I’ve been teaching PE for twenty-three years. I’ve seen and survived a lot of things, just as my students have. The last five years have been particularly trying, both personally and professionally, culminating in a 2025 that rocked me to… Read more ›
The PE class I created was carefully called Games & Practice. The goal is to develop skills and then utilize those skills in a larger, faster context. Sometimes this means adding people, sometimes this means creating a more complex task,… Read more ›
Whether you know what to do or don’t know what to do, these behaviors have been learned (and taught). The environment one finds themselves in caters to these patterns, and is socially accepted (and encouraged). Our habits define who we… Read more ›
This feature photo shows an unstaged photo of the top drawer of my filing cabinet in my locker room office. Note the bounty of certain items (that aren’t snacks). Shorts, pads, some extra underwear — all tell tale signs… Read more ›
There is an assumption that young people are able-bodied. It is the gift of youth, the privilege of being newer to this world designed to break you down. It has become incredibly apparent, though, particularly in this last semester, that… Read more ›
To recap Part One: Create a sense of intrigue Provide multiple points of entry Establish pockets of safety Ask instead of assume This sh*t’s hard (which is why so few do it) After the weight shift lesson , three of… Read more ›
Amongst other things, COVID-19 revealed how fragile the American educational system is, and how unadaptable it is to changing and evolving times. Designed to churn out compliant workers, it conflicts with the world around them — a burgeoning economy of… Read more ›
Part Two in a four-part series of relational examinations. Part One: Parents I can think of no purer love than that of a dog for its person. They just want to be with, and play, and interact, and protect,… Read more ›
Physical Education classes have gotten bigger over the course of the pandemic. The powers that be have knowingly placed too many kids within too small an area. Like athletics, it seems to have a separate set of rules that allow… Read more ›
Some context. I have been learning to be sensitive to signals of and mitigate pain for about a decade now. My training revolves around feeling things out, noticing any off-ness, spending some time and attention there, and finishing the session… Read more ›
About 9p, while I was more than halfway to sleep, the power went out. I didn’t think much of it. It goes out every now and then, and it always comes back on within reason. When I woke, I peeked… Read more ›
[Part One can be found here.] “The Ghost’s of Chris’s Present” Individuals are my jam. They are complex in a singular way. It is easy to give them my undivided attention. It is easy to gather data points. Instead… Read more ›
Alternative title, “The Ghost of Chris’s Past” [Part One of a three part series to help me better understand and create community.] Being social has always been a function of sports. Teammates congregated for practice and games. I wanted… Read more ›
Typically, when I write, I try to give an overview of a completed loop of learning: this is where I started, this is where I went, and this is what I found. As a public educator in the midst the… Read more ›
How do people know what to do when their structure of doing is removed? If they had choice and input to create the structure they lived within, and it served them well — fostering security and growth — they would… Read more ›
This hurts. The most common reaction is to stop using it or doing that. It’s even the advice of many medical professionals. Rest, it is assumed, is a cure all. But what happens when this magic pill doesn’t work? When… Read more ›
For a very long time, I blunted my sensitivity. It left me open to being hurt. I had to learn not to be responsive to being receptive. I adjusted my interactions with the world to protect me from it. My… Read more ›
People with a lot of stuff tend to be extraordinarily organized. They have to be in order to find things. What an onlooker might view as chaos and confusion is lived in as a place of comfort and convenience. The… Read more ›
Thematic teaching offers an umbrella students can return to to make their own connections. It provides a constant amidst the chaos to formulate conclusions and test variables against. Stepping back and trying to see the bigger picture of my classes,… Read more ›
The following is part two of my course notes and findings from Stress, Movement, and Pain. As practitioners seeking to help bio-psycho-social organisms, we have to be able to read, analyze, and gather information from all three dimensions. The… Read more ›
It is on rare occasion that I am floored by what I hear on a podcast. While listening to fusion health radio on a recent commute, my eyes sprung open when I recognized what was being given away. The topic was Neuro-Somatic… Read more ›
Before we are funneled into a certain way of being, we believe we can do anything. We want to try everything because we have no idea what we can’t do. We are confident without realizing or understanding what confident is.… Read more ›
My father takes pride in being a worker. He grew up poor in Italy and emigrated to the U.S. when he was 16. He had $20 in his pocket and no grasp of the English language. Somehow, though, like so… Read more ›
Anxiousness is on the rise. It has been for some time. I work with teenagers, and they’re reporting panic attacks left and right. I don’t remember being anxious as a kid. There was always too much to physically do. With… Read more ›