Physical Education (11-02-09)

This week, I had the privilege of serving a long-term substitute teaching assignment. Well, if you can count two consecutive days as being “long term.” Regardless, I got to be our school’s physical education teacher on Wednesday and Thursday, and I learned a lot from the experience.

I have subbed in just about every classroom now in my tenure at Hill City Grade School. I think subbing for my teachers (while obviously a sign of total desperation due to a complete lack of qualified subs) does give me an excellent perspective to evaluate both teachers and students. There is an old proverb that says to truly understand another person you must walk a mile in his or her shoes. Substitute teaching is about as close to walking in a teacher’s shoes as one can get.

First, I want to commend our excellent physical education teacher, Janella Benoit, for her meticulous preparation and communication. Even under the dark cloud of illness, she still managed to write detailed lesson plans, complete with diagrams and citations from various PE guides. In all my years as a sub (and I began my teaching career as a sub) I have seen few lesson plans as informative as Mrs. Benoit’s.

On top of great lesson plans, she managed to call me each day I subbed for her to go over the plans and check on the progress of the kids. This woman cares so much about her students that even from home she does her best to make sure they get the best education she can provide. It was, for me, a humbling and awesome experience.

During my two-day stint, I got to stretch, run, teach, and watch our students engage in cooperative games of muscle and coordination. I saw how each grade level brought its own set of challenges to the gym floor and how even different sections of the same grade could interpret instructions so differently.

One of the best parts of the experience was getting to work so closely with every single K-6 student. Before, I thought I knew all their names, but this job proved that I still have a ways to go. It isn’t that I don’t know the names, but that when presented with one class after another every twenty minutes, I did not know all the names well enough. Or maybe I’m just getting old, but by the end of each day my recall would double clutch and often stall entirely. I simply had to take a moment for my old analog hard drive of a cerebellum to eventually retrieve the correct moniker. The practice, the sheer act of having to recall every name of every student several times each day, did much to fine tune the old noggin.

I also feel that I better understand the entire PE/Vocal schedule. Last year, I subbed several times for Mrs. Shank, and while twenty minutes is not very much time, I usually was able to get through the lesson without too much trouble. PE, on the other hand, presented an entirely different set of challenges.

I began each class by having the students stretch and then would lead them though a simple set of callisthenic exercises. From there, I engaged the students in several cooperative learning games, most involving some sort of ball. The challenge was with how fast or how slow the students caught on to the instructions and how fast they were able to master the game.

With some classes, twenty minutes seemed an eternity. We’d be though the games listed in the lesson plans and I would have to improve to complete the time. With other classes, we wouldn’t be able to get through everything.

One game, involving basketballs, was a snap for the fifth grade. Bouyed by my ability to relay complicated instructions with this group, I admit I hurried the instruction with the sixth grade. The result was more chaos than order, more confusion than enlightenment. It really made me question my assumptions about different groups of students and different ways of communicating the same instruction.

More than anything, this taught me about the sheer stamina it takes to be a PE teacher. After two days, I was sore and tired. I have always admired Mrs. Benoit’s exercise regimen. She is a habitual walker and very fit person. Now I see why. Any teaching assignment can be exhausting, but never have I been so physically wore out than after being an instructor of physical education.