Students
There are 38 students in the physical education class that I am going to teach. Out of the 38 students one student is Asian, one student is Indian and three are Hispanic. That means out of 38 students 33 are white.
In the physical education class I am teaching, the students tend to group boys with boys and girls with girls. Occasionally there will be a mixture of boys and girls. When the groups get together usually they are the same students grouping together. This makes me aware that there are a lot of cliques in my class. Rarely when students pick groups do they go with anyone else then who they usually group with. In physical education there are times where students are getting too competitive and they start to say mean things and are not nice to each other.
When I teach I will not allow any disrespectful comments or attitudes towards one another. I want to start the class by doing cooperative games where the students get to know each other. By doing cooperative games it allows the students to work together to reach a goal. During the cooperative games I am going to reinforce that no negative comments are made and that in this class we help each other and encourage each other. I will also try and do activities where the students have to work with other people by either assigning teams before class or splitting the students up during class. I want my students to feel comfortable playing with anyone, that way they can focus more or the activity and worry less about who is on their team.
Since the class is mostly white I will watch for students who leave out or exclude any of the different ethnic students. If this happens I will make sure to group the students myself. I will not tolerate anyone who purposely excludes others no matter what their ethnic background is. I want to make sure people feel comfortable and safe and allowing students to exclude others does not help the students feel like they are in a safe place. If there is anyone who might not want one of the different ethnic students in their group I will make it clear to them it is not allowed in my classroom. By not allowing the segregation it will open their eyes and minds to accepting them and hopefully they will get to know one another in the process.
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It seems to me only natural for students to group together with the same people all the time, especially in PE. There's security there and it seems like an important aspect in a class where some students may feel rather vulnerable to dirty looks, criticism, or other negative vibes. It may not be cliques, just students finding what's comfortable in an otherwise potentially uncomfortable situation.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised at all about the girls grouping with girls and the boys grouping with boys. Will you assign groups? Does it matter to you that groups are split along gender lines?
ReplyDeleteI really like what you have to say about ensuring that minority students dont get left out. Respect is #1, for everybody. Do you notice that the minority students group together?
I think Lacy and Chris make some worthwhile points. Sometimes as a teacher you want students to feel comfortable. Sometimes maybe it is good to push their limits a bit and help them explore relations with other ethnicities or gender. Do you have a sense when to do which?
ReplyDeleteYou show some important sensitivity here though with students in a PE class. Students self-esteem can really be on the line here. You want students to feel they can take some risks and try new things or push themselves in activities. Negative comments can really squelch any willingness to step outside a comfort zone.