Casey Parks
Teacher at Hillsboro’s Liberty High inspires unlikely athletes to excel in Liberty Fit running club
http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2011/04/teacher_at_hillsboros_liberty_high_inspires_unlikely_athletes_to_excel_in_liberty_fit_running_club.html
Retrieved 4/18/2011
Topic: Student fitness
Laurie Jenkins, health teacher and leader of Liberty High’s Liberty Fit, inspires and pushes students who don’t normally exercise to train for the Helvetia Half Marathon in June. Students are training for the 13 mile run with the help from a few running techniques, and motivation provided by Jenkins
Key points: teacher is doing a good job in motivating students to run, providing them a goal of 13 miles, offering different options of participation
Relevance: It is neat that this health teacher is getting students involved in running. I think many students would rather lift weights than to go running. Getting students involved in a group activity, and providing a goal is a great way to motivate exercise.
Haha...I am not a running person, because I think it is boring to just run and run. I was wondering how she made her students run that far. There must be difficulties they met. I am kind of admire this teacher. She has a strong will. This article also reminds me my friends in another university. They are taking jogging class in the morning in order to get the credits required. They didn't go to the class all the time. Then, at the end of the class, they needed to write a paper about jogging. They were stuggling with the paper, as they were still not interested in jogging. That sounds interesting to me. But compared to this running teacher, their teacher did not seem very successful in making them to run...
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a teacher that did something like this! I think the entire running/marathon issue is just the face to the lesson. The main lesson here is that you set a goal, and you follow steady and meticulous steps to eventually build to your goal. This can be taken on to accomplish a specific grade, study for the SAT's, approach your first year of college, preparing for a job and how to become marketable, etc.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a down to earth teacher who is trying to relate to students and provide them meaningful lessons they can tranfer to other areas of their lives.
This is great. God knows, kids need more exercise than they are getting. That said, I would hate this class. I don't know how many of us have actually ran a marathon or half marathon, but it is a terrible awful experience (for some). I despise everything about running, not exercise in general, but running.
ReplyDeleteI don't really see a problem if kids would rather lift weights than run. 5 miles of running a week is more than enough to maintain body weight, 5 miles a day is simply torture (for some people). Choices are the answer.
What really helps in this exercise (no pun intended) is it runs on the old adage, "Misery loves company." It is not easy to run and definitely not easy to run a half-marathon. That said, it can be much easier to run it with a group of people are not professional runners and will be gasping for breath just like you are. When we did that in Phy Ed when I was in school (many moons ago) it was fun when most people were not in track and field or cross-country and we could have fun running, then walking, and repeat until we started to be able to run more than we walked.
ReplyDeleteI have a neighbor who's daughter is involved in "Liberty Fit". The interesting thing that I learned is that the participation is growing exponentially. It may inspire a 'culture' at Liberty in fitness and exercise over the long term. I don't think there is a 'choices' issue, this is a voluntary after-school activity. But I do agree with Tristin that there are ancillary benefits of goal setting, time management, and social networking (of the non-online variety).
ReplyDelete