Learning to Experience
It seems like such a silly word to try and define: experience. It just happens. It’s happening right now. But as I am finding, there is much more to a word than your perception of a word. It can be… Read more ›
Category Archives: environment
Teaching Autonomy in High School Weightlifting (Part Two)
In part one of this series, I teased out the why and how of getting students to be brought into the process of learning and course development. This follow up will share the ‘what’ — the tests we track, the… Read more ›
Perceptions on the Ability to Take Care of Themselves
That which is neglected has the utmost potential. For me, Physical Education (or PE) is that place and space, and a fairly reflective representation of myself. Take the time and interest to look closer, past the beige tinge and the… Read more ›
Pruning vs. Weeding
To cultivate is to note what is, and then steer what you notice toward a particular aesthetic or ambition. In a place that is not my own, or with people that I do not feel responsible for, I can linger… Read more ›
The Year We Stopped Pretending
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 ›
Kids, Coaching, & the Issue Underneath It All
I always feel so sad when I watch the evolution of what youth ‘training’ has become. Led by adults who have forgotten/lost/never-had-the-chance-to play, we are applauding the work our kids do. We reward effort and discipline instead of creativity and… Read more ›
When It Becomes Sensory
In my athlete days, which ended about 15 years ago, the goal was to NOT feel and just complete the tasks put to paper. It was something I was given or sought out — “more” was agreed upon by all… Read more ›
Mr. Miyagi-ing Yourself
For those that might not know, Mr. Miyagi taught a teenage boy martial arts through a series of long-term tasks. He had him wax his cars, sand the floor, paint the house siding, and then paint the fence. Each one… Read more ›
When You Don’t Like to Practice
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 ›
How to Cultivate Autonomy (Part 2)
Part One of this series looked at working with youth. My Dad is going to turn 78 this year. He is someone that I love and that I know loves me. Sometimes a close relationship can get in the… Read more ›
How to Cultivate Autonomy (Part 1)
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 ›
Reflections (2024)
I usually write these up at the school year’s end. But with nine weeks left in the semester, it seems pertinent to bring to light some things I have realized and have been chewing on for some time. (If you… Read more ›
How Much is Enough?
At the very beginning of the pandemic, I posted and article that asked, “How does one know what to do?” In it, I used the example of Kevin McCallister (via Home Alone) mimicking ‘adulting’ after his initial indulgence into… Read more ›
How to Stop Wanting
Three simple steps towards a state of satisfaction: 1. Get hurt. Physically, this is a no brainer. That skill or peak performance will not seem as important as getting out of pain. Mental-emotionally, this might be even more obvious.… Read more ›
Kids & Able-Bodied
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 ›
Every Day Begins with Laundry
Habits and attitudes. At its core, this is what teaching comes down to. Do you know how to break them? Do you know how to build them? How do you feel about the things you do every day? Are they… Read more ›
Architecture of a Body-Centric PE Lesson (Part 1)
When planning a lesson that is skills based, you must account for multiple points of entry. In public education, everybody and every body must be able to find some success. You also must be able to do what you are… Read more ›
A Perceived Philosophical Conflict
I am the only female in my high school PE department. It’s been this way for 20 years. The one time another female came in she tried to out-alpha the football coach and got removed from teaching PE and placed… Read more ›
The Conundrum of Community
To belong implies a selection was made. There was a choice and options. In my rugby years, making the Select Side was a sign of being elite. You were one of the best in your region. You were chosen from… Read more ›
Students & the System
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 ›
Relationships, Part Four: Peers
Part Four in a four-part series of relational examinations. Part One: Parents Part Two: Pets Part Three: Students The definition of peer that I most relate to is “looking at”. The people who were supposed to be ‘like… Read more ›
Relationships, Part 3: Students
Part Three in a four-part series of relational examinations. Part One: Parents Part Two: Pets I never had any aspirations to be a teacher. I’d planned on becoming a physical therapist, but when it became clear that the training… Read more ›
Relationships, Part 1: Parents
Part One in a four-part series of relational examinations. The family is your first introduction into relationships. They are the constant you are surrounded with, the base in which all other units are compared. The two people that set… Read more ›
Entering Worlds
Each of us resides in our own world. It may be one we created, one we filtered out from experience, or one that revolves around our investments in habit and attention. Once established and found comfortable, it becomes a prism… Read more ›
PE as the Incubator of Risk
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 ›
What is a Class?
This is a question that requires more probing questions. Must there be a unifying variable of sameness? If so, what is it? The age of the people? The thematic subject? What actions are expected? How about the time of day? … Read more ›
Meaning, Behavior, & the Social Element
This piece serves as a follow up to “The Problem with Meaningful Phys Ed“. Amidst a pandemic, the question that kept driving what we did and how we did it was, “What matters?” Weirdly, and almost embarrassingly, this did… Read more ›
The Findings of a Social Ghost (part 2)
[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 ›
The Makings of a Social Ghost (part 1)
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 ›
The Social Element & Play
This is the third in a series of real-time, as it happens articles about leading online Physical Education. [Part one can be found here. Part Two can be found here.] We ended the last segment with a knowing need… Read more ›
How I Accidentally Got Invited to the Embodiment Summit
I received an email from Daniela Welzel, whom I do not know. It was obviously of the bulk variety, not even a name in the greeting, and it touted its magnitude and asked if I was interested. I didn’t know… Read more ›
Knowing What to Do
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 ›
Pain: Solutions Based on Self-Study
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 ›
Sensitivity & Isolation
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 ›
On Order & Chaos
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 ›
On Trekking through the Wilderness
It’s wretched. Absolutely awful. Carrying a heavy pack for miles and miles and never being quite sure when the end will come. I never notice my environment. I am fixated on the trail, the next step, and the necessity to… Read more ›
On Aging, Work, & Enjoying Home
How does your ability to care for something affect how much you can enjoy it? When the yard is full of weeds you can’t pull and awry branches you can no longer trim, do you begin to despise the home… Read more ›
Almog Loven Part 2: Feels
Part one of this series looked at the more physical elements of the “Weightlessness” workshop, and revealed the wonderful surprise of walking away with better knees. Part two will attempt to unveil the method behind the artistry of making a… Read more ›
Exploration & Safety (Part Two)
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 ›
An Everything PE: Year Two in Review
Two years ago, I set to develop a “new” type of PE that looked outside the realms of sport and weight lifting. With the outliers as my muse, we set to examine movement with a larger lens — how one… Read more ›
Letting Them Lead
Three months into the new school year, everything seems easier. As encouraging as my findings from the first year were, I wanted to further minimize my influence over their minds. To instigate thinking, one must ask provocative questions that the… Read more ›
A New PE: Year in Review
Being a public educator means you will never be without students. The caveat is that many won’t want to be there. Shaped by a past experience of dodgeballs to the face and timed miles and pacer tests, Physical Education was… Read more ›
The World of Fighting Monkey (part 1)
Doing without knowing. Playing, creating, learning. Adjusting and adapting. Describing Fighting Monkey is an act in organizing verbs. Everything overlaps and intertwines and is a wonder. The only certainty you are left with is that you have experienced something good… Read more ›
Re-Discovering Play (part 3) : Using Your Environment
“The more complicated the environment, the more it takes you away from yourself.” I have a confession to make. I live in the land of Dewey Nielsen, and I don’t revel in being outside. I don’t mind it, and… Read more ›