It's been a long while since I last posted on my blog. Since my last post I have continued searching for a full time teaching position in physical education but haven't had any luck yet. And although I haven't found that dream job just yet, my passion for the subject hasn't deflated at all. If anything, my passion has only gone up. Coming out of college I had a fire under my butt and I was extremely excited to begin my teaching career and start making the difference in students lives the way I knew I could. However, I had no idea I would be still searching for that job 3 years later. I must admit, I've had times that I get pretty down on myself about why I haven't found employment yet and wonder if I am doing anything wrong, or if I'm not really meant for this position. But then I look at the work I have done so far and immediately realize that all the negative thinking is foolish. I worried that the fire under my butt might go away but instead that fire is only getting bigger. I can feel that a full time position will be coming sooner than later and that excites me. I believe everything happens the way its supposed to happen and I try to understand the reason things happen. I believe that the reason I haven't found that desired position is because I needed the time to grow as an educator. In the 3 years I have been searching for a full time position I have had the opportunity to substitute teach in three different school districts, coach for a varsity track team, get promoted at my job at Lands End Catering Hall, complete over 10 extremely demanding mud and obstacle races
and become a certified personal trainer where I changed a few lives by helping them become healthier. Those experiences have made me a better teacher and a better person. And the way I look at it, the present me will be able to make a much bigger difference in the lives of many more students that the me of 3 years ago would have. Everything happens for a reason and I know my time will come to teach the young minds of today. And when that opportunity comes knocking on my door, I promise I will be even better than I am now. Why? Because I will continue to develop as a teacher and as a person each and every day.
It was that time of the year again to attend the AAHPERD National Convention. Last years Convention was in San Diego, California and was an amazing experience. Not only was the weather perfect but the amount of information given was astonishing.This year however was a little different. This years national convention was located in Boston, MA. A great spot for a convention because Boston is such a great historic city. However, due to an electrical issue that caused a power outage in downtown Boston, the Convention was delayed. At first, it was delayed a couple of hours. But then those hours turned into a few days which eventually turned into the entire event. I was very disappointed because I was looking forward to continuing my education and becoming a better physical educator. But after my friends and I decided to make the best of the trip, we ended up having a good time. We decided to visit some of the most famous attractions in Boston such as the Kennedy Museum and Fenway Park. So what was supposed to be an educational opportunity for physical education turned into an educational opportunity for other subjects. One of the more important lessons I learned was that learning should never stop. I could have easily spent my time in Boston going to the same old stores, watching tv, and eating in, but instead decided to expand my knowledge of things I'm not as familiar with. Even though I had to put my physical education opportunity on hold I was able to expand my knowledge i other subjects. So for those of you who think you know it all when you have a "certification", you do not, and you need to keep learning every day to continue becoming a better educator.
It has been a very long time since I last posted on my blog. The last post was of one of my lessons I did in a college class. Well i'll quickly get you updated on what has happened in my life since then. Since that lesson I began and completed student teaching. I was placed in the William Floyd School District.
I had an amazing experience working in both Hobart Elementary school and William Paca Middle School. My host teachers were very helpful and taught me a lot. I always heard rumors that you learn as much in student teaching as you do in your 4 years of college and I really feel like that might be true. It may not be the information you learn student teaching, but the experience that really makes you the teacher you will be for a long time. I had a chance to teach students of many ages across a diverse population and really developed my own style of teaching that I will carry over to my career someday. I also got a chance to work with the varsity girls track team and be an assistant coach. This was an awesome experience because I was a track athlete in high school and it was great being able to get back on the track. However, this time I was not the one running, but the one coaching. Our girls did great and we were able to coach many girls to the all county meets and state qualifiers.
I have also graduated from college since my last post and received my Bachelor of Science in Education and certification in Physical Education. I am officially ready to put my very valuable Cortland education to good use at any school district that needs my services. However that is the hard part.
It is now time to look for a job and get into a school district somehow. I plan on being very patient and not giving up hope that a job will come soon enough. I have worked so hard in school to become the best teacher I could be and know I will change many students lives throughout my life. My goal is to help people become healthy and love living their lives. I want people to understand that life is for living, and physical activity will not only train them for a specific sport or event, or to look good in a bathing suit, but to train them for life and all of life's obstacles. I have filled out my applications and sent them in to almost every school on Long Island. I am hope to hear from schools as soon as possible. However, is not that big of an issue because I am blessed to have a job as a waitor at Lands End Catering Hall which I have been working at for 9 years. I am also lucky to have a second job at a sports complex in Commack, NY called Gym Plus Sports Action. There, I am a coach/instructor and I teach kids ages 3-12 a variety of sports and activities. I teach them the basic skills and rules needed to play various sports such as basketball, football, baseball, volleyball, hockey, lacrosse, and so many others. It is a great opportunity for me to work with kids and develop my style of teaching even further and improve my teaching techniques even more. I am also able to impact student lives even though I'm not in a school setting. Every day I work with these children I make it my personal goal to influence at least one student to enjoy what we worked on and pursue it outside of my class. When a student comes to me and tells me that they practiced a certain drill or skill at home I immediately smile and know that I impacted that student in a positive way. This makes me even more excited to work full time and have even more students than I do now.
I plan on posting much more now and letting you follow my journey to becoming an influence for many people. I hope my experiences along the way will allow you to be inspired to do something great and help people in your own way. Everyone is special and everyone can be an inspiration to someone else. I believe that helping others is important to being the best person you can be and I hope I can help as many people as possible.
For our final exam in my 255 class I was assigned to create a lesson incorporating the iDance system. The iDance is a really great system that is exactly like Dance Dance revolution but with much more. With the iDance you can play with up to 32 people. This is great for physical education teachers with big classes. With this system everyone can play at the same time. Another great this about this system is that each student can choose their own difficulty. This is helpful when students are at different levels of difficulty.
In my lesson I incorporated teamwork and communication. I used this lesson as one day in my block plan. My block plan starts off with students just learning the basics and getting comfortable with the iDance system. This includes learning different strategies and techniques for improving. This also includes students learning where to look for things such as arrow placement. To test the students after learning these things, I had them take an assessment quiz. This quiz has the students place the arrows on the projector screen in the correct order from left to right. Throughout my block plan I have students get involved in more and more difficult tasks. In lesson 7 I have them work with a partner in activities that are much more difficult than the others. My lesson plan shows what activities I choose to do. One activity called "Listen up" involves one student on the dance pad dancing but, blindfolded. They need to listen to their partner, who will be giving the commands and where to step, in order to succeed. Another activity I have students to is called "Watch and Learn". This is the same concept as the other one but this time, the partner will have their back to the screen and will have to watch their partner perform the dance moves in order to succeed. Both of these activities involve a lot of teamwork and great communication. It is a lot of fun and the students enjoy is a lot. At the end of this lesson I have students choose the song they would like to dance to and have them just practice till the end of class. This practice is for the final day of the unit when they will be able to pick a song and try and get the highest score they can get on the highest level. I use a self check checklist for the students to see how they do in this test.
The whole unit of iDance is a lot of fun and a great way to keep moving and active. I came up with a whole lot of different activities that the students will go through and get better at as the class goes on. Each of these activities will help students with their endurance, strength, agility, flexibility, and balance. This unit is perfect for helping students stay healthy and fit.
This semester was the first semester that I took the time to do something extra for my professional development. I signed up to help Dr. Yang and be a lab assistant for his PED 201: Motor Development class. This was an outstanding opportunity for me and really helped me develop as a teacher. I had taken this class the semester before so I did know most of what was being taught. However, being able to relearn everything really helped me understand and take it in much better. It also really helped me learn because I had to teach it myself to other students. When you teach someone else something it really helps you understand it better yourself.
In this lab assisting experience I achieved my minimum of 10 hours of experience. Each semester at SUNY Cortland we are required to have a minimum of 10 hours teaching outside the classroom. This is required to help up improve our teaching styles and abilities. Being a lab assistant did just that. In this class the students have to go over to St. Mary's to teach little kids at an elementary school. It was great to be back there after a semester. Many of the students actually knew who I was and remembered me from the previous semester. Although I did not have to come up with any lessons and activities to do with the kids, I was still responsible for helping my group of students with their activities. I was also responsible for a closing game at the end of the lesson for the kids. One day I had to dance and sing to a song of my choice while everyone else danced in a circle around me. And another time I had to play some games using a giant parachute (which was soooo much fun). I was able to take much more time for observing children and seeing how they act toward different styles of teaching. I was also able to really have a good amount of 1 on 1 time with certain kids that misbehave a lot. Overall this experience has really moved me along on my Physical Education journey. I am becoming a much more comfortable teacher and I am much more confident in front of students no matter what the age. I plan on helping as a lab assistant once again for Dr. Yang next semester in his 255 class. And I can not wait to continue my experience in becoming the best teaching I can be. I hope to help all the students that are in my classes and really move them along toward becoming great teachers as well. It is up to our generation to really change the systems we have and improve what we have. The students of the future need us and I am excited to be apart of that. This experience was not only for a requirement but for my own development in what I plan to do the rest of my life, and what I want to do the rest of my life.
I was browsing around some site and found this great resource for using technology in physical education classrooms. The site is called Bonnie's Fitware Inc. This site has various examples of lesson plans and ideas for incorporating different kinds technology into your class. There is also many items that are available to buy including pedometers and books on how to incorporate technology. This is a great resource that I just would like to share to all the other physical education majors out there.
What can be said about Relay for Life. One can say that is is a great event for socializing and seeing friends. Others might say that it is a fun time staying up all night and participating in the various activities that are going on. Some might not even know what to say about the event. But what Relay for Life really is, is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease. It is the support for all the people that have to deal with cancer some way in their lives. It is a time to help give the strength to these people to fight cancer and not only manage with it, but BEAT it.
The way relay for life works is that is will be set up somewhere where there is a track or pathway that loops around to make a lap. Typically these events will take place at a track or park area. The event lasts for 12 or 24 hours straight with no breaks. The event will be made up of many people in teams or as individuals. My self and Jack Murphy were both in charge of coordinating our team for this event. We were in charge of the SUNY Cortland Physical Education Majors and I must say, it went very well.
The first thing we thought of doing as our booth was incorporating something physical that does not take up a lot of space. Maybe a video game. But it has to incorporate movement and activity. I know...DDR. Dance Dance Revolution is a great way for getting students to move. They think they are just playing a fun video game, but really there is much more going on. In order to be successful in this game you have no choice but to get your dancing shoes on and move. Playing on a high level in this game.... ridiculous. Anyway, once we decided that DDR was the best way to go with our booth we both had to think about where do get the equipment. Well right away we knew exactly where to go....the technology man of the century, Dr. Steven S. Yang. He supplied us with a projector, projector screen, playstation 2, 3 DDR dance pads, and the necessary extension cords. We had the stufff, set it up, and it was a huge success.
Overall, I think we had one of the best booths there. The only other booth that were able to compete was the gymnastics team hand stand contest and cartwheeling area. But hey, not everyone is meant to flip, toss, and turn in the air while drinking tea and reading a book and sending an G-mail all at the same time.
The night really meant a lot to a lot of people, especially Jack. As a good friend of Jack I know that he is dealing with a family member having cancer, and although I can't completely understand how he feels, I know it is tough. There were many people there that either knew someone who had cancer, has cancer, or passed due to cancer, or even had cancer themselves. It was really inspiring to hear the stories of these people and what they had to go through, or are going through. To see the strength these people have really makes me a stronger person knowing how possible anything is. And with that said I will end this post on this statement....anything is possible, as long as you believe
Yes, this is it....today we learned how to be like Mike....Michael Jackson that is. On Wednesday, November 11th we were assigned to teach in our 5th and final lesson of the class (Lab D). I chose to teach dance and selected the very famous dance "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. Going into this lesson I was determined to pick a dance that everybody knows and would love to learn. I feel that making my lessons more personal and close to the students make it easier for the students to connect and want to participate. As you can see in my lesson plan I tried to organize my lesson into stations. I find stations one of the best ways to organize a lesson. Stations allow the students to work at their own pace and requires less instruction time and more activity time. The only thing that I have to address is how to go to each station and the various safety concerns and rules that I may have (also listed in my lesson plan). Along with the directions at each station, I also handed out a checklist that students could follow which had identical directions as the stations. This style of teaching worked out nicely and really kept my lesson running smoothly. After my lesson, one of the lab assistants gave me the idea of possibly using the jigsaw method with the stations. This method involves having the students get into groups of 4 or 5, splitting them up (one student at each station), having that student learn their portion of the dance at that station, and then all coming back together to put the dance together into one. This involves them teaching themselves how to do the dance, improving teamwork, and allowing them to work at their own pace. I will definitely consider doing this method the next time I teach.
Since I was using the station method, it gave me much more time to focus on other important parts of my teaching. With out constant direction, and having the students learn the dance moves themselves, I was able to really focus on giving the best feedback I could give. I was able to demonstrate for each person at each station and tell them what they were doing right, and what they were doing wrong. The only thing that I had to be sure to do is keep a close eye on the whole class even though I was concentrated on only a couple of students. You always need to be aware of the whole class because you never know when students might start misbehaving. Any type of situation can occur at any moment and as the teacher in charge it is your job to always be ready. I was lucky however, and did not have any incidents in my lesson. If there was any type of event, I do believe I was ready to handle it. One area of improvement that I could work on in the future and seemed to be a problem of mine this whole semester is my time management. Although I have avoided any waiting time in my lessons, I continue to have to much instruction time in my lessons. I get caught talking too much and not giving the students enough activity time. My time coding form you can see that my activity time and instruction time is almost exactly half and half. In my future lessons I need to make sure I keep my instruction time short and to the point so that I can have as much activity time as possible. Over all I think this lesson was my best and was the most fluent. Using my powerpoint video to instruct the student in what they were going to do really helped a lot too. Although I had a lot of instruction time, I think my instruction was really useful. I made a powerpoint for my introduction and placed the "Thriller" music video on it so my students could see exactly how Michael Jackson does the moves. I think this really helps a lot of students because when it comes to physical education, many students are better visual learners rather that verbal instruction. With the improvements I have made, there are still many more to be done. But my journey toward becoming a great physical education teacher has taken a huge step forward during my teaching experiences in this class. I can only hope I continue to improve each and every day.
Roger Goodell has officially had it with the Detroit Lions and want to create a new team to replace them. It is my job along with the rest of my group to run some tryouts for students to try and make the new team! That was the story we used today in our Skill Acquisition Concepts of Team Sports class. We were assigned to give a flag football lesson that lasted 15 min to a class of about 15 students. My good friend and fellow classmate Jack Murphy had a very creative idea of making this lesson into "tryouts" for a professional team. I really like the idea of using stories behind your lessons because it really grabs the students attention. The best way to make the students want to be involved in the lesson is to relate the lesson to them. Knowing that the majority of the class likes the NFL, we used that as the basis of our lesson so we could get students interested. AND IT WORKED!! No surprise there!!
My group and I taught the class the basic cues for a pass, and an upper and lower catch. We kept the cues simple and easy to remember to avoid any confusion between students. We started our lesson off with a fun and exciting game of "Ultimate Football". This is generally the same game as "Ultimate Frisbee" but played with a football. Although it does not guarantee the students will be using the proper form for throwing, it really helps them practice catching from different levels. This game also just gets the students moving and warmed up for the following activity.
Our group then started the class off with a simple activity to practice the basic cues and steps for a pass, and a lower and upper pass. Students got with a partner and stood about 25 feet apart and simply had a catch with each other, tossing the ball back and forth. Since this activity is kind of boring and not much activity is involved, we only let it go on for a few minutes just to get the idea of the movements presented. The next activity we introduced is a form of intra-task variation of the first activity. We played a little "monkey in the middle". This is really the same game except there is one defender in between the partners trying to take the ball away. This provides more of a challenge for the students who are finding the skill to be to easy. Another variation that we applied is having the students running routes. This activity would be considered a game like situation drill, and is very useful when your final goal is to get the kids to play in a full game.
Last but not least, our final drill was a modified game. We split the class into 4 teams and assigned different teams to play each other in a small 5v5 football game. Students wore flags so there was no contact. We made sure to emphasize this in our directions so that no one got hurt. Overall, our lesson went great and the class had a lot of fun doing it. We also have found a couple of potential players for Roger's team. I'll have to call up Roger and let him know. Maybe the NFL will be introducing the Cortland Red Dragons team in the near future. Disney World here I come!!
255 is moving along and it seems like I was just teaching a simple set in volleyball with no previous preparation. Now I'm in a completely new environment, teaching on ice, explaining a game I have never even played before. On Wednesday, October 28th, 2009, I was assigned Lab C, which was a challenge but a great experience. Myself, along with fellow classmate, Jack Murphy, introduced our class to the game of Broomball. This game was developed in Canada, however, since there is no official history of the sport, we decided to use our creativity to make our own little story. Our little penguin that we created has the name of Dr. Xavier Waddles, and is the famous penguin that invented the game of Broomball. After finding a lot of trash all over Antarctica, Dr. Xavier decided to hit it all around and clean up the mess with a stick he had found. The act of hitting the garbage away gave him the idea of Broomball.
Setting up for this lab was a lot of work and was very stressful. We had to make sure we had the right equipment and the right amount of it too. We also had to make sure that were able to use the ice rink for our lesson and that the ice would be ready for us. This preparation is something that we are going to have to get used to dealing with since when we become teachers we will be doing the same things. I did learn a lot throughout this experience. I now know that when ever you have an assignment or lesson to prepare for, the best thing to do is take care of everything you can as soon as you can. But, after all the fuss was over and I was done stressing over preparation everything, I really gave a good lesson and was satisfied with what I did. This lab involved a lot of work and really tested how well I have come along in my teaching experience. I can see many places where I have improved, and many places where I still need work. One huge improvement that I have almost perfected is being enthusiastic and excited about my lesson. I am moving around, talking loud, and showing my students that I want to be here, and I want to teach this game. This is really important, because once again, if your not having fun, the students won't be having fun. I was able to increase the percent of activity time a little bit from my last lesson, however, I could still slim down on the instruction and add more activity. In my time code analysis form you can see that activity time and instruction time are almost equal. In an ideal lesson the activity time would be above 50% of the lessons total time. This is not a huge deal, and would only take a little bit more planning and practicing for my lesson before. The big reason that I was able to improve my time management was because of the extra practice that I put in to preparing my lesson. I found that if you play out your lesson to your self and actually say what you plan to say, you could manage how long certain parts of the lesson should be. I repeated what I planned to say many times in front of the mirror in my room and not only did it help me with time management, but also with my comfortability in front of the class which I believe is my strongest point.
In my lesson I noticed that I was much more bubbly and active. I moved around and used a lot of hand signals when I was speaking. This is good because it really grabs the students attention. It shows how interested in the lesson I am, and how much fun I am having. If you give off fun, you will get fun back. That is what I believe and it has worked for me great so far.
Another good point that I had in this lesson is the amount of feedback I gave to the students. It is important to give some form of feedback to at least 50% of the class. As it shows in my feedback analysis form I gave the right amount of feedback. I made sure to give both general feedback and skill related feedback. I told the students when they were doing things right and I told them when they were doing the skill wrong. This helps everyone learn because if you only told the students when they did something wrong, they would never know when they were doing it right.
Overall my lesson was a big step up from my previous teaching experiences. There were many things that I improved upon and did right. However, along with everything I did right, there is still, and always be, room for improvement.
This is a video of my hero, Laird Hamilton. Laird is said to be the best big wave surfer that has ever lived. What makes me so drawn to him is the way he looks at life. Laird Hamilton is the most dedicated and devoted person I have ever seen. Whatever Laird wants to do, he puts all of the effort he possibly could into it until he reaches his goal. Having this much dedication will get you anywhere you want and it is exactly how I would like to be when applied to my teaching.If I could learn to put that much effort into everything I do, and devote myself to everything that I am really striving for, I could become a positive role model for my students, hopefully pushing them to do the same. I am a strong believer that having goals is extremely important. No matter how big or small those goals are, it is necessary to have them. Having goals gives you something to work for, something to achieve, and something to reward you when you get there. The satisfaction that comes with achieving a goal is unbeatable and I believe all people should experience it at some point in their life. Physical education especially is a field that most definitely requires goals. Whether the goal is as small as improving your mile time by 15 seconds, or as big as being able to run a marathon, the goal is still important. As my quote says on the top of my blog, "goals are the fuel to the furnace of achievement"
The 2009 Mini Conference has arrived and it went great! This years keynote speaker was Dr. Judy Rink, a SUNY Cortland alumni and well known researcher in the physical education field. She has done great work in physical education and has come up with some fantastic philosophies and ideas on how physical education should be taught and what direction it should be going. A great point that Judy made was about accountability and how we, as the future generation of physical education, are responsible for taking it to the next step, and helping people realize the true importance of it. Judy Rink is truly an inspiration and I hope to someday be as much of an influence as she has become on all physical education teachers. Another presentation that was held was by our very own physical education majors here at SUNY Cortland. Together they presented different types of warm up activities that can be used in a physical education class. Of coarse I volunteered to participate and help them out with these activities and I must say, they did their job. By the end of the presentation I was hot and sweaty and out of breathe. Overall, I really learned a lot from this conference, experiencing different ideas and philosophies about physical education. I will be taking a lot of this information along with me on my physical education journey to become the best physical education teacher I possibly could.
Continuing my teaching development, and after learning more tricks of the trade I was up again to teach the class a new skill. In this lesson I was to teach the class the back hand pass with a Frisbee. I definitely felt more confident with this assignment and knew right away that my lesson would be much more fluent and smooth. In this lab we were attached to an mp3 recorder and a microphone that allows us to play back our lesson and hear exactly what we said and how we said it.
While listening to my audio recording I was really able to assess my speech and style of teaching. I was able to see what words I kept repeating, which sentences did not make sense, and various instructions I could have avoided to get the students into more activity quicker. While teaching, it is hard to really listen to yourself mostly because of nerves and being a little too anxious. Speaking of being anxious, I did realize that my speech speed has slowed down much more, and I now teach at a normal pace. One thing I noticed I did a lot in the earlier teaching experiences is speed teach. This is when I rush through what I'm saying without knowing because I am so nervous to be in front of a group of people. However, this semester specifically, I have really improved on my shyness and have become significantly more comfortable in front of a large crowd.
Another aspect of my teaching that still needs work is my time managemnet. Thanks to my time coding assessment I am able to see exactly how much time I spent on different areas of teaching such as management, activity, instruction, and waiting time. Although my time code sheet does show good numbers, I could still improve upon them. I do very well with avoiding any waiting time and I'm always working on something with my students. I do just enough activity time, but could still use more since this is "physical" education. My best bet would be to replace some of my instruction time with more activity. I need to work on making my introductions and directions short and to the point so that I can provide the maximum amount of activity possible.
Another problem that I have when I teach that is just a bad habit is my language. No, I do not mean I curse and say bad words when I teach, I mean that I say some words too many times, or I say the wrong word in certain situations. While going over my verbal transcript for this lab I noticed that I will say "alright" at the start of almost every sentence. Of coarse, I can still be a great teacher even though I use that word many many.....many times, however, it would be much more professional and sounds more professional if I could cut out repetitive words like that. Another mistake I seem to make a lot is when I use the word "guys" to refer to the class. Today, many people refer to boys and girls as a group as guys, and no one really seems to mind that much. However, when being as professional as possible it would be more than expected to say the more politically correct term when referring to a group of people. This is probably my worst habit and will be the hardest to break. I need to work on putting words like "everyone" or "class" into my vocabulary during my teaching journey.
This time around I definitely feel that i was much more comfortable in teaching the skill that I chose. The first time teaching this I did not really know what to do and what to say. I was missing a base guideline that I now have and used to improve my lesson. I stuck with teaching the "set" in volleyball, because it is a skill that I know well from being a setter on my high school team for a few years.
The second time I taught the class I was able to introduce myself more clearly and say what we will be doing that day much more understandable for the students. I was also able to teach the skill more quickly so that I could get into the activity faster. However, I could have still shortened my lesson and extended my activity a little more so that I could give a little bit more feedback to the students. There was a little mishap going on when two students were asked to misbehave and exclude themselves from the group. However, I think I did very well noticing and responding to them right away. The only thing I did wrong is turn my back the rest of the class when giving my attention to the misbehaving students. Next time I will make sure I am able to see everybody. I can still see different areas that I wish to improve in and will work on before my next teaching experience.
Working on my time code assessment form helps me map out exactly what I need to arrange in terms of my scheduling and timing of my lessons. The other form that we filled out was the feedback analysis form which will also really help me pin point exactly who I gave feedback to and what kind of feedback I gave so that I can improve on those areas as well. Another area of my teaching methods is my language. A good tool we have is the use of these videos. This allows me to look back and analize exactly what I said and how I said it. I now noticed a difference in my enthusiasm and excitment which I believe is a key thing to improve because all students, at any age are able to detect whether or not you are into the activity you are teaching. My verbal transcript goes over my word for word analysis of my Lab 2A teaching lesson.
It's been a long while since I last posted on my blog. Since my last post I have continued searching for a full time teaching position in physical education but haven't had any luck yet. And although I haven't found that dream job just yet, my passion for the subject hasn't deflated at all. If anything, my passion has only gone up. Coming out of college I had a fire under my butt and I was extremely excited to begin my teaching career and start making the difference in students lives the way I knew I could. However, I had no idea I would be still searching for that job 3 years later. I must admit, I've had times that I get pretty down on myself about why I haven't found employment yet and wonder if I am doing anything wrong, or if I'm not really meant for this position. But then I look at the work I have done so far and immediately realize that all the negative thinking is foolish. I worried that the fire under my butt might go away but instead that fire is only getting bigger. I can feel that a full time position will be coming sooner than later and that excites me. I believe everything happens the way its supposed to happen and I try to understand the reason things happen. I believe that the reason I haven't found that desired position is because I needed the time to grow as an educator. In the 3 years I have been searching for a full time position I have had the opportunity to substitute teach in three different school districts, coach for a varsity track team, get promoted at my job at Lands End Catering Hall, complete over 10 extremely demanding mud and obstacle races
