Emma Royle – Physical Education Internship

My time as an intern this semester has been spent in Garden Spot Middle School. I have been working with the 7th and 8th-grade gym and health classes, as well as some of the special needs and autistic support classes. Although the age range of students is not extremely wide, I have already learned so much about organizing a group of 30+ students and encouraging every one of them to succeed. It has been a challenge, but very rewarding.

Three days of the week are spent in the gym and two days are in health class. In gym class, each unit we start by splitting the class into smaller groups and teaching the basic skills for each game. In basketball, the focus was on dribbling and shooting form; before playing Kan-Jam, we worked on throwing the frisbee and how to hold it correctly, etc. After the students understood the game and were comfortable, we could split up the gym based on skill level and competitiveness. This worked well with the class and everyone seemed more motivated to participate. In health class, I helped students with different paper assignments, labs, note-taking, and general classwork. The biggest obstacle in both gym and health was finding something that worked for every student because it was such a large class.

This experience has taught me a lot about working with middle schoolers and how they go about each day. I think I can appreciate the hard work that goes into finding engaging activities a lot more now. I have learned that not only do the kids have to be excited to play but so do you. Your energy has a huge impact on the class’s performance and showing the students that you are there to help is powerful. The experience has made it easier for me to go out of my comfort zone to build a relationship with a lot of different types of people, and I have benefitted immensely from that.

Looking back on the time spent in my internship so far, I have some good insight into my future career goals. I think that if I were to become a gym teacher at some point, I might want to try a younger group of students in elementary school. It was great working with an independent and competitive group, but I would also love to be really involved in the activities. It has shown me that I love working with kids and learning more about my students and how I can support them. I never thought I would want to go back to school!