Monthly Archives: January 2015

01/25/15

I think I like PE now!

I must admit… prior to stepping foot into the classroom as a teacher candidate, the idea of teaching physical education unnerved me somewhat.  So does the thought of teaching French, but we will save that story for another time.  Fortunately, I have the wonderful opportunity to study under Steve McGinley and learned that PE doesn’t have to be taught in a meritocratic manner.  And so, tasked with leading a class full of wonderful individuals possessing a diverse range of experience and skills, I move forward with this week’s task:  dribbling, chest passes, bounce passes, and a juicy introduction to set shots.  In the sake of brevity, this post will focus solely upon the lesson and lessons learned from said lesson.  Another post to follow on the meat of the happenings of last week, and more musings to come…

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Plan:  modified warm-up allowing for dribbling and pass practice.  How to achieve this and introduce/set shot practice?  Well, I wanted to make sure each student had a good opportunity to practice, which involves time… and I had no clue how many baskets were going to be available (we had 5 at my elementary school as a child… which, in retrospect, was a rather impressive number).  So, during the drive to the school (and while weaving in and out of rain-slogged traffic), I had the bright idea of forgoing the typical 3 lap jog around the gym and use the skills practice to warm up!  Seeing as we recently covered assessment techniques in PE, assessment was somewhat on my mind…

… and so I hatched the great idea of having them all run around the gym to pass me the ball.  Yes, just me.  While it was great for formative assessment (and the kids loved the idea of doing something other than running around the gym), it created the unfortunate problem of TRAFFIC JAM!  On the bright side, most of the students took the opportunity to practice their dribbling while chatting with their friends, but this issue could have been mitigated by separating the class into small groups or partners.

My set shot mini-lesson and following activity went fairly well.  The students were having fun experimenting and celebrating their successes; I stopped the class and gathered everybody around for some strategy-sharing.  After giving a few more pointers, I tasked the groups with trying to score as many baskets as they can (as a group) within 5 minutes, with the winning group deciding on a kind of exercise I would get to do (ie — I do pushups, or burpees).  I feel that changing the focus from individual to team helped some students get away from their fear of failure to simply having fun participating with their classmates.  While no group got even close to the minimum number of baskets I challenged them with (haha, nobody can get 100 baskets!), we still had a great time debriefing.  Well, they did — I did a pushup for each student’s contribution, whether it be something they tried that worked or “nothing”.  I temporarily forgot that there were 25 students in the class, and that while they all had the option of participating, it was still in front of the class.  Perhaps next time I will use more Think-Pair-Share.  And next time I’ll have them join me in pushups, too!  Or perhaps a Walk-and-Chat, that would make a nice cool-down… can’t wait to try next week!  My class is awesome — it’s hard to believe that the same class who bounced off the wall in The Story of the Wasp is the same class that gave me its undivided attention as I hit the rim not once or twice, but three times as I was demonstrating the set shot.  Nothing but net on the fourth attempt, though!

PS — D was invaluable as a classroom resource.  Initially he shared, nonchalantly, “I have to shoot from further away.  I can’t score baskets up close.”  I looked at him and jokingly replied, “seriously?”  He replied, “yes, Mr. T,” turned around, paused for a second to aim, and shot a basket from just outside free throw range.  Nothing but net.  “Respect,” I said to him, passing him my ball.  Without a word, he shot the ball I tossed to him, which followed his to its home through the red iron.  Okay, I trusted him to give his classmates pointers from then on.  I’ll share the story of how we began our amicable relationship another time.

01/8/15

And now, for a change of pace…

… and we’re back to school!  Winter break was very enjoyable (a little too enjoyable), but it’s great to get back into the groove.  And back to school means… back to practicum, and back to another fun-filled day at the school!  My SA requested that I try my hand at teaching another PE class last time we met, so we went into the gym after French.  The kids all brought their gym strip!  I was so impressed with them that I immediately sent them on 3 laps around the gym (being sure to touch all four walls) to get the party started… and hadn’t noticed that I had yet to turn on the lights.  Ecstatic, E shouted, “All right, Mr. T!  You’re awesome!  Guys, let’s go run in the DARK!”  Being the way he is, he shouts this as he’s running into the gym.  Fortunately he stopped when I told him to wait as I fumbled around for the lights.  Aside from that, the lesson turned out very well!  We were starting basketball, and my SA had suggested that I try to teach some passing techniques along with dribbling (which I originally intended).  The kid surprised me with their full, undivided attention and enthusiastic participation!  By the end of the class everyone was able to do chest passes — a few of the girls, who’ve actually never held a basketball (what?!), exclaimed that they were actually good at a sport, which brought a huge grin to my face.

Aside from that, however, today was a teaching-free day.  Today’s math block was self-guided; science in the afternoon was not only self-guided, but my SA was assessing the students’ ability to independently follow instructions and problem-solve.  So, I can only speak of the French lesson that took place within the classroom (our prep block).  The following is an observation of a team-taught French lesson (!) that I absorbed via osmosis, as I was marking the kids’ spelling homework.  This announcement may have been met with alarm, but please, suspend your uneasiness for a moment — it will make sense further on.  PS:  my SA told me to pay special attention to the other teacher, because his teaching style was very different from my SA’s.  This interesting change is made even more interesting in that I now know that the French teacher was actually replacing the teacher who normally taught French.  And that teacher, interesting enough, is our vice principal.

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The lesson hook was simple enough — the kids recognized the vice principal and were rather energetic… very uncharacteristic of the class, as French was usually met with little enthusiasm.  The vice principal and his partner took turns talking and teaching:  the vice principal would say a phrase en francais, and his partner would provide an English translation.  He spoke in English as well, but the vice principal spoke mostly in French during the instructional phase.

The interesting difference, I noticed, is the fact that the vice principal taught in an anecdotal method.  He would say a phrase, ask the class to repeat the phrase several times, after which he would teach the meaning and tell a short story about the phrase, or make a short comment or joke.  Today, I learned that asking for the “wash basin” (which means washroom) in the wrong place in the world would be met with snickering and a retort, “Why, do you smell?  Do you need to take a bath that badly?”  Funny enough, few people make that association in English, as most public bathrooms don’t come with fancy shower facilities.  Or any facilities, but I digress.

The students quite enjoyed the lesson, and showed their enthusiasm in full participation.  Several students carried on side conversations, usually comments on the funny and silly anecdotes the vice principal shared with the class; while my SA and I would normally address the side conversations, the vice principal was very comfortable with these and as a result, the environment was noticeably noisier and more boisterous.  I can say without a doubt that the kids all enjoyed today’s French class; whether they retain the phrases learned, however, will need to be determined in the future.

Perhaps the students quite enjoyed the change of pace; perhaps they liked the more active nature of the new unit.  While they didn’t exactly all rush off to the toilet at the same time, the kids got plenty of practice standing up, sitting down, raising their hands, asking for words like “banana” (banane), “roast beef” (rosbif), and “salad” (salade) en francais.  They particularly liked the vice principal’s silly pun — his way of saying “making roast beef” was “duing rosbif” (du is a subject marker, and a fun homonym for “do”).

And the class, surprisingly, calmed down and lined up orderly (with no chatter!) in preparation for PE class.  I find it kind of cute how one or two students would find out I was teaching (one or two kids would always ask me in the morning, “Are you teaching us today, Mr. T?”) and quickly spread the news, sending everyone into “best behaviour mode”.  I’m thinking that this might be a good thing to take advantage of… oh well, I’ll take it!