Today is the start of my 6th week of being here at the middle school. There is only one more week. I can’t believe it. I only have 5 more days with each of the classes. There is only three days left of testing.
Things are finally clicking with this first period class. The first couple of weeks they were so resistant to the activity that we were playing. However, now I have the students requesting to play the game that we played for a few minutes on Friday. It’s a modified version of Gaelic football and today I even let the students use the basketball hoops as another goal. After they scored the regular way, they were allowed to shoot the ball either by fist passing, hand passing, or foot passing. They really liked this new addition to the game. We even stopped a few times to check our pulses and see how hard they are working.
The downside to this first class and being put into competitive situations is that there were almost two fights between the students today. The first one was between two students who like to goof off and talk a lot of crap. I had to tell the one student to go into the girls locker room and stand in the door way so the student couldn’t get to him. I told him to start walking and cool down. I made the other student sit out of the activity for a while because he was the one who started it all. Then about 10 minutes later, I heard one student tell another student he was a “faggot.” Before I could get the words out of my mouth to tell him to take a lap, the kid he said it to pulled back and was going to hit him in the back of the head. I yelled at him and you could just see that he disassociated for a couple seconds and by calling his name I brought him back. While the one kid went outside and did his lap, I sent the other one to the corner. As I walked up to speak to him, I could tell that he was emotionally distraught and I told him that whenever he cools down and he can come over and tell me how he could have handled that situation differently. Eventually he came to talk to me and it looked like he just wanted to cry.
After the tensions subsided, we finished the class pretty well. The students left sweating, smiling, and happy. I can see that the tensions were tight and I think it is just a result of the testing. It was nice to see that the students were engaged in this activity and was something that they were requesting. Before it was “Awe Miss! We have to play that football thing again.” It was a nice change of events and a good way to start this week.
I believe this first class went well because I had set up the activity better and it was all a review from the last class. The students had already been exposed to what we were going to be doing that day. I had even told the students today that I only had a few more class periods with them and then I was going to leave. I had one student ask if I was going to come back. I told him no. He responded by saying you’re better than (and he just looked in the direction of my cooperating teacher). I hate when students put me in this situation and predicament. Yes, it’s nice to hear that, but I know that whenever you get a chance to have a break from the regular teacher, it’s always nice. Eventually if someone were to come in for me, the students would be saying the same thing to the new teacher.
The second class was broken up into half hour before lunch and a half hour after. After they did their warm ups and stretching, it only left 10 minutes before we had to release them to lunch. I decided to just have them play Energy In and Energy Out. The students seemed to really enjoy this. There is always something about playing childhood games (tag, in this case) that makes the students more engaged and having the majority of students participating. This simple tag game helped them to just expel the energy they built up during testing. However, when they came back from lunch, they were very very wired. It was almost unbearable, We continued with our personal fitness unit and went over nutrition.
For the third class, we worked on passing with accuracy, kicking long balls, and playing Keep Away. They had a really good time with the bowling pins. The students and their partners were passing to knock over bowling pins. We then transitioned into kicking into long balls into zones. At the end of class, we finished with a simple game of Keep Away. However, the students were struggling with comprehending on how to play it. They just didn’t understand regardless of the way that I stated it.
Having the poly spots on the ground really helps with my classroom management. It helps keep the students close and more uniformed. It’s easier to teach knowing they are on their poly spot than spread out in the teach area, especially when we are outside. I think that I will have to keep on using the poly spots as base points for the students to stand and listen.
Almost done with this testing stuff. I can’t wait! Until tomorrow.
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