I'm sorry, I couldn't help it...
As a requirement to certify in elementary education at my school, you have to take a Physical Education Methods class. Leading this class is someone from the physical education department, not the education department. To say I'm really bitter about this class is an understatement. (And that's not to say I don't understand why they make us take it. But it doesn't make me any less bitter.) I'll write about the "class" in general later. But right now, I just have to share a snippet of our wonderful discussion today:
PE Lady (talking about a regular class, not a PE class): "Say you have a student in your class who is always reading. They love to read, and they read even when they are supposed to be doing other things. You want the students to all be doing what they are supposed to be doing. So, you tell that student that since they were reading when they weren't supposed to be reading, you are going to take away their free reading time. When everyone else gets to have free reading time, they will have to do, say... math."
Me: "...That's just going to make them hate math..."
Now, that's a pretty basic behavior principle. Punishing someone for reading by making them do math instead certainly isn't going to foster a love for math. But that's not even the main point here.
The main point is that I, for the first time, kind of talked back to a "professor". And it felt good. Really good.
Maybe later I'll type out some of my "notes" from today's "class". They contain gems such as the following example: "Don't belittle students." (Because really, I had been planning on calling all my students names and telling them that they were never going to amount to anything. But now, since my PE Methods teacher told me not to belittle them, I won't.)
PE Lady (talking about a regular class, not a PE class): "Say you have a student in your class who is always reading. They love to read, and they read even when they are supposed to be doing other things. You want the students to all be doing what they are supposed to be doing. So, you tell that student that since they were reading when they weren't supposed to be reading, you are going to take away their free reading time. When everyone else gets to have free reading time, they will have to do, say... math."
Me: "...That's just going to make them hate math..."
Now, that's a pretty basic behavior principle. Punishing someone for reading by making them do math instead certainly isn't going to foster a love for math. But that's not even the main point here.
The main point is that I, for the first time, kind of talked back to a "professor". And it felt good. Really good.
Maybe later I'll type out some of my "notes" from today's "class". They contain gems such as the following example: "Don't belittle students." (Because really, I had been planning on calling all my students names and telling them that they were never going to amount to anything. But now, since my PE Methods teacher told me not to belittle them, I won't.)
posted by Not Quite Grown Up... at 12:35 PM
3 Comments:
Our P.E. methods class focused more on kinesiology than anything; we had this 300 page book we had to read in six weeks and we had to write up lesson plans for P.E. classes, explaining what skill we were teaching and whether it was grade level appropriate based on the way a child's muscles and movement patterns develop.
But the final? Half of the grade was based on the textbook exam, and the other half was based on your ability to successfully guide the class through your prepared lesson plan. My thoughts?
Pretty much just glorified P.E.!
(Thanks for the link, btw!)
I was given a few textbooks to look through, if I so desired, but was never taught anything about kinesiology or how to work different muscle groups, or really, anything at all.
sangambayard-c-m.com
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