What is the school trying to say to the students with the pictures of their mascots hanging over the doors of the locker room? Over the boys locker room is just the top half of a human’s body that is clearly muscular but has the head of a falcon (school mascot). This figure is holding a basketball. Overtop of the girl’s locker room is a full body person with the head of a falcon. Like the other, this figure is clearly defined by its muscular composition. This figure is chasing after a volleyball. What kind of self image is the school trying to give these students; one of self-confidence and strength, or one of self doubt and judgment? For years, we have been learning about gender stereotyped sports and how we need to change this image, but here are these pictures depicting such stereotypes and such misconstrued body images.
I feel like we are herding a bunch of animals when we are running with the students in the beginning of the classes. We are the last ones in the back and as soon as we get close to the students, they immediately take off again because they don’t want to get beat. I like challenging the students this way. It shows them that we are willing to make an effort to see them succeed. It’s also a time in which I can talk to the students about how they are feeling, what’s going in with them, and just to see how they are doing. I hope that they appreciate the effort we are trying to show them. Maybe someday it will rub off.
During the first class, I spent the first 10 minutes watching the students and seen how their participation levels have increased since the last time we had class. I just felt this sense of euphoria wash over my body. These students are finally getting it. Regardless of how bad they hate it and think it’s boring, they are still here participating. This could be a result of it being the last day of Tae-Bo or the fact that they have more energy because we didn’t start off the class with our walk/run like normal. Maybe it’s just because I talked to them the last time they had class. Who knows? All I know is that I felt very proud of this group that I got off my butt and stopped writing to participate with them.
The second class was with the adapted P.E. students. I really love this class. Our cooperating teachers had meetings so we were on our own. The one teacher said you can do whatever you want with them. Talk about having to think on your feet and having to come up with an activity in 10 minutes before the students got there. Basically, I grabbed a bunch of hula hoops and poly spots for the students. We were going to work on aiming and throwing. While it was a very last minute lesson, the students really seemed to like it. Then again these students are not that hard to please. Near the end of class, I put on some music for them to listen and dance too. What I love about these students is that they don’t feel any shame, or none that I have seen. These students act the way they are and don’t really care about how other people view them. They can dance to the music any way they want and not be embarrassed. Yes, they provide a challenge when I am trying to meet their needs because each student is so different, but it is no different than dealing with 30 other various skill leveled students. The difference between them is that these students love coming to P.E. and have a good time doing the activities we provided.
The third class was my honors class. We did similar activities to the ones we did when the majority of the girls were missing. However, we only got through group juggling, all aboard, team seating, and add-on tag. The students really really enjoyed doing these activities as a bigger class. With the group juggling, we ended up adding about 7 pieces of equipment. At the end, I challenged them first to see if they could do so without dropping the equipment more than 5 times. They were successful. The next challenge was to do so in under 1:20. While they got it under that time, there were quite a few drops. I told the girls, “Do we ever want to sacrifice the quality of our work just so we can get done quicker?” I got a few mixed responses but I think the girls understood what I was trying to ask them. We did this activity for about 15-20 minutes and headed outside.
The all aboard activity went very well. We started out with four hoops and got it down to one. While they had difficulties getting into the one hoop, it helped to establish who the leaders were in class. I told them, “It doesn’t matter who the leaders are. Do we only have to have one leader? There can be multiple leaders. All of you can be leaders. However, those that follow have to do so in a respectable manner. Does this mean that only the leader can talk during activities? No. If someone has something to say and they aren’t considered a ‘leader’ we still respect their idea and include it into our process.” I had a couple girls ask me to do the team seating again, so we did that as our third activity. The girls liked this one as well and were mature enough to handle it. I don’t think I would try it with a co-ed class just because of maturity levels. As the girls were sitting, I asked them how they were successful. After a few seconds, a few answers, and a few moans and groans from hurting legs, the girls finally figured it out and it was captured in one girls’ response. She said, “It shows us that if you try to be an individual in a team sport, you will be alone, but once you work as a team, you see that you are supported by one another.” (She said it so much better than that, but that was the gist of the idea.)
The last activity was add-on tag. The girls liked this activity too. They liked whenever I jumped into the game and played as well. I like seeing the students working really hard without even realizing it because they are having a good time. This is the ideal class to be working with. I really enjoy watching them come together as a class and start working together. Granted, I don’t know the dynamics of the class before I got there, but I am proud of what I am seeing. There are a few girls who need to learn a little more respect, but that will come with time.
We finished the day with the fourth class. We began the class by signing our rules and consequences poster and then followed it by group juggling. This class too got to 7 pieces of equipment and then we headed outside. With this class, I decided to play all run kickball. Once again, and this is twice in two days, I felt so proud of these students. They were working so hard during this activity and I loved seeing them coming back into the plate breathing heavy and smiling. I just loved seeing them working so hard. I even saw students beginning to cheat, but I don’t think it was because they wanted to win, but because they were that tired. We talked a lot about having fun in P.E. and the students today definitely had fun. This game was new to them. Even at the end of the class, they knew that they had done a lot more running during this activity than what they do for warm ups.
At the end of the day, I left thinking “You know, this is not about me and never will be about me. It’s not about what our cooperating teachers want us to do, about being the best in our field, or gaining that recognition for what we are doing as teachers. It’s not about any of that, but it is about those students. It has never been about me, it has always been about those students.” I hope I never lose sight of this as I continue being an educator.
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