Blog #4

-

 What has surprised me the most so far is the students I have been working with. The student's behaviors and attitudes were not what I would expect from elementary schoolers. For example, it is a common trend that students have issues with dealing with losses. In gym, the majority of activities are competitive, and thus have a winner and a loser. Not all, but many kids seem to have a fear of losing. The kids tend to believe that there is no way that they could lose, therefor there must be something wrong with the game or the kids playing it. This leads to arguments with teachers and students and a lot of assigning blame. I don't think I have ever heard the words "you cheated" more in my life. My mentor and I have had to break up several disputes between students about cheating and the rules of the games. In fact, despite very clear game instructions, the kids seemingly bend the rules to fit their best interests, sparking the problems in the first place. For example, if the game was dodgeball and if you got hit with the ball you would be out, a kid would make up some new rule excusing the fact that he got hit with a ball. I was truly in shock when I first noticed this happening, I never would have expected that losing a game in your 30-minute gym class would have such a hold over these kids. It is as though nothing matters, not sportsmanship nor honesty, solely that the kid did not lose. One of the students is the son of a teacher, and he seems to have this same complex. His mom, the teacher, says it is because during Covid, when they would play games together at home, she would always let her son win, so now the son is not accustomed to losing, and does not know how to handle it when it happens. This is likely the case for a lot of kids

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog #5

-
 One thing I have learned about myself is that I need to hold my ground more. To my surprise, many of my students will lie or manipulate me to get what they want. For example, one time my mentor was not in the room, and two students asked me to go to the bathroom. When I was at Orange, the policy was one at a time to go the bathroom, so I assumed that it would be the same now. I told the girls that one could go, and when she got back the other could go. However, they said that Coach Gold always lets them go to the bathroom at the same time, so I believed them. Just as I let them go, however, Coach Gold spotted them and told them that they had to go one at a time to the bathroom. Despite my believing that they should go one at a time because I was new and didn't know the policy, I let myself get pushed over by a couple of fourth graders. This instance taught me to hold my ground on what I think is right, and more importantly, ask questions if I am not sure about something. A similar...
Read more

Blog #8, Final Reflection

-
 I was initially inspired to create this project because I remembered that back when I was a student in Coach Gold's class, every year she would have a student shadowing her for their senior project. Since I know Coach very well and I am interested in the realm of exercise science and physical activity, I thought this would be a perfect fit. I am very happy to have met my initial project goal of gaining experience in the physical education field and getting a better understanding of how active young kids are. The only thing I would have enjoyed more would be spending more time with the school's physical therapist for the Great Expectations program. I did not know there was a physical therapist at the school until one of my final days so I would have liked to spend more time with her, but I did enjoy speaking to her about her past jobs and how she chose her field specification. One thing I learned about myself throughout the project was to hold my ground and be confident. One ti...
Read more