Something to think about.....What is Character?

C-H-A-R-A-C-H-T-E-R
Good character is what many people say they want in an employee, student, coach, athlete, ect. Example, We hear the question all the time what does it take to be a good athlete? A lot of coaches say well he/she must have a good character.... But what is good character...what is the definition? In my PED 284 self-defense class with Dr. Malmberg we had a great discussion about this. The definition of character is "the sum of the virtues". No matter what culture or society a person may come from there are behaviors that are set that mostly everybody would agree on, we center right and wrong around character. What is a virtue? Well, here they are: Honesty, Self-Discipline, Prevalence, Responsibility, Respect, Loyalty, Faith, Friendship, Work, Compassion, and Courage. In my opinion it should be everybody's goal to be the best person they can be, be virtuous in as many ways as possible! You are what you do...actions speak louder then words!
"Only a virtuous nation can sustain a democracy"- Benjamin Franklin
 "One becomes virtuous by performing virtuous acts"- Aristotle
"The Book of Virtues" By William J. Bennett
     

Lab 3 St. Mary's

Lab 3 ^^^

Lab 3 at St. Mary's was a sports theme and it was so much fun. It was cool to see the automatic connection between some of the kids and students because they were wearing their favorite sports team jersey.I think the opening games that we observed went very well. The games incorporated the leap, horizontal jump, and slide. For the most part the kids were very good at these skills. I was part of the special projects group and we made posters, I need to improve on how I draw feet, I learned that. After when the kids came into the gym at the end of the day I witnessed some very good hoola hooping! In ending I lead the Hokey Pokey dance and song to end the day, it was a familiar tune that the kids enjoyed!  

Mini-Conference

The mini-conference here at Cortland was awesome! So glad that I went! Being a new jr. transfer student this fall I did not know what to really get involved with, I joined the PE major's club my first week here and so happy  that I did. At the mini-conference last Friday I was able to help out; Thursday night I went to Park Center to help set up and prepare, I was able to assist in making sure that the technological (projectors, screens, computers, ect.) were available and in working order for the next day. On Friday I helped get everything set up at the pool for kayaking. Mr. Busch used to teach at Chenango Forks High School and his specialty was educating students on kayaking in the swimming pool and then after then would learn the correct safe way to kayak they would take a field trip and go kayaking on a river. Mr. Busch was a very friendly, talented, and knowledgeable man. I got the opportunity to have a good conversation with him about the career of Physical Education and if he had any suggestions. His biggest piece of advice was to go outside of your comfort zone and take chances to learn something new everyday. After his presentation I really would love to take a kayaking class and become more educated about different activities that I could possibly do as a Physical Education teacher that in a sense are out of the "normal" team sports activities that I am sure many of us experienced when we were in high-school, (a.k.a basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, ect). These common activities are yes popular and need to be addressed, but it is important to have variety available. In order to have a good program though the teacher (me) needs to have experience and be educated about that certain activity, therefore it is important for me to take steps outside my comfort zone and use the opportunity of being at Cortland for college to explore these options! I also was involved in the flash mob in the morning to "Cortland Rock". It was so much fun! =) And the video was great->>>   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-2VdeDjqRk

Lab 2 at St. Mary's

The second day at St. Mary's was awesome! It was a lot less intimidating then the first day was. Especially because we had the same group of kids that we had the first week. Our theme was friendship, I thought this was a great first theme to have. Friendship is so important in school. Running, galloping, and hopping were the three skills we were to focus on this week. I was in the group with the Pre-K. We were fortunate to yet again be at St. Mary's on a beautiful day, we spend a lot of time outside playing and observing the children. As always these 3 and 4 year olds were full of energy; they already had games in their head that they wanted to play with us. These kids are extremely strong especially their upper body strength, they hang on the monkey bars for a lot longer then I could! We went inside for snack. I had a craft to do with them (paper bag puppets), but we did not have enough time to do the craft. Beka then read them a book for a little bit, the kids really do like story time, they all have their favorite books that is for sure. We went into the gym and then played some fun games with them. The game where we had to get the stuffed animals and then throw them through the hoola hoop was great, also the game where we had different color hoola hoops on the ground and if your color was called you had to get out of the hoop. This was great for the kids to learn their colors as well as getting exercise. Ending the day the chicken dance was great the kids that were left I think really enjoyed it. I am looking forward to the next lab day at St. Mary's!


Here is my Lab 2!