APA Paper

 There has been a lot of talk recently about the obesity epidemic and how now even more children are starting to feel the effects of this.  I decided to look further into it to learn more about it for myself here is my paper about it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AsMLfZ-BFJBdeyzNbYfoldllE0yIaLN2ftZgTW4FlR0/edit?hl=en_US

The Father of the Public School

There are many historical figures that when you see there face you recognize them immediately.  Some of these figures include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Rosa Parks, Albert Einstein and Frida Kahlo just to name a few.  However the man pictured to the right is the founder to the place where we learn about all these people and hardly anyone knows about him.  His name is Horace Mann and is more commonly known as "the Father of Public School".

He was born in 1796 in Massachusetts and grew up surrounded by poverty and hardships. He was a self taught until he turned 20 and got accepted into Brown University. He was an excellent student and after graduation choose a career in law.  He was highly involved in Politics and was always helping to fight for the things he believed in.  Some of these included women's rights, the abolition of slavery and during the temperance movement he fought to limit the negative impact of alcohol. However his true passion was in providing educational access to all people.

In the 19th century immigrants, small farmers and urban laborers were fighting to be more involved in democracy.  Horace man joined the fight and became the nations leading advocate for starting a school that would be open to all.  He started his battle for the creation of a common school in his birth place Massachusetts, by creating the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1837.  He wanted everyone to be able to receive an equal opportunity for a quality education. He started the movement for creating public schools.  Although people were skeptical at first due to the raises in taxes they were eventually persuaded.   In today's society every child is given a chance for a free public education and it is all possible because of Horace Mann. 

Horace Mann was an innovative thinker that same things in the world he wanted to change so he did something about it.  He got people to more outside there comfort zones and try something new that he thought would improve the country.  The work that Horace Mann put into creating these schools is the reason that public schools are so common today. I even found a school online called the Horace Mann school in honor of this amazing individual ( http://www.horacemann.org/page.cfm?p=126). 

Fighting for what you believe in can be a scary thing to do especially if you don't have a lot of support from others but it is the only thing that will help us to continue to get better and grow.  Advocating for something you care about is something that you should be doing with out even having to think twice.  As Physical Educators we face a lot of opponents who think that PE is just a waste of time and money in schools.  It is our job to change there minds by showing them just how important it is and all the benefits that students can get from it.  We need to constantly be opening our minds to new ideas and can help us bring more respect to our profession. 

Community Bikes

The SUNY Cortland community bike project has a chance to win 1,000 dollars to be used for refurbishing old bikes for any student to use to get around on campus.  The community bike project is in the GOOD 100 Challenge along with some other community project from other campuses.  This contest is created to get communities to come together and share what they have with others.  The SUNY Cortland community bike program is currently in third place watch the video below then follow the link and vote.



Follow this link to vote: http://sharing.maker.good.is/projects/communitybikes

The rest of the projects are also really great ideas that could help make any community they are used in a better place. Its people who are starting projects like this in their community that are going to improve this world.  They have programs providing seating for bus stops that don't have anywhere to sit. There is one program that is trying to get a clothing swap started where you can rent clothing like you do book from a library. 

The great thing about all these programs is the people in charge of them are making no money off the projects.  It is just a group of people helping out others for nothing in return.  It is just people helping other people with no other motives. It is all about creating a community where you live and getting people to help one another.This is something that doesn't happen very often in today's society. I think that if more people were to start programs like this in their communities the world would be a better place.

A lot of people might think that others will take advantage of these programs and abuse the programs.   However I think that when you put a little bit of faith in society they can surprise you.  Of course their will be one or two people who don't take it seriously and may take advantage of the program but we can't let those people stop us from trying. People do sometimes have a tendency to take a mile when you give an inch but I think the only way to prevent this from happening is to keep trying.  The more programs started like this the more common it will become and people won't have to take advantage of the programs.

In order to prepare us for future job interviews we did some mock interviews in class.  These are two of my answer to the questions that were asked.  It is a great tool to be able to have these mock interviews.  We got to talk to our classmates after and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our statements.  A lot of time you can plan out what you are going to say but it may not sound as good out loud as it does on paper.  It was also beneficial to discuss what could have made my responses sound better and really show my knowledge of physical education.  I usually hate watching videos of myself but in this case it really did help a lot.  I got to see that even though I feel confident and passionate about physical education it sometimes doesn't translate.  I seem sort of soft spoken and I need to work on showing my enthusiasm more.  I also use my hands when I talk and that can be distracting for the interviewer so I need to be aware of that.  I think this was a great opportunity and I learned a lot.  I think that watching yourself on camera is one of the best and fastest ways to learn.  This can be applied to the classroom setting as well. 

I think that this would be a great way to give students feedback during their physical education classes and help them to improve their skills. Incorporating technology into the classrooms is something that as a future teacher I need to be comfortable doing.  This could be the perfect way to do just that.  The students will be excited to see themselves on camera and it will be easy to pin point any improvement they need to make.  Some students are visual learners and need to see things in order to learn them.  This would help these students because they would be able to see the mistakes they were making and get a better idea about how to fix them.