“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
This quote is amazingly powerful. It took me a while to understand its meaning, but after reading it over and over I finally understand it, or at least I understand what it means to me.
This quote, I believe, is everything that we should be teaching our students as physical education teachers. We all want our students to shine and be the best that they possibly can and we are there to guide our students into discovering their full potential. I feel that it is our RESPONSIBILITY as teachers to do everything within our power to bring out the best in our students. If there is something you can to do make your students more successful I believe that it is our obligation as teachers to do whatever it may be. We signed up to be teachers and I believe that going the extra mile comes with the territory.
“We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
What is it that holds you back? What is stopping you from being everything that you have always wanted to be? Is it something that can be fixed? And why are you letting it hold you back? We ask ourselves these questions, and a lot of us know the answer, but not all of us have to confidence within ourselves to fix it, but why not?
Being a teacher and being responsible for the education of America’s youth we need to be able to answer these questions for ourselves so that we can better help our students overcome these issues, or help the students to avoid these questions all together because we have taught them to never let anything hold them back. It is our job to build the confidence in our students so that they never have to be asked why they are not brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?
“And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
This line in the quote is the perfect example of the importance of teaching by example, if we, the teacher can have the confidence to not let anything hold us back then we can be a spectacular role model for our students.
“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.”
No one should ever be afraid of being outstanding at something no matter what it may be. If everyone tried their best, would never have to worry about shrinking so that others do not feel insecure.
Furthermore, there should be nothing that we let stand in our way or the way of our students, that doesn’t let them, be everything that they can be, and accomplish everything that they have ever wanted to. As teachers we should be teaching students that it is absolutely ok to stand out at something. That it is so important to give everything your best shot, and the importance of being open minded.
Teachers, we are the ones who are guiding children along their life path. This should be taken as an honor. We are the ones who are chosen to help teach, guide, be role models, positive influences and make positive impacts on the lives of all the children we work with. Children are innocent and only know what they have been taught and what they have experienced. So why not teach and set up experiences that allow children to be nothing but incredible and successful? Wouldn’t you want to be taught by a teacher that set you up for success and always believed in you?
I can honestly say that nothing makes me more frustrated then when I am observing with a class and my host teachers says how much he or she hates a class because they are a rough group. You know why they are a rough group? Because the teacher is not doing everything that they can to bring the best out in these students.
“It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.”
This is the attitude that I think should be used when teaching. Every single student has the potential to be successful, and it is our job as the teacher to figure out the best possible way to help our students be successful.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Respect
In one of my classes’ last week we were asked to define the word respect. I know what the word means, we all do, but have you ever tried to write down a definition for it? Respect is a very difficult word to define. In my opinion there are many different definitions of the word respect. I sense that your definition of respect has a lot to do with where you’ve come from, what you have experienced, how you have been treated and the way in which you treat others.
My definition when I use the word respect is:
Respect is a characteristic of consideration, positive attitude and thoughtfulness for another person.
The importance of respect comes out in a physical education class because students need to learn to respect the teacher, respect each other, respect themselves and all of the equipment used in class. I know that respect is always the first rule that I put up on my rules poster when I am teaching. But have you ever really thought about what respect truly means to you?
You may be wondering how this has anything to do with physical education, let me tell you where I think that it fits in. We as physical education teachers are expected to teach all three of the learning domains, cognitive, psychomotor and affective. The affective domain is where respect fits in the best.
Being a teacher in general there has to be a mutual respect between you and your students, and the students also need to respect one another. You have these children in your class and the more comfortable a student is in a class then the better they will learn. If you know that you teacher respects you and your opinion, then you know that any question you ask will not be laughed at and taken seriously and you feel comfortable and are more relaxed and more motivated to learn.
Respect can be developed in many different ways. First and foremost respect needs to be given to others before you can receive respect. It goes along with the golden rule, which is “treat others the way you would like to be treated.” The same thing goes for respect. In a classroom setting, the students need to show the teacher respect, and in return the teacher needs to respect their students. With high standards, high goal setting, and rules that are always followed, (no excuses) then respect will be shown with in the class setting.
My definition when I use the word respect is:
Respect is a characteristic of consideration, positive attitude and thoughtfulness for another person.
The importance of respect comes out in a physical education class because students need to learn to respect the teacher, respect each other, respect themselves and all of the equipment used in class. I know that respect is always the first rule that I put up on my rules poster when I am teaching. But have you ever really thought about what respect truly means to you?
You may be wondering how this has anything to do with physical education, let me tell you where I think that it fits in. We as physical education teachers are expected to teach all three of the learning domains, cognitive, psychomotor and affective. The affective domain is where respect fits in the best.
Being a teacher in general there has to be a mutual respect between you and your students, and the students also need to respect one another. You have these children in your class and the more comfortable a student is in a class then the better they will learn. If you know that you teacher respects you and your opinion, then you know that any question you ask will not be laughed at and taken seriously and you feel comfortable and are more relaxed and more motivated to learn.
Respect can be developed in many different ways. First and foremost respect needs to be given to others before you can receive respect. It goes along with the golden rule, which is “treat others the way you would like to be treated.” The same thing goes for respect. In a classroom setting, the students need to show the teacher respect, and in return the teacher needs to respect their students. With high standards, high goal setting, and rules that are always followed, (no excuses) then respect will be shown with in the class setting.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Be the Best
“Character creates consistency, and if your people know what they can expect from you, they will continue to look to you for leadership."
Always do your best. If you do nothing but your best and except nothing but the best then you are going to achieve what you set out for.
Imagine you or someone in your family needed a life saving surgery. You wouldn’t want a doctor that had 2.5 grade point average in med school to be the person you are looking too, to save someone you truly care about. If they couldn’t put all of your effort into something as simple as learning how to do the procedures, then how do you know that they are going to do everything that they can in the operating room?
The same goes for teaching. If you cannot put the effort in to learning the best and most successful ways of teaching, then how are you expected to go out into the real world and find a job and be an incredible teacher? Children deserve the best teacher possible when it comes to learning in any subject. Especially when it comes to learning about their health and physical well being.
Always do your best. If you do nothing but your best and except nothing but the best then you are going to achieve what you set out for.
Imagine you or someone in your family needed a life saving surgery. You wouldn’t want a doctor that had 2.5 grade point average in med school to be the person you are looking too, to save someone you truly care about. If they couldn’t put all of your effort into something as simple as learning how to do the procedures, then how do you know that they are going to do everything that they can in the operating room?
The same goes for teaching. If you cannot put the effort in to learning the best and most successful ways of teaching, then how are you expected to go out into the real world and find a job and be an incredible teacher? Children deserve the best teacher possible when it comes to learning in any subject. Especially when it comes to learning about their health and physical well being.
Walk the Talk
“People’s minds are changed through observation and not through argument."
This quote goes along with the good old saying that “actions speak louder than words” and “walk the talk”
I believe that one of the requirements to be an outstanding physical educator is to follow these three simple quotes. How can you expect your students to commit to physical education and healthy life styles if you yourself are not doing the same? No one wants an out of shape over weight personal trainer, then why would anyone want an unhealthy person teaching their children the importance of physical education?
We all should lead by example. The excuse “because I said so” did not work on us when we were younger so how can we expect it to work on our students. In my opinion if you want your students to live healthy lifestyle and participate in regular physical activity, us as the PHYSICAL EDUCATORS need to lead by example and live the lives that we want our students to learn to live.
Nothing makes me more upset then when I am in an activity class and some of my peers who are also physical education majors admit that they rarely participate in physical activity outside of our classes. I asked one of my friends to go running with me at the beginning of the semester and she responded with “I hate running why would I do that to myself?” She is a physical education major. I was in one of my adapted classes last week and at the end of the class my professor brought to our attention that there was going to be a 5k ran at the beginning of October to benefit children with disabilities. She looked around the gym at all of us and said “it’s only 3.1 miles that should be easy for all of you.” The reactions on some of my classmate’s faces appalled me. Two girls laughed and said to each other that they had not run that far in the past year. Another boy laughed and said that he could maybe get that far on a bike.
These are the types of people that I believe will struggle to get their students to fully commit themselves to physical education because they see that there teacher is not doing it so why should they?
Moral of the story, LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
This quote goes along with the good old saying that “actions speak louder than words” and “walk the talk”
I believe that one of the requirements to be an outstanding physical educator is to follow these three simple quotes. How can you expect your students to commit to physical education and healthy life styles if you yourself are not doing the same? No one wants an out of shape over weight personal trainer, then why would anyone want an unhealthy person teaching their children the importance of physical education?
We all should lead by example. The excuse “because I said so” did not work on us when we were younger so how can we expect it to work on our students. In my opinion if you want your students to live healthy lifestyle and participate in regular physical activity, us as the PHYSICAL EDUCATORS need to lead by example and live the lives that we want our students to learn to live.
Nothing makes me more upset then when I am in an activity class and some of my peers who are also physical education majors admit that they rarely participate in physical activity outside of our classes. I asked one of my friends to go running with me at the beginning of the semester and she responded with “I hate running why would I do that to myself?” She is a physical education major. I was in one of my adapted classes last week and at the end of the class my professor brought to our attention that there was going to be a 5k ran at the beginning of October to benefit children with disabilities. She looked around the gym at all of us and said “it’s only 3.1 miles that should be easy for all of you.” The reactions on some of my classmate’s faces appalled me. Two girls laughed and said to each other that they had not run that far in the past year. Another boy laughed and said that he could maybe get that far on a bike.
These are the types of people that I believe will struggle to get their students to fully commit themselves to physical education because they see that there teacher is not doing it so why should they?
Moral of the story, LEAD BY EXAMPLE.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Why I want to be a Physical Education Teacher
Why I want to be a Physical Education Teacher
We all have different reasons for why we choose our specific career paths. Some people may try to choose something that they can enjoy forever. Others may have chosen their career because it will make them a lot of money someday. Some chose their path so that you can make a change in the world.
For me, it was never about the money, I want to make a change. I want to have a positive influence of the lives of my students. Also I want to enjoy what I will be spending the rest of my life doing. Furthermore, I believe that there are so many children and adults out there that are very physically uneducated, and this scares me.
I knew I wanted to work with children right after I got my first job when I was sixteen. I was hired at my local YMCA as youth fitness trainer. The job required me to make up workout routines for young children aged 4-13 to do while their parents worked out in the fitness center for half an hour. I thought that this was terrific that the children were getting such an early jump start on creating healthy habits that they can continue for the rest of their lives.
After working as a youth fitness trainer at the YMCA for a while, I was added in as a group youth fitness trainer and was able to teach activity classes for children in the gym. We would do everything from step aerobics to yoga, various games and team building activities. I looked forward to going to work every day and always have a great time working with the children; this is when I knew that I wanted to be a physical education teacher. I knew that I could spend the rest of my life doing something very similar to what I was doing at the time.
Once I decided I wanted to go to college and study physical education, everyone that I mentioned physical education to told me that I had to go and visit Cortland. At the time I had never herd of it. Little did I know that Cortland would be where I spent the next four, possibly five years of my life. I knew that Cortland was the place for me as soon as I stepped on the campus for the first time during my visit in October of 2007. I honestly cannot even explain to you why I knew this but I just did. I had visited a bunch of other colleges before going to Cortland and they just did not have the same effect on me that Cortland did.
After my freshman year of college I ended up getting a job as a summer camp counselor, and I loved it. The camp that I worked at was a free day camp where parents could drop their children off anytime between 9 am and 3 pm for free and the children could stay as long as they wanted between these hours. Because the children all showed up at different times, the camp was not very organized. Therefore I had free rein with what games and activities I did with the kids. This gave me a chance to try out all of the new games I had learned in my class’s freshman year at Cortland. It was a great learning experience, because I was able to learn how to explain and set up games, and how to organize the children. It was like extra practice for my classes to come the following year.
Up until this past summer (2011) I was unsure of what age group I wanted to teach. What made my decision was being hired to run the summer sports came at a different YMCA then the one that I had previously worked at. I was working at an inner city summer camp with under privileged children aged eight to twelve. This was a whole different world for me. These children came from all different types of backgrounds. They were much more diverse then the children I was used to working with. What I enjoyed most about working with these children was how grateful they were that you would take the time to get to know them, and take the time to teach them about all different sports. They would come in every day with big smiles on their face and were always so excited to learn whatever sport I was teaching that day.
A lot of these children that I was working with did not have great support systems at home so they really depended on me, their counselor for guidance. I did not get paid very much to be there, but I looked forward to going each and every day, and I would always spend much more time there then I had too. I can honestly say that I know that I have a positive influence on these children and that I made a difference in their lives. I can now say that my ideal job would be working with elementary aged children in an inner city school district, and I know this because I have had such awesome experiences in my past jobs to know that this is what I would like to do for the rest of my life.
We all have different reasons for why we choose our specific career paths. Some people may try to choose something that they can enjoy forever. Others may have chosen their career because it will make them a lot of money someday. Some chose their path so that you can make a change in the world.
For me, it was never about the money, I want to make a change. I want to have a positive influence of the lives of my students. Also I want to enjoy what I will be spending the rest of my life doing. Furthermore, I believe that there are so many children and adults out there that are very physically uneducated, and this scares me.
I knew I wanted to work with children right after I got my first job when I was sixteen. I was hired at my local YMCA as youth fitness trainer. The job required me to make up workout routines for young children aged 4-13 to do while their parents worked out in the fitness center for half an hour. I thought that this was terrific that the children were getting such an early jump start on creating healthy habits that they can continue for the rest of their lives.
After working as a youth fitness trainer at the YMCA for a while, I was added in as a group youth fitness trainer and was able to teach activity classes for children in the gym. We would do everything from step aerobics to yoga, various games and team building activities. I looked forward to going to work every day and always have a great time working with the children; this is when I knew that I wanted to be a physical education teacher. I knew that I could spend the rest of my life doing something very similar to what I was doing at the time.
Once I decided I wanted to go to college and study physical education, everyone that I mentioned physical education to told me that I had to go and visit Cortland. At the time I had never herd of it. Little did I know that Cortland would be where I spent the next four, possibly five years of my life. I knew that Cortland was the place for me as soon as I stepped on the campus for the first time during my visit in October of 2007. I honestly cannot even explain to you why I knew this but I just did. I had visited a bunch of other colleges before going to Cortland and they just did not have the same effect on me that Cortland did.
After my freshman year of college I ended up getting a job as a summer camp counselor, and I loved it. The camp that I worked at was a free day camp where parents could drop their children off anytime between 9 am and 3 pm for free and the children could stay as long as they wanted between these hours. Because the children all showed up at different times, the camp was not very organized. Therefore I had free rein with what games and activities I did with the kids. This gave me a chance to try out all of the new games I had learned in my class’s freshman year at Cortland. It was a great learning experience, because I was able to learn how to explain and set up games, and how to organize the children. It was like extra practice for my classes to come the following year.
Up until this past summer (2011) I was unsure of what age group I wanted to teach. What made my decision was being hired to run the summer sports came at a different YMCA then the one that I had previously worked at. I was working at an inner city summer camp with under privileged children aged eight to twelve. This was a whole different world for me. These children came from all different types of backgrounds. They were much more diverse then the children I was used to working with. What I enjoyed most about working with these children was how grateful they were that you would take the time to get to know them, and take the time to teach them about all different sports. They would come in every day with big smiles on their face and were always so excited to learn whatever sport I was teaching that day.
A lot of these children that I was working with did not have great support systems at home so they really depended on me, their counselor for guidance. I did not get paid very much to be there, but I looked forward to going each and every day, and I would always spend much more time there then I had too. I can honestly say that I know that I have a positive influence on these children and that I made a difference in their lives. I can now say that my ideal job would be working with elementary aged children in an inner city school district, and I know this because I have had such awesome experiences in my past jobs to know that this is what I would like to do for the rest of my life.
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