Teaching: An Endless Journey of Learning- Week 7

I feel like I spend a lot of my time adjusting. From one lesson, grade level, and child to the next adjustments are constantly being made. It commonly feels as though the amount of time I put into making adjustments is due to an incompetence on my part to perform something correctly the first time! However, as I journey on in my teaching experience I am reassured that teaching is an art not a science and there is constantly room for improvements. Defeated at times I will look to my cooperating teacher to correct me yet each time am surprised at his uncritical comments. In addition to a few minor suggestions, Mr. Park will say that I am performing well. By 'well' I venture to believe he means managing. But he continues on to explain that although my lessons are not flawless, I am constantly on the lookout for areas needing improvement and then adjusting them accordingly. Adjusting practices to meet the needs of each of my students (IPLS 2P) is a continuously evolving component of my teaching. I have found myself searching for ways to make concepts easier to understand for the various types of intelligences. Are my linguistic learners getting this? Have the logical ones been able to work out the structure of the activity? Every day I experiment with big and small practices, adjusting to the child in front of me. If this means I’m failing then I would say failure leads to healthy student centered thinking.

A specific situation arose this week in which I was able to practice my conflict resolution skills. (IPLS 8R) As I was closing a 4^th grade lesson, preparing to transition students scattered across the gym to put equipment away and then line up, a grouping of boys began to yell and throw materials at each other. It escalated seemingly out of nowhere and I quick demanded two of them separate and go to the stage immediately. After finishing off my directions to the rest of the class, I called two more boys who were witnesses to the scene over to the stage with me to a discussion. Emotions were high admits the original offenders. I had them circle up and immediately quieted both as accusations were flying quickly. The following statement was made to defuse tempers and get the students in a cooperative disposition:

“No one here is in trouble or being accused. Everyone will get a chance to speak in order to understand what happened and why.”

As we went around the circle we discovered the entire situation was due to a misunderstanding. One boy had been rolling balls off the court and the other though he was intentionally throwing the balls at him to aggravate him. He then retaliated and the situation grew to the scene I saw. One of the witnesses calmly shared what he saw in an objective way to support the misunderstanding. Having a clear understanding of what happened, I steered away from blaming and condemning and used the information as a teaching tool for why procedures are in place. If the students weren’t moving the balls around in the first place this could have been prevented. In addition, I reasoned why retaliation is never the best answer in solving a problem. The boys nodded their heads and I thanked them for meeting with me, encouraging them to use this type of approach if an issue arose again. Overall, I was proud of how the boys were able to handle the conflict with me. One student affirmed the success of this intervention by turning to me afterward and commenting “you’re a really good assistant teacher”.

This Friday I was also able to participate in another PE Task Force meeting. As Friday was a half day, the specials teachers did not have any classes. Instead the district elementary PE teachers met in the morning to do more curriculum building. With the new enhanced PE standards the teachers have been in the process of revamping their K-5 curriculum. I find it interesting that we are into the academic year and the teachers are still in the process of formulating what will be accessed for the first grading period coming up in November. Then in the afternoon we moved to the high school for a full K-12 meeting. At the high school I gained some valuable insight to what PE is up against in some of the higher administrative levels. The district supervisor for PE said that as educators we are in need of making the school boards understand the value of physical education as a core class. Apparently there are those who wish to see PE become an elective. This was a disturbing piece of information for myself and the other student teacher to hear. However, the supervisor continued to describe how the mission of the K-12 curriculum will help combat this. One of the main trends keeping PE in place in many districts, is its stance in fighting childhood obesity. The objective is to have the students physically active for at least 75% of the period.

Personally, I am rather divided on this stance. Yes I want my students to be active but I also don’t want my “classroom” to be treated like a fitness center per se. My students are learners not clients to train. One way the supervisor explained they would be showing the administrative decision makers the value of PE is by bringing in more elements of our specialty areas that no other domain has. These would include subjects such as kinesiology (the study of human movement), bio mechanics, anatomy, and physiology. My ears perked up at this, and I felt a smile creep across my face. To me learning in PE should be based around teaching our students how to think not only like athletes but scientists and have deeper level understanding of the way their body works. It will be interesting to see how the teaching team addresses this in their new curriculum! (IPLS 9P)
                       
Goals for next week:
1) involve students in self-assessment activities (making goals with fitness testing data!) and help them understand the importance of setting goals
2) try new practices to help students who struggle with learning motivation