Friday, January 5, 2007

Triangles or Shot Puts

I traveled back home to Crownpoint yesterday and I can honestly say that it truly felt like I was coming home. I'm glad to be back here. I'm also very thankful that I am currently filled with New Year's productivity. A new year and a new start is a really motivating thought for me right now. Because of this productivity, I have spent the day working on two different online courses that I'm required to complete. The first course, the one I spent the morning on, is a course in literacy. It went over what a beginning teacher should know about teaching literacy in the classroom and was required by the district. I found the information in this course to be incredibly boring. I skipped through the lessons, looked at the questions on the test, then went back and read only the passages that I needed to. I know this isn't the best way to learn, but the material was basic, self-explanatory, and very uninteresting. Maybe I'm a bad teacher.

The reason I really question my motivation and dedication to that first online course, though, was the contrast that the second course I'm working on provided. The course I moved to this afternoon is an online coaching course that I have to complete before becoming certified to coach track this spring. I have no doubt that I could have moved through this course as quickly as I moved through the literacy course, but the information was so much more interesting to me. I am currently only halfway through the lessons because I find myself skimming all of the optional readings and very engaged in the topics that are being discussed. I can't wait to use this information and get out there with all of my athletes.

The different levels of commitment I naturally have to the two courses is a very interesting thing for me to spend some time analyzing. Maybe the coaching course is just set up much better than the literacy course. That could explain it. I can say confidently, however, that's not the case. Here's my take on it... I don't feel like I have the ability or maybe even the motivation to teach literacy effectively in my Geometry classroom. I definitely have the desire to work with students in an informal setting and help them accomplish different athletic goals. I can do that. I am intimidated by the topic of literacy, though, so I would rather think about teaching shot put, javelin, and hurdles than about proofs, radicals, and triangles. My intimidation stems from not only my own interests and skills, but also the skills of my students. The majority of my athletes won't necessarily be years behind their peers in the 400m sprint, but the majority of my students are that far behind in basic computation skills. Maybe I believe that the task of leading these kids to athletic success will be more possible than leading them to academic success. This leads me right back to where we started... maybe I'm a bad teacher. If that's true, at least I know I can be a decent coach!

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