When I first found out we had a PE class in the Teacher Education Program, I got excited as I love being active and being involved in sports and activity.
Growing up, PE was one of the classes I most looked forward to (unless we were doing cross-country running or dance – definitely not my strong suit). But regardless, PE was like an extended brain break for me growing up.
I had a lot of positive experiences and some negative experiences. The negatives being participating in activities that felt like punishment (such as doing the beep test or having to run laps if something wasn’t done properly or if I was speaking out of turn). But these negatives were overshadowed by a lot of positive experiences I had sharing in activities and memories with fellow classmates. I feel like participating in PE class helped shape me to who I am today, and helped me recognize skills and the physical capabilities in which I value today.
In the case of fears about teaching PE, I’d have to say that I’m worried about ways in getting kids involved in activities they don’t want to do or lack interest in. This scares me because activity is essential and the purpose of PE is to involve and include all students to be actively engaged in activity. I’m hoping that through my own positive and negative experiences, I can learn from them and shape an effective PE environment for my own students in the future.
What a great post to start it off Terence. I absolutely love P.E. too, I can definitely relate with you. It developed my identification and became my motivation to attend school. I was not academically engaged and P.E. class opened a new world for me. I was accepted by other students and most importantly, I had fun! To this day, I am always trying to find different ways to stay active. Physical activity is something that is overlooked as I believe it is something we tend to sacrifice when we are busy.
I am also worried I won’t be able to engage with students, especially the female. I hope we are able to learn how to build a safe and fun environment for all the students to learn and have fun! Let’s work on this together!
Jenny & Terence, I also have a few worries about teaching PE. Our first lesson gave me a glimpse into how it is possible to make it fun and enjoyable. I loved the free play stations, the intro mission impossible game, and chuck the chicken. I am excited for the rest of this PE methodology course and all that we’ll learn.
I relate to this post. Growing up I used to enjoy PE even though I was not the most athletic student. I have a competitive spirit and I enjoyed being active and competitive in gym class. I do not remember teachers having us pick teams but I do remember people moving around teams and not going on the assigned team. My greatest fears about teaching PE are the environment. I think it is going to be difficult as students get excited and extra energetic during this class. I imagine class management will be difficult in these situations. I also do not think growing up that PE was very inclusive. My biggest memory of this was in PE in early highschool; we had to run timed laps and were marked on how many laps we could do in a certain amount of time. I do not think this was fair for students who were not good runners. The amount of laps one would have to do a time to get an A mark were very difficult.
With this being said I am learning and I know I will continue to learn the importance of inclusive PE. PE can be enjoyable for all students if it is taught in a way that caters to all. There will always be competitiveness amongst students but why not try to use this to foster community and team work?