Coaching Philosophy in Progress

II. Coaching Philosophy

A COACH is a leader for their team and is a strong individual that is able to face adversity with a positive attitude. A coach is one that the team looks up to when they need guidance on doing the right thing. Coaching includes dealing with problems head on and turning them into learning experiences for the entire team. Coaching also includes keeping your team united as a unit that are working together to achieve a common goal. Athletics shapes a person’s character and instills specific virtues in their life. My philosophy of coaching rests upon three main ideas that are winning isn’t everything, making time for their team and always looking at situations with a positive attitude, and developing and improving ability of all members of the team. Looking back on my athletic career, I believe that many of my coaches instilled these 3 beliefs in my mind. They did not focus all their attention on winning the game, but did focus on making us better players. My coach was always at every game and practice and gave in extra time to practice on the weekends, and cared about improving our skills to make us all better players.

First of all, I believe that a coach should not put all their emphasis on winning the game. If you focus all your attention on winning a game, then your players will be upset when they do not come out on top. The real emphasis should be on working together as a team and getting closer throughout this process. There are going to be times when you may not win a game but it is all about how much effort you put in during that game. If you did not care about the game, your players will feel the same way and will not give their full effort. I believe that a coach should emphasize giving the full effort during each practice and each game and it will pay off. There were plenty of seasons where I played on a team and we lost more games than we won. There were times where our coach would be disappointed with our playing during that game, but it was all about how we picked ourselves up from that loss and moved on to the next game. The attitude of the coach is infectious to the players as well and it is up to us as coaches to look at each game as a new one and to not get discouraged if things are not going to way that you planned.

My second philosophy is based on the belief that a coach should make time for their team and always look at situations with a positive attitude. Unless my coach had a family emergency, I cannot remember one time where they were not at a game or practice. My coach always made time for the team especially on the weekends when we needed a little more practice time. A coach should put the team first and realize that any decisions that are made can affect the team positively or negatively. I believe that a coach should also pick an assistant coach that will be able to fill in for them if they are unable to make a practice or game. A coach is one who is always on the sidelines cheering on their team in good and bad times. There have been plenty of times where I have been on a team and my coach has lost their cool. As a coach there are going to be situations that will make you mad, but it is all about not losing your patience and letting it go. You will give your team a positive reputation if you demonstrate good sportsmanship that your team can embody. (needs work)

My final belief about coaching is that a coach is one who develops and improves the ability of all members of the team. As a coach, there are going to be certain individuals on your team that will excel in all skills, while other players on your team will need some work. As a coach I believe that you should not single out your players that may not be at the same ability level as others on the team. Each player on your team should have a fair chance in playing and developing their skills during practices and games. None of your players are going to be perfect and the job as a coach is to improve certain skills of all their players. I was the starting catcher on my varsity softball team during my sophomore year of high school but that still does not mean my skills were perfect. My coach worked with me to improve my ability behind the plate, as well as when I got up to bat. Each one of my teammates improved their ability during the softball season and each one of my teammates had an opportunity to play no matter their skill level. As a coach, there should be a belief that the only way your players will improve their skills is if they are able to participate in game-like situations. By the end of the season, a coach should feel as though they have made a difference in their players lives in a positive way.

Physical Education Philosophy in Progress

           The main goal of PHYSICAL EDUCATION is to educate individuals on a lifetime of physical activity for their own health and benefit. Physical Education is used as a guide to lead individuals in the right direction on creating a healthy lifestyle and sticking to it. Our job as the physical educators of the future is to create a positive learning environment for our students and be role models that they can look up to and talk to whenever they need someone. My philosophy of physical education rests on three basic ideas. These three ideas include being an influential leader for our future students, educating individuals about our profession and our purpose to teach physical education to those who don’t know how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and to promote a lifetime of physical fitness. Physical Education has a reputation of just teaching students how to play sports, but it digs deeper into involving the domains of learning into our teaching. We are the leaders of the future that need to change the view of physical education to those who are unaware of our purpose to educate.

            I believe that we are influential leaders for our future students in a variety of ways. First of all, we are different from the teachers in the classroom because we see our students in a different environment. They come to physical education to enjoy themselves while learning at the same time. When the students are in the classroom they are focused on sitting quietly in their desks and not getting a chance to express them. When these students enter the gymnasium, they get a chance let out all their energy and express themselves through moving. I know that when I was in school I felt more comfortable talking to my physical education teacher than my classroom teacher. With your physical education teacher there is such a wide variety of things to talk about which could either be about a favorite sports team, a workout routine that the student is participating in, as well as what they did that past weekend. I think we need to leave that door open for students to come and talk to us when they are having a problem that they do not know how to resolve. We are there to influence our students to make the right decisions when they do not know what else to do. As a physical educator we need to let our students know that we are there for them and educate them on following the right path.

            Physical Education has gotten a reputation over the years that we just roll a ball out for our students while they play the basic sports such as basketball, football, soccer, and baseball. Our profession digs deeper by integrating the 3 domains of learning into our classroom. The students are not just playing sports and getting a grade on if they are prepared for class or not. We focus in on the ideas that students should be working together while in class and respecting the teacher and the rules of the classroom. The students are also being challenged cognitively with quizzes that reinforce their knowledge of the activity they are participating in. Their grade is not solely based on how well they can play a sport. We are also educators for those who are unaware about how to start and maintain a healthy lifestyle. We are there to help these individuals get on the right path to eating correctly and exercising daily. As physical educators we need to give our students numerous ways to keep their body healthy if they do not know how. We are there as an extra resource when our students are lost and want to resort to hurting their body to maintain a certain weight. The last thing I would want to see in my classroom is one of my students abusing their body to maintain a healthy lifestyle. There are ways around this and this is our goal as physical educators, which is to educate our students on what it means to keep and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

            My final philosophy about physical education is to promote a lifetime of physical fitness. Our students need to be educated about how to maintain a healthy level of physical fitness when they are out on their own and have limited resources. Especially when students go to college, most of the time they are engaging in activities that do not promote a healthy lifestyle such as drinking and eating the wrong things. We need to start out educating our students early about this and the effects it has on their body. When educating our students, we as educators need to be physically fit and set a good example for our students that may be struggling. The home life of many students can be a factor in not being physically fit. Their parents may not cook for them every night and they may always go out to eat. We need to get our point across to our students that it is important to eat the right things and exercise to keep them fit. A lifetime of physical fitness stretches throughout the entire life and to promote this philosophy, it starts in the physical education classroom. We are the resources for our students to keep an active and healthy lifestyle for the long run. 

Obesity and Eating Disorders

Students in America spend most of their time in front of technology such as watching television, playing video games, and going on Facebook and sitting in front of the computer for hours on end. In addition, many of these students are not eating the right foods at the right time of day and may be eating too much of a bad thing. As stated in our textbook, "nine million American students are overweight or obese" (pg. 126). This is not a good statistic and as physical education agents of change, it is our goal to fix this statistic. In many schools, recess and physical education is cut out which does not help matters any more. If these students do not get a chance to have at least 120 minutes of physical education a week, then they are on a road to an unhealthy lifestyle. On the contrary, students feel the pressure to be thin and therefore eating disorders are on the rise. Girls are pressured that being skinny is the only way to be successful and be pretty as well. They see pictures in magazines of supermodels and models in ads and these females are unrealistically skinny. They get the message that females that are that skinny are the only ones that can be models and the only ones that are pretty. Males on the other hand get the message that they have to bulk up and gain as much muscle as they can. A way to do this would be to take steroids which is the unsafe way to do this. Males can just go to the gym to lift weights and work on their cardio to stay in shape. These boys just want to look good and they will do anything in their power to achieve the body that they want and also recognition from their peers. Students are on the search for the perfect body and will do anything in our power to achieve it. Obesity and eating disorders need to be addressed in classes such as Health and Physical Education. It is a problem that has been facing our society for a while and we need to find a happy medium in between these two issues. We want our students to be comfortable in their bodies and be healthy as well. They need to be educated that healthy bodies come in many different shapes and there are many different alternatives these students can take to achieve a healthy body that they are most comfortable in.

More On Bullying

When I was home for October break, a special was on with Anderson Cooper about bullying. I found it interesting to watch a little bit because of the fact that I wrote another post a few weeks ago on bullying. There were interviews with students who have experienced bullying first hand and how they felt during this time. This is something that we really need to take a stand about and what needs to be brought to our attention. We as physical education students are going to see a lot of our students bullied and it is up to us to help out these students. More needs to be done in our school districts to stop the bullying, and more students need to be informed on the effects that bullying has on students. Here is a clip from the special that I watched on television.

Keep Students Together or Mix Them Up: You Be The Judge

On page 65 in the textbook there is an argument about keeping students together or mixing them up based on their gender, religion, needs, and race/ethnicity. While reading this I put myself in the shoes of each of these when I was in high school and try to imagine myself on both ends. I think that high school shaped me into the individual I am today because I was educated about numerous things while I was in school. The first argument is based on keeping males and females separate from each other. If they are separate, both males and females can concentrate on their school work and not on each other. I don't think I would have enjoyed school that much if I went to school with all females. High school promoted gender equality and it helped me work with other males and not just the female population. I was able to make many guy friends in high school and was able to get advice from them if I needed it. Sometimes you need friends of the opposite sex because you may not be able to get certain advice from your female friends. I learned a lot about the male population by just being in school with them for all these years and I came into my own self and was able to be independent. The next argument in the textbook is keeping students separate based on their race and ethnicity. If students are in school with individuals of the same race, they are able to embrace their heritage and study with their friends that come from the same backgrounds of them. I am unable to speak on behalf of this because the school that I attended was all Caucasian and there barley any different races or ethnicities. I wish that my high school was different in this respect because I would have been able to learn more about their culture and how they live. It would have opened my eyes to a different side of living and that not everyone lives the same way. If schools were separated by religion, we would be able to practice our own in schools such as prayer and not worrying about being ridiculed by our classmates. Going to school with individuals of different religions can help us to grow when we learn about the different practices. We can gain valuable lessons about religions and learn to accept the lifestyles that they lead in regards to prayer and religious services. I am Catholic and I went to a high school that was predominantly Jewish. I was able to see into the religion of Judaism by attending certain services in the temple such as Bat and Bar Mitzvahs. If I went to school with all Catholics I would not be informed about this lifestyle and what it is all about. The final statement is putting GBLT students all together in a school. These schools can help these individuals cope with their unique circumstances and it can protect them from ridicule. Attending schools with others can give students an insight to different lifestyles and it can help others respect the GBLT lifestyle.

What if the NFL played by Teacher's Rules?

Here is an article that one of my friends put up on Facebook and the title was very intriguing to me. Think about this for a second, what if players could never be cut from the roster as long as they have been playing with the team for 3 years. What would this alternate league be like? If the players were never getting cut and their pay was increasing each season, then the product of the players on the field would decline as well as they probably wouldn't want to risk getting hurt on the field. If the players are guaranteed a spot, wouldn't they work a little less harder because they are guaranteed a spot? Right now of course this isn't true because players give it their all every week to be better than the other team and to make the most money. The only way a player could be cut is if they retire or if there are cases of misconduct against them. This can be turned around and relate to the American public education system. It is true that when a teacher is in a school district for 3 years they are offered a permanent job there where they cannot be fired unless they retire or there is misconduct against them. The salary of a teacher and how good they are at their job have nothing in common. A eighth year teacher can be making more than a first year teacher, but that is only because they have been there longer. That does not mean that the eighth year teacher is better than the first year teacher. Some teachers that have been in a school district for a while and know they can't be fired may do just the bare minimum because they know they won't lose their job. Teachers that help the learning process should be rewarded other than those teachers that  don't get the job done. I know there are plenty of those teachers out there, especially in the physical education department. For example, when I observed in a middle school in 256, 2 out of the 3 physical education teachers had been at the school for 20+ years. The other teacher was younger and she had only been there for around 5. The way the 2 older teachers handled their classes was not the way that I thought they would. The unit was volleyball, and they set up the nets and threw the volleyball out for the students to play. From what I observed, I didn't see much teaching going on, although I was only there for a week. But the attitude of the teachers that were there for a longer time made me think that I could do a better job than they could. They had a mentality that they were there for a long time and what they have done in the past years has worked so they are going to keep doing it. Students need to be exposed to teachers that are motivated and love their job and are going to get the students involved. These are the teachers that should be rewarded for their hard work and dedication to the subject they are teaching.

Bullying

I posted this link on SUNY Cortland PE Forever on Facebook, but my post was brief and I wanted to address it in a blog post. I found this link on twitter and I thought that it would be something positive to talk about. The link is as follows: http://www.dosomething.org/stepuptobullying. I think that this issue is more common now than it ever was. We need to have positive role models standing up to bullying in schools. What's the statistic? 160,000 kids stay home from school a day to avoid bullying. Students should not be staying home from school because they are afraid to go. That is no way to live and that is no way to remember your elementary, middle, or even high school years. The website states that studies show that bullying will stop within 10 seconds over half the time if a bystander gets involved. The number of students that get bullied is pretty scary to think about. Students and teachers need to be more informed about this topic at hand so that they are able to handle it if they are faced with a certain situation. They shouldn't be afraid to stand up to that bully if they see someone else having trouble. I know that there were many bulletin boards up about bullying when I did my 256 observation mostly in the middle school and not in the high school. The problems can arise anywhere at any time and if we know how to handle it many more students would not have to worry about this problem. I know that bullying was never a large issue in my high school when I was there, but it should still be addressed. This website will help raise awareness about this act and help others to stand up against it.