What I Learned In School

Last week was my first week of actual teaching for student teaching. During my first few weeks, I did a lot of observing, learning, and making sure students stay on task. I then took over full control of every P.E. class last week. Everything went really well, but I did learn a few things from it. Let's take a look:

1) You always know when students understand the game or not. Their facial expressions say it all. If they get it, they normally show excitement or joy. If they don't, then there's the "I'm so confused" look. Some are just priceless.

2) Kids get excited for P.E. It's nice not having to worry about the kids that don't want to participate, because almost every kid loves P.E. Makes my job so much easier.

3) There's a lot of whining in P.E. For part of our warm-up, we run the length of the court and back a few times. Occasionally, some kids don't run or they don't go all the way to the end. I continue to run them until they figure it out and then, of course, they whine to me. "Mr. Just, are we done yet?" "Mr. Just, when are we gonna play the game?" That's normally when I tell them what they're doing wrong, but I like to see if they can figure it out first.

4) Along with the whining, there's a lot of crying. There's not a day that goes by where a kid doesn't cry. What's really sad is that they cry over the smallest stuff. They will trip and cry. They bump into another kid and cry. We even played a type of dodgeball, using the soft, foam dodgeballs. I watched a kid get hit in the side of the face, ball going maybe 3 mph, and he cried. They'll find some toughness eventually.

5) If you come to public school, you must be potty trained, right? Well, yes, but that doesn't prevent the peeing of the pants. My kindergarten class was playing tag, when all of a sudden, a kid starts bawling. I asked him what was wrong and he yelled out, "I peed my pants!!!" Caught me completely off guard. He was sent to the bathroom, then the office to call his mom. Goodness.

6) Remember those kids that always got on your nerves because they were so athletic and absolutely hated losing? I have a few of those. One in particular needs a reality check. He is very athletic, but has to have everything his way and can't lose. Boy, oh boy, is he in for a surprise in junior high.

Those are the big things that come to mind. Even though kids can sometimes get on my nerves, I love teaching. I love watching kids mature and learn new things. I just hope someday I'll have the full experience of being an actual P.E. teacher, instead of just a student teacher. I can't wait to have that little name plate on the outside of my door that says "Mr. Just. Physical Education." Ah yes, I'm looking forward to that day.

Thoughts from the Weight Room

As most of you know, I work at the weight room on campus. I basically get paid to sit at a desk and goof around for a few hours. I'm here just in case someone gets hurt, weights break, or something like that. That never really happens, so I stay at my desk for a good chunk of time. I feel like sharing my thoughts as I sit in this green chair of despair. Here goes:

-There are a lot of people that come in and don't do anything. How about you guys go home? I can't hear my music.
-I know weights are heavy, but there's not much need to drop them from above your head.
-If you want to bring crazy, heavy metal, scream-o or vulgar rap, why can't you just use your headphones? Not everyone wants to hear your crappy music, especially me.
-People watch interesting things while they workout. Is Rachel Ray motivational or something?
-Cheerleaders are loud, especially in an enclosed room that echoes.
-You won't build much muscle or burn calories if you do one set, then sit around for five minutes. Pick up the pace a bit, Paco.
-Is it really that hard to rack your weights?!?! This bugs me the most. Almost every person that works out in here will leave their weights when they're done. Drives me nuts!!! It's like anything else. If you use it, PUT IT AWAY!!!

Have a wonderful Thursday evening, everyone!

Who are these people?

College is coming to an end and everyone is looking for new places to start their life. As most of you know, Molly and I will be moving out to Kentucky for three years for Molly to study at Asbury Seminary.

My roommates are all getting away, too. Chad is looking to move to Florida to be close to his girlfriend, Katie, and to start looking for a job. He really has no idea what he wants to do. Lucas just got accepted to Yale for grad school. He was pretty pumped when he read that email. Zach applied to Wichita State for P.A. school and hasn't heard anything from them yet, but he'll be doing some great things.

Krista, a great friend from PT, is now in Madrid, Spain to study abroad for a few months. She'll be learning so much about the language and culture over there and will have a great time.

It's weird to think that my friends are all moving to far away places for a higher education or to start working. I never thought I would be moving to Kentucky for three years. I never thought Lucas would get accepted into Yale (not saying he's not smart enough. It's just Yale). We're all getting ready to start a new journey in our lives.

God has blessed us with amazing friends and wonderful gifts. He has a plan for every single one of us and is leading us to places way beyond our own plan. I'm very excited to be moving somewhere new and just as excited for all my friends moving to new places, too. It will be weird not seeing everybody near as much, but it's so cool seeing God use us to further His kingdom.

Tebow Time

Prepare yourselves for this. This past Sunday and Monday, I, Kyle Just, read for pure pleasure! Yes, that's right, pleasure. I was not reading for a grade, for research, or any other reason to force me to read. For the first time in years, I picked up a book and opened it to enjoy some light reading.

I'm still reading Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow and have loved every minute of it. I'm about halfway done now and I'd like to point out a couple things.

1) Tim Tebow is probably the hardest working athlete in the country. His mentality of working out is 'Someone is out there working harder than you.' That was his thought every time he picked up a dumbbell or went through a drill in practice. I would love to see him workout, just to watch his effort. He is a beast!

2) Tim Tebow trusts God with 100% of his heart. There is never a time that Tebow doesn't pray to God for guidance or praise. Even as I watch him on TV, he praises God for his abilities, the opportunity to play in the NFL, the opportunity to witness in front of thousands of viewers, and even losses. After the Broncos lost to the Patriots, Tebow still thanked God for what he has been blessed with.

I don't understand how people can hate on Tim Tebow so much. Even though he's an unorthodox quarterback in the NFL, he still has the leadership, talent, and effort to put together a win. He is a great inspiration to all people. Tebow deserves a lot more credit than he's given, but the critics will always have something to talk about. We will continue on with this 'controversy' and see what happens, but in the end Tebow has God on his side and that's all that he really wants.

Reading CAN Be Fun!

This semester has made me do something that I haven't done since high school, read a book. I used to like reading as a kid, but when I got to junior high, I had a teacher that absolutely ruined reading for me. She gave us books that we all completely hated! That was when I decided that I didn't like reading anymore and that mentality carried on until this semester.

Then I took Content Area Literacy with Michelle Adler. She gave us an assignment over the semester to read a book for ninety minutes a week and blog about it. Wait, what? Read? For the whole semester?! Not exactly what I was hoping to do for the semester.

Lucky for me, I knew that my dad had "Quiet Strength" by Tony Dungy. I figured if I read at all, it should probably be that book. My dad had already read it and said it was a great combination of football and spirituality. Ok, I figured I could handle that.

As I started reading, I realized that I was really liking the book. There were some days that I would read more than I needed. I was actually enjoying reading! I blogged about it and realized that I kind of like to share my thoughts on stuff like this. I already had a blog, but this assignment made me use it more often.

I finished "Quiet Strength" and began reading "Through My Eyes" by Tim Tebow. I've been really interested in this book and wanted to start reading it almost as soon as I got it. I never thought that someday I'd be reading a book for my own pleasure. Oh how the times have changed.

The semester is over and I'm done with CAL. However, I'm not done reading. I'm still reading "Through My Eyes" and have actually asked for a couple books for Christmas. That's something I haven't done since I was a kid. This class has been good for me to open up to books again. I had completely shut them out until I found out I had to read for a grade.

Michelle, thank you for forcing us to read. It's been a great to get my nose back into a book and enjoy it. I definitely think you should continue this assignment for classes to come. Maybe more P.E. majors will open back up to reading!

Oh Education...

My semesters at college have progressively gotten worse. This semester is proving to be a lot of hard work. Let me tell you what I have to do before the semester is over:

• 3 lesson plans for Content Area Literacy
• Strategy Proposal for Content Area Literacy
• Observation notebook for Content Area Literacy
• 4 lesson plans for Ed Psych
• Presentation of those lesson plans for Ed Psych
• Observation notebook for Ed Psych
• Teach one class of PE at the High School
• Teach four classes of PE at the Intermediate School
• Do an entire booklet of stuff for my Methods class (not going to go into all that detail)
• Resume work for Organization and Administration of PE
• Swimming final

I know what you're all thinking. Swimming final? Yes, I get to go swim for a final, but let's focus more on that whole load of stuff. Can you say 'why did I become an ed major again?' Luckily, I student teach next semester, which I've been looking forward to for a while. I'm still a bit nervous for it, but I think I'm ready. I'm just tired of observing. Know how many hours I had this semester? 80. Ya, 80 hours of observation. That's added on to my 16 credit hours of classes. This kid needs to be done.

I just ask that you all pray for me as I finish out this semester. It's coming faster than I know it and need to buckle down. Hopefully I make it to Christmas!

Through My Eyes (Part 2)

This week I read for more than 90 minutes. I was on a plane headed back from the cruise and decided to keep reading. I won't cover it all, just because I read quite a bit, but I'll cover what I remember.

Tim Tebow grew up with 2 brothers and 2 sisters. For so long, he became very competitive with his brothers. They would play a lot of football, having one be the quarterback, one be the wide receiver, and one be the defender. They kept score based on scores and stops. This was how Tebow started to acquire that competitive nature that he is well known for.

Injuries were always a part of the game. One of the brothers, Peter, seemed to be injured the most. They would do a tackling drill in their room downstairs and on multiple occasions, there were bloody noses and bruises. Another time, the boys decided to play baseball with a basketball. Well, with on one swing, the bat ricocheted off of the basketball and right into Peter's face. Injuries just became part of the game for them.

Tebow's mom really wanted the kids to be homeschooled for a while. She felt like this would be a good chance for her and her husband to teach the kids manners and the value to life. So for a few years, the kids stayed at home to be taught by their mom. It was great for Tebow, because he was able to plan his workouts around his school work. His mom knew that the kids wanted to get out and play or workout, so those were the breaks that she gave them.

Tebow realized through his workouts that he had become significantly stronger. He was able to keep up with his brothers in workouts and he even won a bicep curl competition. Things were looking good for the youngest male Tebow.

Unfortunately, once Tebow got into school, he didn't always get the position he wanted in football. He started at quarterback in junior high and did great, but as he got to high school, his coaches tried him at running back, linebacker, fullback, and tight end. All Tebow wanted was to play quarterback, but decided that he must trust his coaches. One day, his coach came to the house to talk to his father about a position change and his father straight up told the coach that if that was the case, Tebow would be playing for a different team. That was what came out of it, too. Tebow's family moved to a different school so that Tebow could become a quarterback.

There was a lot of information that I got from my reading, but couldn't quite remember everything. I did find out a lot more about why Tebow is the way he is today. His parents supported him 100% and gave him the opportunities he needed to succeed. The Tebow family is very strong and supportive of each other.