I just finished reading Sandy King’s blog post about the 12 things that administrators should remember when they jump from teacher to administrator.  She made many valid points about flipping meetings, supporting teachers, being accessible, and understanding that teachers are doing their very best to do a great job.  This made me think about my own life.

I have started my journey into administration. It is the scariest thing I have ever done in my life.  I know very little about it.  I have worked in elementary schools my whole life and interacted with my administrators regularly; however, I have done very little administrative work on my own. I have sat in on one evaluation and have never scheduled a whole school year worth of events and classes.  I have interacted with parents of many students during school events and had to make tough calls home before but never with the regularity that an administrator has to.

I am used to getting guaranteed preps and breaks to catch my breath and get my mind back on track. Administrators don’t get to pick and choose their breaks. If there is a crisis or a meeting needs to be planned during their designated lunch period they lose that period.  They have to be extremely flexible in everything they do.  That is much harder than it sounds. My time will no longer be my own.

All these things worry me. The fear of the unknown worries me. Leaving my little bubble where I am the king of the gymnasium, the guy who students stand up to fist bump at lunch, the teacher who makes kids want to come to school, is a scary proposition. Turning my back on a job that is so rewarding is brutal.  I wake up every work day and am happy that I have the job I have.  Why am I pursuing a job that I know nothing about where I could fail? Why am I leaving the comfort of my little pond? Is it right? Am I ready? I still have so far to go in my teaching to become a master and now I am going to be judging other teachers? These questions keep me up at night.

The answer to these questions is that I can make a broader impact being an administrator. I can be a role model to many more students at a high school than I can at a single elementary school.  I also feel like I can make a longer lasting change at a high school.  I remember my high school teachers so much more vividly than my elementary school teachers.

It is time for administrators and teachers to come together.  We need to create a culture and climate where teachers don’t think they are being targeted or looking to be caught doing something wrong.  They need to feel that no matter what the situation is they will get the backing of their administration. Administration and teachers need to work together so that people want to come to work every day. I can help make that happen.

There has to be trust created. I do not need a master’s degree to create trust.  All that is needed for trust to bloom is time and consistency.  I feel confident in my ability to work with parents, students, teachers, and other staff in a way that people are comfortable coming to me.  I know that I am able to create relationships with other people in a way that is genuine.

For all the fear and trepidation that I have there is more excitement and positivity running through my body.  This will be a new journey that forces me to use everything I have ever learned in life as well as test my ability to learn on the fly.  I will fall but I will not fail.  I learned from @mathneil that failure only occurs when you stop trying.  I will not stop.

Q1. What is the worst trait an administrator could possess? #slowchatpe

Q2. What is a trait an administrator must possess to succeed? #slowchatpe

Q3. What is your relationship like with your admin? #slowchatpe

Q4. How could administration improve their relationship with staff? #slowchatpe

Q5. What is the scariest thing you will be facing this year? #slowchatpe

I am going to start out with the Gold Nugget of the Week.  This will be an addition to my blog where I will share something fantastic that I have come across. This week we have Vicky Goodyear’s VLOG. Watch if you want great pd on physical education. #slowchatpe APPROVED! (need I say more?)

I have just had the pleasure of watching @doug_Gleddie keynote at the IAHPERD CONVENTION thanks to @bulliskari and periscope.  His keynote had several aspects to it that made it outstanding.  The first thing he did was use research to make sure he kept his audience’s engagement.  He accomplished this by getting the whole crowd up and participating in a song of Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic which he stole from the Girl Scouts.  The song had the crowd singing, clapping, and moving with the moves from Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  After the song he even commented that he had their attention for 17 more minutes.  That was a great way of reinforcing what we already know. Getting humans up and moving refocuses their attention. It does about 20 other great things for our body, but for educators we need to remember our students (our audience) simply shouldn’t be sitting for long periods of time. It doesn’t matter the level of engagement or empowerment of the students.

The second part of his keynote that I enjoyed was his use of humor. Humor helps students learn.   “In other words, if you’re listening just auditorily in a classroom, one small part of the brain lights up, but humor maximizes learning and strengthens memories.” People listen when you use humor. We all know the dangers of sarcasm and humor that can be taken the wrong way, but we also know that humor breaks down barriers and makes things more fun. Learning should be fun. Why wouldn’t we use humor?

The final takeaway that everyone should know is that physical literacy is a journey.  It is an ever changing unquantifiable concept that will differ for every individual. Phecanada.ca defines it as, “Individuals who are physically literate move with competence and confidence in a wide variety of physical activities in multiple environments that benefit the healthy development of the whole person.” You can see why it would be so hard to say I have arrived at physical literacy. What we can do is keep that goal in mind. The greatest line of his keynote was, “”We are all physical literacy travel agents.”

This concept of being a physical literacy travel agent makes sense to me. Physical education teachers point their students in the direction of movement. We then combine movement with various other physical, social, emotional, and cognitive skills to help students on their own road to physical literacy. We can’t teach physical literacy. We can’t force students to engage in movement outside our classes. What we can do is show them the why, the how, the when, and the where.  We start them on the journey in primary school and continue to guide them throughout the rest of their school years. We wear a million hats as a teacher.  Add travel agent to the list!

Q1: What are your views on physical literacy? #slowchatpe

Q2: How do you use humor to keep your audience engaged? #slowchatpe

Q3: What brain boosts do you use to keep your audience refocused?

Q4: What is the best way to assess a student’s physical literacy journey? #slowchatpe

Q5: What are the best resources for physical literacy? #slowchatpe

This week the guest blogger is Mr. Adam Llevo (@mradampe).  Adam is a groundbreaking physical education teacher originally from England and now works at an international school in Saudi Arabia.  He will be presenting at the National PE Institute in North Carolina this summer.  Adam takes technology to an entirely new education level.  If you want to learn more about him visit www.mradampe.com.

His blog post:

I have wanted to write this post for a while, but never seemed to get around to writing it.  From the age of ten I have wanted to become a Physical Education Teacher and everything in my career so far has been done to achieve this goal. I remember my first PE lecture at Edge Hill University where Dr Graham Smith told us “teaching is one big stage and you are the actors, so make this act a good one”.  I will never forget this, as it is so true, once you step inside school then your personal life stays at the front door and you become a professional actor! When I say actor I do not mean you dress up in costume for your lessons (well not everyday!) but you do become a positive influence over the young people you inspire.  I was directed to this book (Link) at the early stages of my career and should be a must read for all teachers both old and new to the profession, as the best teachers never stop learning.  It gives some great ideas on how to get the best out of your students.  Everyones teaching and learning journeys will be different on how they came to where they are now, but one thing I have learnt is that relationships are crucial.  Not only with students, but other teachers, admin, parents who help to create the learning environment for all to achieve.  Now I am a very positive person and always look for the positives out of each situation.

I have mentored both old and new teachers and this has helped to see a lot of amazing lessons, but also a lot of not so amazing lessons.  I have always been personally very open to feedback, though I have mentored some who are not so. I have a very open door policy when it comes to teaching as I have nothing to hide, but I know some teachers who have to have a months notice before an observation is allowed.

So what is my point?

I have never really found it hard to strike up conversation with anyone of any age, and this may be down to my life experiences so far.  I have found that by being a positive individual it helps with creating that positive environment in which students are not afraid to FAIL.

This year especially I have observed individuals social skills and how they interact with people their own age and students in their classroom.  I have been lucky enough to work with a variety of ages throughout my career either in teaching or coaching and know how important it is to get you point across using a variety of methods. Dr Graham Smith use to tell us that as a teacher you need to have a variety of hats on as a teacher and have all these different skills that allow you to become all of these different occupations (Teacher Hats).  Teaching is not how it use to be where teachers walked into the classroom, lectured, students listened and then did a test to see how clever they are.  Teaching has evolved and you need to have a variety of different skills, but communication should be high on that list.

The way people speak to one another, or don’t as the only communicate through email, can be frustrating.   I have always been very patient with people and been told I am a good listener, which helps me to think about how I am going to respond to different scenarios.  I have had the pleasure this year of working with a member of admin who has shown me how important it is to have good positive relationships both in and outside of the classroom to allow others to achieve.  He has shown that by having these positive relationships there is little to no behaviour problems, homework is handed in on time, and students respect the member of staff.  I cannot say that for everyone.  So what does it come down to ? In my opinion it is communication and a mutual respect.

According to the American Psychology Association (link) to develop positive relationships with your students the following needs to take place:

• “Show your pleasure and enjoyment of students.
• Interact with students in a responsive and respectful manner.
• Offer students help (e.g., answering questions in timely manner, offering support that matches students’ needs) in achieving academic and social objectives.
• Help students reflect on their thinking and learning skills.
• Know and demonstrate knowledge about individual students’ backgrounds, interests, emotional strengths and academic levels.
• Avoid showing irritability or aggravation toward students.
• Acknowledge the importance of peers in schools by encouraging students to be caring and respectful to one another.”

So if this is not happening in your classroom, maybe it should be worth thinking about during your summer break.

“You improve your classroom climate by modeling positive, supportive communications skills and by teaching these skills to students. The great majority of interactions in classrooms are among students. You can influence and encourage respect in these interactions by teaching positive skills. Lessons in listening actively, using “I” messages, and negotiating conflicts show students how to treat each other with respect.”

Campbell, 2014 (link)

A task I use to use with my Sports Coaching students would be to ask them:

“What makes a good coach?”

They would then have to draw one animal part that represented each characteristic and then explain the whole animal and what each part means to them. This could be done for teaching at the start of the year to show what your classes think is important to them.   Some of their ideas were amazing.

I would like to finish with a video that had a positive effect of me. Everyone in your class should feel respected and that they are worth something as they come to school to feel amazing.

1. What does your classroom environment look like? What is important to you? #slowchatpe

2. What strategies have you found to be successful in creating your classroom environment? #slowchatpe

3. What is most important to you and why in the classroom? #slowchatpe

4. What hats do you wear and how does that impact your teaching? #slowchatpe

5. What is the most important hat to your students and why? #slowchatpe