The words we use and shoes if you choose

OWS PE is off to a great start.  The students have been enthusiastic and receptive in class, and it is a delight to see and hear so much fun and pleasure in motion.

The K-4 students have spent the first 3 weeks of PE and Movement building and embodying vocabulary.  For instance, most students initially defined walking as "slow" and running as "fast", so we tried walking quickly and running slowly.  Further exploration led us to discover that indeed the speed is not the important contrast since a fast walker could beat a slow runner to the finish.  So there must be a better way to define and differentiate the two.  We found it in the transfer of weight.  At the moment of transfer, walkers are grounded through both feet (2 feet on the ground) and runners are not grounded at all (both feet off the ground).  Games like Red Light/Green Light and Tag gave us opportunities to practice and experience.  We have similarly explored jump, hop, leap, skip, and gallop.  Students are also beginning to explore quadrupedal movement and are practicing bear crawl, crab walk, monkey jumps, froggers, and vaults, skills that have been practiced in games and on obstacle courses.

Our supplemental study has been the human foot and ankle.  We learned that there are many bones and muscles that are effectively immobilized by our fairly rigid footwear.  That immobility does not allow those bones, joints, muscles, ligaments, and tendons to develop the strength and flexibilty for which they are designed.  Furthermore, running shoes encourage students (and adults) to run with a stride too long for their legs (striking the ground at the wrong angle conducts the impact and stress unpleasantly up the bones and muscles), a habit that can eventually damage the feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, etc, and limit opportunities for and interest in an active lifestyle.  Indeed, running-related injuries have sky-rocketed since the invention of the running shoe in the 1970's.  The students have therefore been given a "shoes if you choose" option in most PE classes so far.  I will require PE shoes for most sport lessons (soccer, volleyball, basketball, etc); we will be barefoot for many movement lessons (dance, creative movement, tumbling, yoga, martial arts).

Now that we have a solid foundation and a ready vocabulary, we will learn to safely fall from and return to that foundation.  We will next study groundwork, gravity, and floor play, and supplement those lessons with studies of the human spine.

Regards,
Matthew Smith

K-4 PE at OWS with Matthew Smith

I am thrilled to be the new K-4 movement and PE teacher at Open Window School. Concurrent with my 1st year at Open Window School I am teaching my 6th year of K-8 PE at Arbor Montessori Schools on the Sammamish Plateau, where I have developed and refined my approach to physical education.  I also taught K-6 PE at Tall Cedars Academy in Duvall before they closed last year.  I am extremely excited to have the support of the OWS staff and the use of the OWS facilities and equipment for physical engagement, education, expression, and experiences with such a versatile student population.  I am optimistic, and I eagerly anticipate each of the "new" bodies coming into my classroom.


I will introduce myself more thoroughly below so that the future of this blog may focus on PE students, lessons, and activities.

I have been involved in fitness education and body training for more than 14 years.  I started in aquatics as a teenager and by the time I graduated college I had coached swim teams, taught swim lessons, water aerobics, lifeguarding, diving, and even a little water ballet to nearly 2000 students, ages spanning over 70 years between youngest and oldest.  My aquatics career paid for my dance education.

My dance career has taken me throughout the US and as far as Tokyo, Japan, but was focused primarily in NYC.  Much of that career was spent teaching, choreographing, and performing outside of NYC at universities, schools, theaters, and studios.  I retired from dance when I left NYC in 2005, but recently "came out of retirement" to perform a duet I titled TORN at On the Boards in Seattle, June 2011. 

I will frequently be bicycling 70km round trips between my home and OWS.  Cycling is my favored means of light transport since it allows me to eat everything I want.  In August 2008, I even ate ~8000 Calories daily for 20 days to pedal 5000km from Seattle to Brooklyn, NY with just one friend riding with me.  I have taught and coached cycling for 3 years.

Additionally, I enjoy time gardening, farming, eating, cooking, baking, running, climbing, jumping, falling, climbing back up, playing with my Doberman named Hades, and this summer I discovered an interest in white water kayaking.

Sincerely,

Matthew Smith