELF-IMPROVEMENT. That kind of intrinsic motivation to try better than next time, to work harder, and generally improve for the sake of improving. This is a tough thing to foster inside oneself and at first, (and for some not at all) the students were resistant to it. “What place was I?”and “Who did I beat?” were the cries at the end of each race at the beginning. However, (again for some) this changed. They were soon replaced by “What was my time?” or “Was I faster than last race?” This was truly great to see and I do credit it to the nature of track and field. As was stressed often, you are racing the timer as you are going for the fastest time, not the fastest in each race. In long jump or shot put, you aren’t all jumping or throwing together. You do your best one by one so you don’t even have the person in the lane beside you to compete against. It is truly a place for training, mentally training, yourself to work towards personal bests.
At Swangard this came into fruition. Everywhere I saw students discussing personal bests, wishing and hoping that the next race would result in their fastest time. Were they competing against each other? Yes, in a way. It is a district competition so I believe it would be pointless to argue that it isn’t. However, that competition isn’t directed right at another competitor. You are competing against yourself and through that, you are building intrinsic motivation. Previously I have discussed the concept of competing against an external force like a timer and this is the manifestation of that idea. It is theory put into practice and it works.
If it works for athletics, it certainly can be applied in a cross-curricular manner into other areas of the classroom. New goal: Math Athletics. Next event: The 400cm Geometry Calculations.
Track and Field is truly a place for training, mentally training, yourself to work towards personal bests.
-Me