Chapter 1 Questions Continued

2. What are the satisfactions—and complaints—of today's teachers?

I would have to say after considering the advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher in my previous blog post that most teachers are content with their jobs. When one decides to become a teacher, it usually means that they have a passion for working with children. Thus they fill the satisfaction of working with children and having a great impact of their lives. Their workday may be long and may carry into their life at home at times, but overall teachers are satisfied with the fact that they have weekends and summers off. The number one complaint of teachers is most likely the low starting salary and their salaries in general are considered low. They may feel like their pay is inadequate for the amount of time and work they put into their job.

3. Can we consider teaching to be a profession?

Teaching is most definitely considered a profession. The definition of a profession, according to Merriam Webster Dictionary, is “a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation”. Teachers spend 4 years as undergraduates getting their bachelor’s degrees and then must move on to get their master’s degree as well. I would most definitely consider this “intensive academic preparation”. Along the way, teacher candidates also take numerous certification exams. The knowledge that teachers must acquire is usually not just common, every-day knowledge but rather is a result of careful specialization in a particular area of study. Sometimes I believe that teachers are not given the credit that they deserve.

Chapter 1: What are the Advantages and Disadvantages to being a Teacher?

I think that it is important to consider both the advantages and disadvantages of being a teacher. For me, the advantages have most definitely outweighed the disadvantages and thus I knew from the start that I have a passion for the kids and physically educating them. I know that teaching is the right profession for me and cannot wait to have students of my own. Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages I have considered.

Advantages:

-          Working with children each day

-          Really changing the lives of my students

-          Routine schedule each day

-          Weekends, holidays, and summers are off from school

-          Teachers are constantly learning each and every day

-          Working with other teachers and thus developing relationships with other professionals

-          Ability to share your personal knowledge with others

-          Although starting salaries are not very high, teachers work their way up to a higher and higher salary

-          Having a job as a teachers usually comes with other benefits such as health insurance

-          When a teacher has a family and kids, the job is convenient because the school days are synched together

-          The union is a resource that strives to better

Disadvantages:

-          Starting salary is quite low

-          Work doesn’t really end when the school day is over- teachers are at the school early, leave late and often must do work at home to make sure they are fully prepared

-          Teaching a large number of students at once

-          Some schools with smaller budgets do not have great physical education equipment

Our first video recording!

Today in our EDU 470 class we were videotaped while explaining some of the ideas we have on our philosophy of physical education. It is one thing to write out on paper what our philosophy is and what we hope and aspire to be one day as physical educators. But it is most definitely a completely different experience to talk about our ideas and dreams out loud in front of a camera. This was such a worthwhile experience to be videotaped because in the future when we go out to schools to interview we are going to be speaking to our potential hirers in person. These days physical education is definitely not given the credit that it deserves in many skills. Thus being able to verbally back up the program with the reasons why physical education is so important is a crucial skill that every physical education teacher must have. We must be able to explain the significance of being physically fit as well as the ways we will teach our students to be active and healthy individuals.

I noticed today that when I brought up my notes with me while being videotaped, I actually did worse than I would have done if I had just had said what had come to my mind. My words flowed a lot smoother when I truly just said my hopes and beliefs. In reality when you do have to talk to your superintendent and back up your physical education program, it is going to be important to think off the top of your head. Thus speaking in front of the video camera about our philosophy and what we aspire to be as future physical educators is extremely important. It shows that we truly have passion for what we want to do in life.  

I Hope, I Believe, I Will

HOPE:

My greatest hope as a future physical educator is to make an impact on the lives of my students. The job market right now is not what it used to be decades ago and thus the teachers that are hired must be the best of the best. I strive to better myself and learn each day so that I can share my knowledge with my students one day. I want to be the teacher that the students go home and tell their parents about when they share the exciting things they did in physical education that day. I hope to develop the motor skills of my students and to make them realize that physical activity is fun.

BELIEF:

I believe it is my own personal RESPONSIBILITY to educate my future students on why physical activity is so important and also on the ways to stay physically fit. As obesity rates are on the rise, it is extremely important to realize that going to Physical Education class twice a week for 40 minutes is not enough. Thus I believe it will me my duty as a physical educator to show students’ ways in which they can get their 60 minutes a day in. I want to show them that exercising doesn’t need to be a tedious and boring thing, but rather make them more enthusiastic about moving. I believe that physical education is not “recess” time or a time for students to run around and burn off all their energy, but rather is a time for LEARNING to take place.

WILL:

I will make students want to come to physical education, and will make them excited to participate rather than just showing up to class because they have to. I will continue to strive to educate my students on the dangers of obesity and what they must do to stay physically fit and live a long and healthy life. I will show them ways to make exercise fun and rewarding. I will instruct my students that it is important to have BOTH a healthy mind and a healthy body. I will show my students by example. In other words, I myself know that I must be a healthy and fit individual if I want my students to also aspire to be that way.

Blog is back up and running!

I have not really blogged since I took PED 201 but now that I am taking EDU 470 with Professor Yang I am excited to get back into blogging. Today was the first day of classes for the spring semester and I have to admit that I am already feeling a little bit overwhelmed. This semester some of the classes that I am taking include EDU 355, EDU 470, PED 356, Anatomy II, as well as Nutrition. Thus the course load is heavy but I am excited because this semester I will be fully immersed in the Physical Education Major. I am especially excited for EDU 355 because it includes field work and observations at a local elementary school. I think this will be a great experience and I truly am most passionate about working with elementary aged students. After completing my observations for EDU 256 in a middle school and high school last spring, I realized that although I would take a job in whichever grade level I was offered, I really do enjoy working with the younger children more. They have such vivid imaginations and are really are excited to play and learn. I am also really excited about taking PED 356 which focuses on adaptive physical education. I am in the adaptive physical education concentration here at SUNY Cortland so I have already taken a few classes with the adaptive focus, but I am really excited to work more closely with students with disabilities. As described by Professor Yang this morning, EDU 470 will really dive into discovering more about our own individual philosophies of teaching and coaching. I think this will be a real eye-opener to our beliefs on physical education and what we strive to be as future physical educators. Although look at each syllabus given to us by our professors may seem overwhelming right now, I know that all the hard work and dedication will pay off in the end.

Merry Christmas St.Mary's!!

The theme of our final lab at St. Mary's this week was Christmas! We all came to lab dressed up in our best Christmas attire! This was our final lab so we did not have a set of locomotor skills that we needed to observe. My two lab partners and myself worked with the pre-schoolers for our final lab. I was really excited. I brought a big poster board that said "Merry Christmas St.Mary's" on the top. All of the kids colored different christmas pictures and we then taped them on the big poster. I had a couple of girls that wanted to be my helpers and they helped me tape all the pictures on the poster. They were so cute and were so excited that they could help me. They we played a big game of Simon Says. After this I read a really cute Christmas story to the preschoolers and then they had a quick snack before coming out to the gym to play some parachute games.




I definitely think that all of the kids absolutely loved to parachute games! Andrew did come fun games where the kids got to crawl under the parachute and other games that involved getting balls off the the top of the parachute. I then did a couple of games too. I think that their favorite game was probably "air conditioning".




Overall this weeks lab was definitely the best lab yet! I have had so much working with the kids at St.Mary's and it definitley was an awesome experience to get started working with the kids!!!

PED 201 Flexlet Infomercial