I am so surprised by how much I enjoyed PE class this week! When I heard it was taking place at the track, I started to dread it! I ran track and cross country in high school and I have very bad memories from the experience. Since I am extremely competitive, running in any form stresses me out greatly. This week’s group did an awesome job making the activities competitive enough to be fun, but in a way that there was no individual pressure to perform. Because there weren’t any one-on-one races, it was impossible to measure your speed against someone else’s. This is a great activity to do in an elementary PE class, because it provides motivation to run fast without putting the pressure of one-on-one competition onto the students.

I also found the discussion part of the class very interesting. Being inclusive is hard in any classroom, but it is often even more difficult in a PE class. We talked about how often times there is no black-and-white right answer when it comes to inclusivity. To include one student sometimes inconveniences and limits the quality of the lesson for all other students; but of course that doesn’t mean that it’s okay to exclude a child with a physical or mental disability. As teachers, our job is to design lesson plans that can include everyone without limiting anyone. I was thankful to hear some strategies on how to accomplish this. Hopefully we can all be fully inclusive in our practicum classrooms this year and in the future.