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: teaching
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 ›
Teaching Autonomy in High School Weightlifting (Part One)
Being able to make decisions is a form of ownership, and having ownership leans on being accountable for your decisions. If we want people to be responsible for the health of the bodies they inhabit, to care based on… 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 ›
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 ›
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 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 ›
A VERY Brief Review of the Biomechanics Movement Summit
At its core, this get together was a homage to Adarian Barr. It was about curious and capable mortals grasping at genius, and that genius laying out his latest findings and figurings in a simple yet thorough process of feeling and… Read more ›
The Problem with Performance Training
I define performance for the purpose of this article as, “the peak execution of a skill at a particular point in time.” Though sometimes cooperative, there is most often an element of competition involved. For most athletes and artists, the… 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 2)
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 ›
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 ›