What Do You Remember From Your Elementary School Years?

Hello PE Nation!

I've been thinking about my formative years in elementary school and what stuck with me. This episode is a reflective journey through my elementary school years, uncovering cherished and challenging memories that continue to influence my teaching practices. There is more to our recollections than meets the eye; each moment shapes us as educators.

• Reflecting on personal school memories from pre-K to sixth grade 
• Exploring how relationships with teachers impacted my learning 
• Discussing the emotional aspects of student experiences in school 
• Emphasizing the importance of nurturing positive environments in education 

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Take care,

Dave

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Childhood Memories
• 25:00 Reflecting on Grades Pre
• 45:00 Tips for Creating Lasting Impact

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Size Phys Ed podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about what I remember from elementary school, and I want you to think about what you remember from elementary school and how that can affect your teaching. Now, it's just something I've been thinking about lately. So, without further ado, here we go. Rip Nation, welcome in.

Speaker 1: 0:48

So I've been thinking about this a lot lately, like what do I remember from elementary school? Because I'm an elementary school teacher and I want to see what stuck with me over the years and what will stick with your students. Potentially and this is not a one size fits all kind of thing you can remember many different things and I can remember nothing, or the opposite, or you know just, it's just these things in life that we remember, and I just want to talk about this. I have an article that goes along with this that I go in depth or a little more in depth. I'm just going to give you a brief overview of each grade and what I remember from that grade, and again, it's shockingly little, but I want to make sure I have an impact on my students, and so I want to go over, step by step, what I remember from pre-K through fifth grade. So, yeah, let's make this a boomer. So here we go.

Speaker 1: 1:45

Here's number one, all right. So number one is from pre-K. So I grew up in Buffalo, new York, in a suburb that was kind of small, small town and it was definitely not like where I teach now. Where you know where you live is where you go to school. There was really two elementary schools, and so you know most of my friends went to the one I went to. I guess we'll talk about pre-K for a minute here though. But so pre-K I didn't go to pre-K, I went to my grandma's house and you know she was my pre-k teacher. My parents would drop me off every morning and pick me up when they got done with work, so my grandma would be my teacher and honestly, the only thing I remember from that, or from at least her teaching, is about christopher columbus and the Nina the Pinta and the Santa Maria. So I do remember that. Everything else I do not remember. I remember her, obviously, and my grandfather and the times we had, or some of the times we had, but that's all I remember from pre-K. I mean, that's it. So yeah, that's number one is pre-K, all right.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Number two is kindergarten. So I do remember my first day of school. I remember I was dressed up like, kind of like fonzie. It was in the late 70s, so uh, definitely had a cool. Uh, look about me. If you I'm not gonna show you the picture, but if you ever saw the picture it's yeah, it's pretty bad. But I do remember coming in and being welcomed kindly by my teacher, mrs Schabel, and there was a rug. I was a little scared to go in. My parents dropped me off at the door and she kind of told me to come here, you know kind of thing. So I went to the rug and that's all I remember. I do remember being on the bus and the bus was a scary place and that's why I think my children never went on the bus. It was just like Thunderdome, it was just like anything goes and the bigger kids ruled. So kindergarten was definitely a scary thing for the bus. But yeah, that's all I remember about kindergarten. I mean that's it and that's all I remember about kindergarten. I mean that's it and that's uh number two.

Speaker 1: 4:15

All right, the next one I guess the third one would be first grade, and I honestly don't remember anything about first grade. I don't remember my teacher. I don't remember anything about first grade at all. So if you have a picture of me somewhere from that year, please share it with me. I'd love to see it because I don't remember anything All right.

Speaker 1: 4:38

In second grade I had Mrs Apolito and she was very nice, very kind. She was probably in her early twenties but I thought she was 40 because everybody looked old back then to me. You know, I remember being very kind, very caring. I do remember getting in trouble at lunch one time and I was very, very upset about that, just for trying to get my table to stop talking and I got in trouble and that's all I really remember. I had to stand in a corner. So, yeah, that was second grade, all right.

Speaker 1: 5:15

So third grade, I definitely remember a little more. So mrs latner was my teacher. If you know basketball at all, especially college basketball, she was the mother of former duke all-star and uh, former nba player, christian latner. He was like the local uh sports hero in our town. He was great at baseball and obviously basketball and um. So she was not my favorite teacher, but she was. I think she was kind of strict but I think she was a good teacher, if I. I remember her reading the Raven by Edgar L Poe and she was like quote the Raven nevermore. And I liked reading because of her, I liked Poe because of her, but that's all I really remember. I remember. Again, I remember more about her and her son than I do about third grade. So yeah, that's third grade, all right.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Fourth grade was Ms Male. She was my teacher. She was. She had to be 110 years old back then. I mean, she had to be, she was super old. And I remember a kid named Vinny I won't say his last name, I do, I do remember it and I remember a kid named Vinny I won't say his last name, I do remember it Him and I were actually pretty good friends. We got into like a pushing kind of thing. I don't know, I don't remember exactly what happened there, but we got in a little scuffle and she took us out into the hallway and she I'm not kidding you, she grabbed my throat like Darth Vader and lifted me up a little bit and you know, that was, I guess, accepted back then. I mean, my principal had a paddle over his you know, over his desk or behind his desk. So that's all I remember about her. She's got to be dead by now. And all I remember about the fourth grade is her grabbing me by the throat, that's it. So yeah, that's fourth grade. Grab me by the throat, that's it. So, yeah, that's fourth grade.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Alright, for fifth and sixth grade. We actually went to an intermediate school, so I had I might be getting this mixed up who I had when, but I had Mr Finehour in fifth grade. He was very militaristic. I actually liked him. He would tell us to stand by and we'd have to stand up by our desk, push our chair in and stand like at attention until we're dismissed. I remember him reading the book Carry On Mr Bowditch with the inflection, and you know I liked him. We switched also for reading. So I can I might be getting this mixed up a little bit. So I can. I might be getting this mixed up a little bit Um, I do remember a, my, I think, my sixth grade teacher, or maybe my fifth grade teacher also.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Like one of the other teachers. He was a, like a kind of a larger guy that just sat behind the desk the whole time and that was it. So that's fifth and sixth grade. That's why that's all I remember. I do remember, um, an older teacher giving away a Wayne gretzky signed hockey stick to like her favorite student or something like that that we were supposed to work towards and I, of course I didn't get it. I was a good kid, I really was, I was. I was a good kid behavior wise, I got good grades, I didn't cause any trouble or anything like that. But I mean that's all I really remember. I mean I'm gonna get to the specials next, but that's all I remember from pre-k to sixth grade. Really, all right, let's go on to art class I. I forgot what number we're on, so I'm just gonna keep going here.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Art class I don't remember my elementary school art class. I remember my uh in the intermediate school, like middle school, fifth and sixth grade. Our teacher's name was Mr Gullo and he was very nice. I remember doing a clay thing we put in the kiln and I wrote the word journey on it, like the band, but he thought I meant journey to the sound of the earth. I don't know why, but yeah, that's it. I think we might have developed pictures back then, like in the dark room kind of thing, and that was pretty fun. Yeah, that was cool. It was our class. I'm not very good at art, but that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 9:23

Alright, music I remember a few things. I remember three things. I remember the music teacher having us clap and say quarter, quarter, half note. I know that's weird, but I remember that. I remember a scary song that we sang when we were younger, like a Halloween song about bones or skeletons. It kind of creeped me out. And the most memorable thing I'm trying to make a long story short here, but we did like a little air band project and we were doing uh, by the way, journey, um, the song separate ways called, uh, in parentheses, world of worlds apart.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Um, I was, you know, I was the lead singer. I was excited about it. We were ready to go and we my dad even got me some. I remember begging him to get me some clip-on sunglasses, or yeah, for that for that day, because I wore glasses and I needed to look cool, and he did. He went out late at night, got me the sunglasses.

Speaker 1: 10:20

So when we were ready to perform uh, some bands, some bands are going before us and we were getting ready to perform we went on the music in the middle of the music room and we were all excited. I'm not kidding you. A fight broke out in the risers and we never performed again. I remember standing there Should I keep going? Should I keep singing? But that's all I remember from music. I was hoping maybe VH1 would get the band back together again, kind of thing, but it never happened. All right.

Speaker 1: 10:56

So the one you've all been waiting for is PE. You know what? What do I remember from PE? Now, I remember a lot of things from middle school. Again, I went to an intermediate school, so I'm not middle school to me was seventh, eighth and ninth. So I remember things from that and from high school. But as far as from elementary school and intermediate school, you know, I remember I loved gym class. I know they're called gym class. Right, it was in a gym, I did. But there's only four things that I could think of that I can really remember. And yeah, here are the four things.

Speaker 1: 11:36

So first, in elementary school we had a haunted house in the gym storage room and that was pretty cool. I actually started doing that in my former school. I don't have room in my current school to do that, but it was pretty cool. We turned it into a little. You had to kind of use a scooter and go inside and we had some kind of scary things and they had to grab a tennis ball or some kind of treasure and bring it back. It was fun, so I did implement that. I also implemented the game she called Jump Over the Brook. It's just a long jump station where you keep moving the sticks back, back, back. I think she used a meteor stick or something like that Yard stick, and so I do that. We do that once a year. We do the Kids Hard Challenge. So it's fun, the kids enjoy that, I guess, like once a year when we do the kids heart challenge. So it's fun, the kids enjoy that, I guess.

Speaker 1: 12:22

The third thing is I remember I had a female gym teacher for k through four and I don't remember her name. I I actually did not remember who my fifth and sixth grade teachers were, but I reached out to my uh, on facebook we have a, a group of for my graduating class and some people reminded me or somebody reminded me of their names. So I'm like, oh yeah, that's their names. Couldn't remember anything about them or what we played. It's kind of weird that I couldn't remember anything from element or from fifth and six, but I can remember my elementary school school stuff. So the final thing is that we had a square dance I remember that in fourth grade and we got got to pick our partners if we wanted to, but you know I'd be like some of the other boys and pretend to tie my sneakers and stuff, so we didn't have to be embarrassed and pick a girl, but the cutest girl picked me. I was really excited about that, so I felt really popular for the day. I don't think I saw her after that school year, though I don't know what happened to her. So that's everything I remember from elementary school and intermediate school. So let's go to our tip of the day, because now I'm feeling kind of bummed, but here is your Cowbell.

Speaker 1: 13:43

Tip of the day is to think about what you remembered about elementary school and you know, think about how you want to teach because of that, the impact your teachers had on you and the impact you want to have on your students, because I don't want to remember it as the person who grabbed somebody's throat. You can't do that these days, obviously, but I don't want to be remembered like that and that's all I remember from her and that's kind of crazy. I want to remember it as somebody who teaches like the whole child. I mean, they're not going to say that, hey, coach Carney taught the whole child. But I want to teach good sportsmanship. I want to make good people.

Speaker 1: 14:22

I always say that if you're the next Michael Jordan, that's awesome, but the reality is that's you know, it's very, very low percentage and I never, by the way, crush their dreams. If they want to be the next Michael Jordan, that's awesome. Really. I was telling him I'd love to see them in the Olympics or in the NBA or whatever, but I'd rather you treat people nicely. You know I'm going to teach you skills, but you know how you treat each other is more important. I want to make good human beings. Um, if you dribble a soccer ball like messy but you never passed anyone, that is not what I'm looking for. So my goal, for you or for them, is to again become a great person. Teach the whole child and you know, make good humans. That's what I want to do. So you know I don't. I don't have to have a pavilion named after me, although that would be cool. I don't have to be famous, although I guess that'd be cool. I don't have to have a million dollars, although I wouldn't say no to a million dollars. I just want to be remembered as a great PE teacher who cared for his students. I mean, that's bottom line and I hope they had a great experience in my class. I just don't want to be remembered in a negative way that I physically or mentally scarred a child, so make sure that's not you and that is your cowbell tip of the day.

Speaker 1: 15:45

Thank you everybody for tuning in. I really do appreciate it, as always. Go to supersizefizadcom for more information or join my sub stack. I love doing sub stack. It's a lot of fun and that's where I post about twice a week. Actually, I do post twice a week Tuesdays and Fridays, if you join my sub stack group on articles and podcasts like you're listening to right now, things like that. So love for you to be a part of it. And, yeah, have a great day, have a great week weekend. Whenever you listen to, listen to this pe nation. You guys and girls are awesome. Let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.