My name is Eddie Petrak,
I am from Burr Ridge Illinois located about 20-30 minutes south of the Chicago and I am sophomore here at whitewater majoring in physical education. Growing up I honestly hated going to school mostly because it was hard for me. However the one class I really excelled at was physical education. As a student I noticed that the students who excelled in other subjects were often more likely to substitute an extracurricular activity for gym class. And for the few who did go to class were less likely to participate. Unfortunately the lack of participation was a common trend among all students. Lucky for me I had a great health teacher named Mr. Bondi who I met through our schools bass fishing club. We both shared an interest in fishing and soon were able to connect on a personal level. Mr. Bondi helped me see the value physical education and explained the many issues that are going on in the field. The best part of physical education is that it allows you to have a truly unique impact on your students’ lives. Unlike math and since where the majority of the information you learn will never be used again. Physical education allows for teachers to impact a person’s health for the rest of their lives. By having Mr. Bondi be a part of my life he helped me understand what it meant to be a good teacher. A good teacher is someone who can connect their content to their students and current issues that effects their lives and explain why their content is valuable to learn. Our textbook backed my claim by giving research that showed students are far more successful when their teacher is able to connect with them. The ability to understanding students likes and dislikes then tailoring their lesion to incorporate their student’s interests is what separated the good and bad teachers. I also read an article by Yona Leyser called the impact of training in mainstreaming techniques. In this article she explained just how big of an impact a teacher’s attitude has on their students. She explained how students merrier your behavior and often reflect the same amount of enthusiasm that you give. Clips one and two on D2L defend this claim and further shows that passion makes the teacher. The two clips are complete opposites in clip one we saw a passionate teacher which lead to a passionate audience. However in the second clip the teacher is simply presenting the information and doesn’t show to the audience the information is valuable to him so they in return have the same attitude. During my years in physical education I have mostly experienced teachers like the second clip. Because of the lack of passion towards physical education I think is one of the primary reasons our nation is so obese. I hope to be like the teacher in clip one so I can actually make an impact in students’ lives.