Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Next Time: Javelin

Had to teach a PE lesson for 15 year 7s yesterday as part of my assessment.

My God they're animals.

The prevailing pedagogy righteously forbids us from inflicting the trauma of making them pick their own teams. We've all read Lord of the Flies. I had decided to teach soccer and to pick teams asked them to line up shortest to tallest in order to number them off.

How hard could that be?

Rock as it turns out. Two separate power blocks started their own lines. A splinter group of two broke away from them, but at least they could agree on their order. Even if they couldn't it didn't matter as, mathematically speaking, any two points form a line.

The remaining group just milled around pushing each other in the chest and claiming to be the tallest.

Half my alloted time ticked by. My voice grew hoarse. My whistle began to rust from spittle exposure. They formed teams.

'As a warm up we're going to play rats and rabbits. Who remembers how to play from last week?'

No-one as it turned out. Several eons of, largely wasted, explanation and questions later:

'Okay. You lot are rats. You lot are rabbits. The group name I call will have to chase the other group to their home line.'

'Rats!'

Pandemonium. I believe that's a level of hell. They keep year 7s there.

I cut rats and rabbits short, skipped most of the skills practice and went to the game. I'd changed the rules to make it like netball in that defenders, mid-fielders and strikers had to stay in their respective thirds; according to my rules. Not the kids' rules.

Pandemonium revisited.

Most of the boys were suddenly strikers. For the same team. Most of the girls formed a circle and began a discussion. They would have sat down but the ground was wet.
An SSO appeared from nowhere dragging two boys. One with autism and the other sight impaired. Does every class in the country have a sight impaired child, or just mine? Who cares? They joined the fray.

My fellow teaching students went into overtime scribbling in the 'What could have been improved?' section of our observation notes.

The lesson finally ended. None of the students cried out, 'captain, my captain.'

Sods.

Labels:

3 Comments:

At June 5, 2008 at 10:47 AM , Blogger kiki said...

seconded to Kath lockett

my sister used to teach year 9's in london that were in a school that mostly took in kids that were kicked out of other schools and had adhd

she got paid well though

 
At June 5, 2008 at 8:40 PM , Blogger wiretherapy said...

i saw a bunch of kids in school uniforms walking through martin place this morning. they can't have been older than 12, and they all had coffee's in their still developing hands.

my mate suggested tweenycino's but by their animation and wild gestures i would guess fuckyoulattes at the very least.

god help the sucker who had to teach them in first period..

 
At June 6, 2008 at 11:16 PM , Blogger Kym Packer said...

Well, I think that flat out bribary is your best option there. Tickets to the movies, a ten dollar bill rolled up and carefully placed into their sticky little hands.

Or, you could appoint a deputy.

I'd go for the tallest girl, hang-on, that may be problematic.

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home