531 /Journals

JOURNAL 1

What its like in Mr Putnam's PE class:

During CP1, my students quickly realized that my PE class would be different from their other PE experiences.  This experience was likely refreshing to some and perhaps frustrating to a few.  Students who felt established in an old routine were at risk of being nonconformists in my set-up, but anyone willing to try something new and take on fun and engaging challenges was in for a good time.  Physical Education is all about students enjoying movement, and collaborating to achieve specific goals within the unit of instruction.  This means that students need to have strong communication and general affective skills.  Early in my CP1, I used Adventure Education activities to get students interacting and working together, even with classmates they didn’t know very well before.  Ideally, students would become accountable individuals who pursue their own learning in the areas of fitness, sport, and lifelong activity.  Those kinds of goals don’t come easily, because students must be motivated to engage beyond their initial comfort levels, and see how being active is actually more fun than they imagined.

 

Journal 2

Quote from the video	What it means	Deeper thinking
“Creativity is becoming as important in education as literacy” (Robinson, TED video).	In the future that we cannot see, the practice of excluding arts and kinesthetic learning would put us at a disadvantage.	Outsourcing, technology and economics (Asia, Abundance and Automation) are making left-brained skills less of a priority. If the ability to produce original thoughts and actions is going to be as valuable as we are saying here, then creativity is going to have to be PART of how we define an educated person.
"(If Kids) don’t know...they’ll have a go… I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same as being creative" (Robinson, TED video).	When kids honestly use what they do know, and approach a situation with their own ideas, they are likely to come up with something original.	Students are often taught to fear failure to the extreme that they stop trying to come up with new ideas.  There is a deeper layer to this issue, I believe!  Its my opinion that we are failing to teach kids in the affective domain, to the extent that they fear failing their peers more than they are afraid of failing their teachers.  Peers will often keep each other from being creative, when we should be teaching them to care, nurture, and push each other’s creative abilities.
“We start teaching them from the waist up, and then the head… and then slightly to the left.” (Robinson, TED video).	We must educate the whole individual, because when we put boundaries on our children it cripples their creative nature.	“Why don’t we teach dance as much as we teach math?”… “professors view the body as a way of getting their brains to meetings” (Robinson) Thomas Jefferson said that health is more important than reading.  Creative outlets such as dance also incorporate the whole person, and make us complete individuals, versus left-brain miserable robots.  As a Physical Education advocate, this entire video could not have felt more aimed at educating the whole person versus education that overvalues left-brained heavy learning.
"All kids have talents, and we squander them, pretty ruthlessly." (Robinson, TED Video)	By forcing children to learn too many things in our own ideal fashion, we pull them away from their natural talents.	The example of the choreographer could not have summed it up better.  I cant help but wonder how many geniuses have been ruined in recent years in our education system.  Also, the notion of ADHD “not being an available condition” in the 1930’s is priceless!  Someone close to me was diagnosed with the same thing, and thankfully his parents made arrangements for him to learn at his own pace and learning style.  He is a gifted musician, song writer, and as a Junior in high school, is very involved in helping others in the community and overseas.