I hope this finds you winding down, enjoying the change of pace, the weather, your freedom from bells, time for yourself and, nevertheless, thinking about the coming year and how to improve on the one that has just passed. If you are serious about looking to improve, you must identify the issues, understand and explain why change is necessary and have some thoughts about solutions. Given the emotional distance that summer brings, you might find problem solving easier than you think. Let’s see if I can get you started.

Questions worth asking:

• Kids prefer to sit out – why, what can we do about it?
  
• Should we reevaluate the dress code?
  
• Would we profit from explaining the reason for a dress code to the kids?
  
• How can we reduce departmental inconsistencies?
  
• How can we eliminate locker room problems?
  
• How can we get rid of the feeling of staleness?
  
• We need something new, but what?
  
• How can our program respond to the trends and problems of the day?
  
• How should be respond to poor sportsmanship, bad language and bullying?
  
• How can we develop and promote student leadership?
  

Draw up a student contract that includes expectations for attendance, preparation, participation, excuses – medical or parental –and grading policy. Post it on the web, distribute it in the summer mailing or go over it the first day and have parents sign it.

Think about the kids’ issues. Find ways to help or empathize. These were my students’:

• They hated having so little time to dress.
  
• They liked to learn, but they also wanted to have fun.
  
• They didn’t like feeling belittled or intimidated by classmates (or teachers).
  
• They liked to do more than play games and compete.
  
• They wanted a sense of self worth.
  
• They wanted to feel important to classmates and their teacher.
  
• They wanted to have access to equipment the minute they came to class.

Don’t underestimate the need to begin the year with good organization.

• Locker room organization and safety really go safety count! If you don’t believe me read, Too Dangerous to Teach, a non-fiction novel about a physical education teacher. It will give you insight into locker room problems (both funny and infuriating).

• Kids need to lock things securely. When they forget combinations or put locks on a wrong lockers they will need your help.
  
• Keep a good filing system, one for their name, one for the serial number on their lock and one for the locker and keep them in class sets until you are able to file them.
  
• Make sure the kids fill them out properly and that they also record the information in something they are likely to have with them daily. (Memo pad, etc.)
  
• Set up a central Lost and Found.
  Collect pictures to post on your bulletin board that synchronize with your unit.
  
• Identify students who need help and those who can give it.
  
• Get students used to your class routine early on:
  • What to do out of the locker room
  • How to take and return equipment
  • Attendance procedures
  • How to conclude each lesson
    
• Think about your responses to the typical negative things kids do and, instead of doing the usual (giving zeros, detention, calling home, removing kids from activity and/or class) come up with unique ways to turn them around.
  • Try using praise when you’re not angry, then build on that relationship
  • Admit to needing help and put a difficult kid in charge of something.
  • Conspire with parents to withhold Xmas presents if the kids don’t turn around.
  • Remove the problem by stopping the student from playing until he or she apologizes to you and the class.
  • Have the student write a report on what they should have done.
  • Ask colleagues to share the ploys they used successfully for changing bad situations.

Hope this has helped and that you have had a great summer.

Isobel Kleinman
Secondary Section Editor

In a June 29, 2004 New York Times article, “Title IX Trickles Down to Girls of Generation Z” Bob Gardner, of the National Federation of State High School Associations, complains that colleges get the attention, making it seem as if Title IX is about elite athletes only.

Reading on you learn that at the high school level there have been multiple law suits about girls playing on inadequate facilities, using inadequate equipment and having inadequate locker rooms. Interestingly, it is the fathers who initiated the majority of lawsuits and have done so in places like Owasso, Oklahoma; Boone County, Kentucky; Indiana; Arlington, Virginia; Cheatham County, Tennessee; the West-Linn-Wilsonville School District in Washington, Westchester County, New York, and Birmingham, Ala.

Had it just been a question of poorly funded athletic programs, perhaps these suits would have not moved forward, but the glaring inequity between the girls and boys programs infuriated the girls’ fathers. Successful lawsuits have lead to construction of state of the art facilities and to other lawsuits.

“WHAT A COACH CAN DO FOR A KID: Abusive rage or tough love?” Michael Lewis, New York Times, Magazine Section, March 28, 2004.

Michael Lewis’s article should be read by every teacher, coach and parent. It (and Too Dangerous to Teach) clarifies how expectations have changed and how those changes have impacted teachers and coaches in their efforts to get kids to meet their potential. Clearly, it is dangerous to stick to the tried and true methods of swaying kids to improve.

What is strikingly and what Lewis points out so well, is that since his playing days, parents have inserted themselves into the process. They want the world for their kids, whether or not their kids put in effort or have ability and if the kids don’t get what their parents want, their parents complain-loudly. For better (and worse) they politicize the system and, in the end, pressure the teachers and coaches so much that the result is watered down expectations and a reluctance on the part of teacher/coaches to guide students beyond their comfort level and onto higher levels of success. If you haven’t been confronted with these pressures, spend the rest of the summer getting sensitized and read Lewis’s article and/or Too Dangerous to Teach.

COMPLYING WITH TITLE IX – “From Sideline to Stage with a Lift from Title IX” (New York Times, April 4, 2004) explores Maryland University’s use of competitive cheerleading to comply with Title IX .

“Children’s Blood Pressure Levels Climb, Indicating Added Cardiac Risks, Report Says” Anahad O’Connor, New York Time, May 6, 2004. As childhood and adolescent obesity grow, so does blood pressure levels. The fear is that the rise “foreshadows a population of adults at greater risk of heart disease.”

If you have students who are interested in a NYC based professional dance major – research www.lliu.edu/brooklyn/dance and/or contact Jstuart@liu.edu.

SOURCES:

PICTURES OF WOMEN IN SPORTS – can be found in : GAME FACE: What Does a Female Athlete Look Like?, Jane Gottersman (Random House, 2001)

Soccer tips - http://users.erols.com/soccertip/ submit/yoursubmit.htm

PICKLEBALL

Pickleball is a racquet ball game. For information go to Complete Physical Education Plans for Grades 7–12 where you’ll find a well developed Beginner's Unit.

The advantages are:

• The equipment is cheap and sturdy.
  
• The game is adaptable to indoor and outdoor space.
  
• Students will enjoy it immediately. Why? It uses a short racket and a light plastic ball, making the acquisition of a forehand and backhand quite easy and providing for instant success at every skill level.
  
• Two pickleball courts fit on one tennis court.
  
• A volleyball or badminton court can be converted to a pickleball court by using some tape or chalk and by dropping the net.
  
• The paddle is air resistant, so though students are successful early on, they do learn proper ground strokes that are transferable to tennis.
  
• The biggest advantage of all is that KIDS LOVE IT!
  

AEROBIC-DANCE

Use hit songs when creating aerobic-dance routines. Nothing gets girls moving like music. Even the most boring routine (try not to make it boring) keeps activity levels up. And, since you will be hearing the music all day:

• pick tunes that inspire you to move.
  
• devise two to four sixteen beat movement patterns
  
• synchronize the movement to the song.
  
• practice until you’re comfortable so you’ll be able to model it to your classes
  
• develop cue words to use while teaching the routine to your kids.
  

CHANGE YOUR WARM–UPS

Teach movement patterns that kids need to master in the unit you’re teaching and use them as a warm–up. There is no end to the things you can teach using mimetics. Have kids move through the motion repeatedly, without the stress of being in the midst of a game and having to coordinate with equipment. Using mimetics teaches good movement habits.

• Start with the motion, making sure that the kids move through each aspect of it, the preparation, contact point and follow–through.
  
• Practice the whole motion at least ten times, daily.
  
• As their motion becomes smooth, increase the complexity by adding:
  
• Jumps
  
• Turns
  
• Slides
  
• Combinations . . . whatever they’d have to do to get to the ball or be productive in a real game. Use mimetics as a warm–up and you’ll see major skills progress from all your students!

- Add music to your warm–up. I used “Ghostbusters” years back and immediately saw a lack luster effort reversed with a laugh and a little something extra. In addition, I was introducing rhythms. How could that be bad?

In “New Thoughts about When Not to Stretch,” Lorraine Kreahling, (NY Times, April 27, 2004) reports on a six decade review of study’s before concluding that “stretching does not prevent injury during exercise done outside a warm-up. In some cases, the increased flexibility that stretching promotes may actually impede performance.” It is better to warm-up by preparing the body for activity, building strength and improving balance. Doctors suggest that to perform optimally, the body be neither loose nor tight and say that stretching should NOT be done before warming up. If it is, it’s like trying to mold cold clay. It doesn’t stretch; it tears.

Dr. Lisa Bartoli tells patients that warm-up should be the activity they are about to engage in at 50% their target intensity. The slow pace, she says, brings them safely through a functional range of motion. Dr. Gloria Beim, the US track cycling team doctor recommends an aerobic warm-up followed by aggressive stretching, believing that elasticity and flexibility helps athletes recover from injury, while other doctors’ worry that elasticity may actually make the body more vulnerable to injury. Dr. Ian Shrier, a past president of the Canadian Academy of Sports Medicine says that those of us who stretch daily will perform better, but that stretching does not prevent injury and could even prove harmful. He echoed others who question the value of taking one’s body beyond a normal range of movement during a warm-up.

In “WHEN DOES FLEXIBILITY BECOME HARMFUL? ‘Hot Yoga Draws Fire” (NY Times, March 30, 204) the same author explains that doctors worry that excessive joint flexibility can lead to inflammation and pain and that extreme range of motion can be counterproductive because “ligaments, tough bands of fibrous tissue that connect bones or cartilage at a joint, do not regain their shape once that are stretched out . . . . A loose joint can be like a loose door hinge that prevents the door from closing tightly.”