Philosophies in progress: Education

Education, the foundation of our society, without the value of knowledge we are no better than running around like a chicken with our heads cut off. We as a society have put our education above all things where it should be. Children are mandated to start school at the ages of 5-6 where they start kindergarten learning the basics of shapes, numbers, and colors. This may seem tedious but to new student’s education is food and these kids are starving. Every student starts off with the desire to learn and yet as the years go on students lose interest and lack the initiative to do better. Why would anyone want to enter a profession that lacks so much motivation? Some could say it’s the reward of seeing a kid succeed, some say it’s because they struggled as a kid and didn’t have anyone there for them, but me I am entering this profession because I can relate to the kids directly, on a level where I understand what is interesting to them and what is boring. Given this gift I can create lessons that will engage students as well as cause them to think outside the classroom, granted my classroom will be a gymnasium but that doesn’t mean that education inside my classroom is just in the physical. Yes, I teach through the physical but I teach more life lessons than any math or science teacher ever can. As I said we start our students off young, by initiating moral conversations students will be more inept to follow the rules and be a “good student” this doesn’t mean you won’t have the kids who get off task it just means you have to  create a lesson that is interesting enough to block out all other distractions. Now I would like to say that the classroom is my greatest challenge but it’s not, my responsibilities as an educator extend much further than the classroom. Being an educator means having to fight for the right of your subject, Physical Education being one of the most misunderstood topics gets very little support from its communities. Now obviously I personally think that education is the most important, and that is a good thing because this means I will fight for my students rights in physical education, it is mandated that students get  120 minutes a week of physical education, most students would be lucky if they got 100 minutes a week. Now you may be saying well they get the extra time during recess but really if one was to watch a group of students during recess more than half of the students will not be physically active. So now you see why we cannot substitute valuable class time with do whatever you want time, because essentially that’s exactly what recess is. As I said before life lessons are learned in my classroom, for example students will learn and value friendship and teamwork, this is brought about by incorporating cooperative games into units, these forces students to relay and trust others in order to complete and reach a common goal successfully. It also is a great way to help students define themselves, if they can find a physical activity that they like and are good at they now have an activity that they can do for the rest of their lives, and as a physical educator my main purpose is to educate my students physically but also give them the tools they will need for life-long physical fitness.