First off, I really enjoyed the group teach this week, so thank you to the group for such a great job on your lesson. I think the most valuable idea that I took out of the week was around physical literacy and what this means for me and in regards to the setting of a school. Personally I have never considered myself as physically literate, because I often connected it to being good at P.E. and I would not necessarily consider this subject to be my forte.
However, I came to the realization that my physical literacy is specific to me and therefore integrated within my strengths in certain activities and the weaknesses I have in others. It is a personal journey we all take and through it we grow towards our own potential rather than the potential of those around us. From this realization I came to notice that, as we went through this lesson and our team grew in our “volley-cross” skills, I found myself cheering on my teammates and opponents because I no longer felt the need to compete against them. My physical literacy became about what I was doing and how I could grow.
I think that, in becoming future teacher, this is such an important mind frame to promote for our students. No two students are the same, and therefore they are all on their own journeys in their physical literacy. I think that if we put forth this mindset in our classrooms, the environment becomes more about working together to help everyone grow on their own journeys and, in doing so, it removes the stigma of what it means to get a certain letter grade, one that’s rewarded based on the present mentality associated with the need to beat others.
Hi Tara,
I really like your comment on how physical literacy is specific to you. I think there were a lot of us in the class who were led to believe we weren’t ‘physically literate’ because gym class was not our strength in school. Most of my memories of gym classes involve rigorous fitness tests and competitive sports that wound up making me feel inferior to others rather than empowered to do my best. Hopefully we will be able to teach our future P.E. classes in ways that do not leave our students with the same types of feeling that we once had. From what I can tell about your views on developing a cooperation environment that promotes personal growth, I believe that you are most certainly on the right track.