I taught PE for one year--Here's what I learned

 Team esteem double break. 

It was my first day with Legarza Sports and I couldn’t help but look forward to the new opportunity of venturing into an industry separate from professional sports.

Education was something I considered once I was put on leave from the Golden State Warriors. I was motivated to make an impact on youth in the peninsula; let alone learn how to become a teacher.

As I chase experiences I ask the important question: Does my work fulfill me and do I impact others from my work in a positive manner?

I went in with an open heart and excitement to give my students the values I learned while attending Saint Mary’s College.

A big part of why I joined Legarza was the philosophy of fostering youth with values of maximum effort, not to fear failure, learning, and rebounding from mistakes. 

In my first week, I was working the last camp of summer. 

In our meeting, there was an emphasis to push our campers to give maximum effort and to lead as their role models.

Our attitude would reflect the spectacle of camp.

On Monday, the site director opened camp emphasizing how we set the tone and discipline of camp. 

“Military Monday” they called it.

Once campers arrived and were put in team lines, Site Directors would welcome and emphasize the core values of camp. This was a Reminder to the arriving campers that no matter what was happening, they had control over their emotions. 

No matter the circumstance. 

Military Monday was a disciplinary day. 

Students quickly learned not to question their coach and follow instructions/rules of camp.

However, the next day is what really made me begin to question the work I was doing.

Kids were put in teams and would have various competitive games whether it would be first to get in a straight line or winning a simple game of knockout. The winners were rewarded with stars. 

Stars symbolize winning and success. 

The currency grants students the possibility of winning the ultimate reward of gatorade for their team while the other team goes home empty handed. 

This incentive to compete and defeat the opposing team reinforces the systematic environment of minimizing our desire to give to others. 

Research has proven offering children tangible rewards in exchange for caring behavior can erode their innate tendency to help others. 

Some call this the “reward economy”.

In a reward economy, kids learn to trade desirable behavior for a reward. In this case, the reward is gatorade. 

We are promoting a transactional model for good behavior. 

This system has the potential to transform the child to come to expect a reward for good behavior and therefore they are hesitant to give it away for free. 

Note: teaching early on I quickly learned older kids became more hesitant to give good behavior to both coaches and their fellow students.  

Reward systems provide satisfactory solutions in the short term, however, this triggers children to begin thinking of their existence as a job. 

In other words, we are creating an environment that works for us at camp. Yet damaging the behavior of our children in the long term.

This business-model is a mirror of our reality where failure to cooperate results in no reward or recognition. 

After this first week of camp, I learned this was a business. 

Not an innovative learning environment. 

I was optimistic to begin teaching PE as that was my intention in the first place.

I was asked to take the CBEST for what I believed, at the time, was to be able to teach in the Redwood City School District.

I never had more confidence in taking a test as I knew I was a good enough writer and reader to pass the test.

I was wrong.

I scored a 50% on my essay and a 60% on my reading. And scored best in Math lol 

I never told my boss. And it never became a problem.

I went on to teach PE and over the course of the year I taught at 15 different schools around the Bay Area. 

Every week, at least in the first half of the year, I would be bouncing around as a substitute teacher for coworkers. 

I lacked structure and only had a week of training prior to the beginning of my teaching journey.

My main school, Roy Cloud, accepted students from kindergarten all the way up to 8th grade. 

The system, and this environment in particular, was a disaster. 

I quickly understood that Kids are learning from media, no longer inside the classroom. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written in 1970 by Paulo Freire, describes how education is perpetuating oppressive systems. 

Freire argues traditional pedagogy is a “banking model of education” 

Students are an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge; like a piggy bank.  

In his words, students are not to question the teacher and they are to rejuvenate whatever they are taught. 

Curriculum is classless and is taught by those in power resulting in a hegemony of power given to the teacher.

Freire’s book, which I plan on reading, is Freire’s attempt to help the oppressed fight back to regain their lost humanity and achieve full humanization. He outlines steps with which the oppressed can regain their humanity, starting with acquiring knowledge about the concept of humanization itself.

In my perspective I am the teacher attempting to teach the values of stoicism to my students. 

What I learned however, particularly at the age group I was teaching, is my work has little to no impact.

I see the students for a 30 minute period only twice a week. In addition to the amount of students and different schools I was traveling to, every week was an uphill battle with establishing a connection to the students I was presented.

Roy Cloud was a micro-universe in my awareness of how horrendous this system is for our children. 

For instance, I would be a yard duty supervisor for an extended lunch period across all grade levels and each passing lunch period the age group that would come out for lunch would be older and older. 

The middle schoolers would be the final batch of students that would come out.

From who I spoke to, students were dissatisfied with their learning experience and in their actions of play it was on display.

The vice principal (who had the voice of warden) would yell “BALLS AWAY” 

Kids would skyrocket the balls to the sky and trout slowly to class.

During the period, they would kick them at the play wall and intentionally get them stuck on the roof to entertain the unknown. 

I asked a student to eat in the lunch area. He responded putting food in his mouth and continuing to eat as he pleased. 

A group of girls asked me if my mother thought I was a complete failure because I had become a yard duty as my way of living. 

These acts, where do they stem from?

Why do they feel it is okay and right to act out of spite rather than compassion?

There is no consequence of action, yet the more important question is how does the system enable students to believe this is the way to act?

These acts of hatred toward me and other students made me reflect again on the question I had when I first started: Does my work fulfill myself and do I impact others from my work in a positive manner?

The anger and bitterness that grows stronger among students as they journey through school is a reflection of the failure of the system itself. 

I realized quickly that my work was invaluable due to the systematic problem across education. Even if I presented myself at my best, students would move on to the next grade level and would then learn something that was outside the values I taught them.

This idea of not believing in our education system is becoming more relevant each school year. 

Nearly 300,000 public-school teachers and other staff have left the field between February 2020 and May 2022. 

It is a profession where stresses have multiplied as a national teacher shortage threatens to grow.

In August of 2021, 37% of educators stated they would be leaving the field sooner than planned. This past school year that number has jumped to a whopping 55%.  

For students, it is said about 13% of what they learn in education they take with them for our future careers or way of living. 

These numbers, this reality, unmotivated my teaching practices.

I became depressed and unmotivated by the fact that these students would be doomed despite teaching them to the best of my ability.

I grew increasingly less patient with students disrespecting me and their unwillingness to participate in the games I presented to them. 

I was becoming an authoritarian and lost control of my own emotions on occasion. 

I couldn’t do it. 

The hostility of administration to students and the relationship between student to part-time teacher was unfulfilling.

I lost hope.

 

Now, I will say I had amazing moments I will never forget with a handful of students and most students are a joy to be around. 

I naturally hold on to negative experiences rather than take the perspective of the positive. So I don’t want to ridicule my entire experience and need to say I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of education.

However, my perspective again is how do I build a pathway for students' future selves to be successful.

I knew it simply wasn’t possible; at the youth level at least.  

So I struggled initially with this thought and couldn’t put it behind me. However, when reality set in I was giving up my journey of education, I began living and enjoying my lasting moments being a teacher.

This is not my identity. I am not meant to be a teacher.

This acceptance has helped me move on from the possibility. 

I realize as I journey through life we simply lack the controllability of building the future we envision.  

I tried and gave my effort to my students despite knowing my words were just passing through their vessel and breezed away in the abyss. 

I cannot be a part of a system that oppresses the student as it did to me. 

For someone who listened and did his best in the classroom and being locked around the surrounding environment of public education; it triggered traumatic emotions. 

As I approach 27 my mind ravaishs with thoughts of the past too often.

I’ve always been an obedient peasant who listened and never questioned authority. 

One of the root causes of this was from my experience in education.

Whether it was with my coaches, teachers, and/or managers in business, I have abided and been accommodating for long enough in my life.

I don’t know what will come next for me, but I will plant a tree

I will plant a tree and your kids may not see, but perhaps future generations to come may eat from it.

When I die or move to the next transition I will know I did the right thing. 

I will live in the truth of heart.