Physical Education: Assaulted From All Sides

At the rally for Public Education

This week our school board approved the reduction of required Physical Education credits for graduation from 2 to 1. Currently high school students in our district are required to take PE every day for one semester.  This amount of time will be cut in half (two or three days a week for a semester). Although parents came out it droves to protest the proposed cut in Jr. High sports (it was voted down), the cut in PE went through without any protest.  I'm not even sure people were aware this was on the table.  I only found out about it after the fact.  No one talked to any PE department members before it was proposed.

The childhood obesity rate is 25%.  That means 1 out of 4 children is overweight or obese.  It will only get worse if physical education is reduced or eliminated from school curriculum.  This isn't just happening in my district.  It's happening all over Pennsylvania.  I am sure other public school budgets are feeling the pinch as well.

Who does this hurt?  Once again the children who live at poverty level are taking the hit.  Our district also approved a hike in the"pay to play" fee for PIAA sports.  It's going from $30 dollars per student this year to $135 next year. Kids at a lower income level will not be able to afford to play sports as easily.  In addition to this, they will get less chance to exercise during the school day.  They are also the kids who are less likely to be able to afford private gym memberships, fancy bikes, skateboards and the like. With more of these kids coming from single parent homes, there is less time for a family member to make sure their kids get moving.  Who eats the most unhealthy food that will add weight to an already inactive body?  That's right..lower income families because crappy food that is bad for you is also cheap food that you can afford on a limited budget.

Supporting the  Arts at the Rally for Public Ed.

There are countless studies that link physical activity to better performance in math and reading.  The big push in PA (and all over the country) is making sure students at all levels perform well on standardized tests.  Aren't we shooting ourselves in the foot here??  I think so.

Some people on the street would say that PE is unnecessary because kids should be out playing and moving around on their own. For a variety of reasons, that doesn't happen much anymore.  Mark my words; what we save by reducing PE today will be paid out tenfold taking care of the next generation of sick, obese individuals.

What Your Child Needs from You to Succeed in School

A handful of "repeat offenders" have emerged at our school.  These students don't do their work and spend their day at school getting into various kinds of trouble.  Each offense is a little more disturbing than the last.  Most of them won't be moving on to the next grade.  It's sad to see these young ones sliding down the slippery slope.  You as parents can help us help them.  Give them what they need before they come to us.

1. Make them number one in your life. If you have a child, make him a priority.  Children need to know that they are important.  They need to know they are loved and they need to know they are secure.

2.  Guard their childhood.  There are too many things in society today that force kids to grow up way too fast.  Your child needs a safe space where they can be kids.  That safe space should be the home they live in.  You must be the gatekeeper and keep as much of the adult world at bay as you can.  9/11 happened when my kids were small.  We made a decision that they would not be bombarded with the 24/7 horror of that news story.  We tried hard to keep the TV and the conversation lighter until they were sleeping and away from the TV.

2.  Give them your time.  Your child needs time with with you.  She needs your undevided attention.  She needs to make happy memories with you.  She needs to laugh with you.  Life can pull you in a thousand directions, especially when your child is little.  They don't stay little for long.  Slow down...take some time.

3.  Make sure they know they are loved.  Tell them and show them whenever you can and as often as you can.  The more love they feel from you, the more confidence they will feel in themselves.

4.  Be consistent.  Make sure your child knows their boundaries, the consequences if they leave them and the rewards if they stay within them.  Children who are raised with consistency feel more secure.

5.  Don't take the easy road.  Yes it's easier to let your child stay up later, eat junk food, use the TV and computer as a babysitter, let the little things they do slide. But little things become big things and you will be glad you took the harder path when they were small.

Quick Review of Snap It

Sample screenshot using Snap-It

A few posts ago, I told you about Snap-It a screen capture software program.  I thought it may be helpful for educators in some of their lesson planning and execution.  I tried it out on my other blog.  I used it for a post called, "How to Start Your Own Fitness Support Group on Facebook".  I needed to show the steps you would need to follow on Facebook to get a private group set up.  I screen captured several shots of tabs needed in order to get started. 

Snap-It was super easy to use and took good clear screen shots of everything I needed. I was able to capture what I wanted, crop the screenshot, save it to my "website" folder and then simply add the screenshots like I would add any other photo to my blog.  If you are looking for a simple, easy to use screen capture software program, Snap-It will do the job for you.  I could easily see someone taking screenshots of directions students needed to follow on any computer program and then putting them together in a video using a program like Windows Live Movie Maker.  The video could be shown on a smart board or put into each student's folder for them to use.  I think this could really make a teacher's life much easier during a computer aided classroom project.  Give Snap-It a look and see what you think.  You can download a limited free verson at their site at http://www.digeus.com

Middle School Kids are a Hoot! Episode 1

The Story of the Shredded Pants

When I first got assigned to middle school after our schools consolodated, I thought, "Whoa, wait a minute!  High school is where I belong."  I promised I would go to my new assignment with an open mind and I'm glad I did.  I enjoy the middle school experience.  Sure there are some low points, but this age group makes for an interesting day each and every day.  Here's a story to illustrate my point.

A few weeks ago my first period class came out for floor hockey.  One little guy, we'll call him Frankie, didn't show up.  When I asked the other students where he was, they told me he was still in the locker room.  A few minutes later, he emerges with jeans on and he looked really stressed out.  Worse, one jeans pant leg was completely cut off to look like shorts and the other pant leg was more or less shredded.  When I asked him what happened to his pants, he started to sob and said,

"This is the fourth time I forgot my gym clothes and I didn't want to get a detention (a policy at our school) so I was trying to make them into shorts."  I was pretty sure his mom was going to be more upset about shredded pants than a detention.  Through some more stifled sobs he confessed that he asked the guy PE teacher for scizzors in the locker room to do the damage to his pants. 

"Don't tell Mr. X or he'll be mad at me!"  By this time, I was having trouble keeping a straight face.
I had already decided I wasn't going to refer him for a detention.  I figured it was already going to be enough to go home to mom with those shredded pants.

Fearing the worst for poor Frankie, I called his mom to give her a heads up about the pants.  Turns out she was not too upset with him.  I don't think he ever got that detention.  He's remembered his gym clothes ever since!

Moonlighting: Not Just for College Kids

I was not surprised to come across this article recently about the increase in teachers who moolight. This past year, our district had a huge budget deficit due to massive budget cuts for education at the state level.  Our district closed five schools and furloughed about 60 teachers Then they threatened to furlough about 20 more had the union not agreed to a pay freeze for the year. This agreement also included a complete overhaul of our insurance program ($3,000 dollar deductable).  It doesn't look much better for this year.

I have noticed over the 13 years I have been teaching there has been an increase in colleagues who have not only a second job, but more likely a second "side" career.  I'm sure it's the safety net, the fall back plan for when the ax drops again.  The Jr. High Science teacher also runs a photography business.  She takes some great senior pictures, wedding photos and pictures of the mini cheerleading squads.  The music teacher at the middle school has a home roasted coffee business.

I can't even tell you the amount of teachers I know that do Pampered Chef, 31, Gold Canyon Candles and other types of home businesses.  I am an independant Beachbody Coach and this summer I am seriously thinking of getting a personal trainer certification.  I may check into getting a certification in nutrition as well.

I love to teach, but counting on a teaching salary to get you through raising a family, sending kids to college and having a decent retirement is scary at best.  The next time you hear someone complaining about how easy teachers have it because they work 8 to 3 and have the summers off, remember that teachers are spending hours planning lessons, going to parent teacher conferences and correcting papers after 3 p.m. Plus many are taking on a second career to make ends meet and supplement retirement.

Educators: Interested in Screen Capture Software?

Have you ever used screen capture software?  Have you ever wanted to? Ever do a computer project with your students and buzz around to 20 different computers showing kids how to go through the steps over and over and over again?  Ever get stressed as you look at the sea of hands raised waiting for you help?

The people at http://www.digeus.com have a product called SnapIt that will capture anything you see on your PC screen.  It will capture and autosave images in one click.  Imagine being able to screencapture the steps you want your students to take on a particular project and being able to incorporate that into an instructional video your students can access.  They could watch, pause and work. It could streamlinne the whole process.

Here's some of the features:

• Supports hotkeys, auto-saving, clipboard
• Automatically copies screenshots to the clipboard
• Tracks capture history, auto-saves captured images
• Saves files in BMP, GIF, JPEG and TIFF formats
• Auto-names captured images

You can check out Snapit at: Screen Capture Software

Digeus says I will get a full copy of SnapIt to try.  I'll do a review for you after I have tried it out.

School Lunch Overhaul; It's About Time

I just read a report on CNN that congress has passed a bill to make school lunches more healthy.  It's about time.  The school lunches at our school are atrocious.  I imagine they are much the same at most public schools.  Every Monday is "processed chicken day".  It's served as either patties, nuggets or strips. They are highly processed, breaded, salted and high in fat.  We have pizza, hot dogs, french fries and maxi sticks.  Maxi sticks are bread sticks stuffed with processed cheese.

One of the things that really bugs me is flavored milks.  It's not bad enough to serve fatty milk every day.  Now we serve it laden with sugar in the form of chocolate and strawberry milk. 

In the high school where I worked last year, they had a snack line.  Many kids opted for that line because they could get lunch in a reasonable amount of time.  The regular line would cause them to be late for class.  The snack line served things like Combos.  When my health class analyzed snacks according to the food labels, Combos consistently came up as one of the least healthy snacks you could eat.

I am sure if we fed healthier food to our kids at school, they would be better behaved, have a longer attention span and do better academically.  The new guidelines would set upper limits on calories  depending upon the age of the child.  Older kids would have a 600 calorie upper limit for lunch, younger kids would have a 650 calorie upper limit. Fresh fruits and vegetables would have to be included every day.  Wheat bread would replace white bread and milk would have to be skim or 1%

Although the new lunch guidelines aren't perfect, (Tomato paste, french fries and tater tots are considered vegetables) it is a step in the right direction.  With a 17% national childhood obesity rate it needs to be a step our nation takes.

To see a before and after the bill lunch comparison click here.