Week 11 Reflection

     It is the 11th week into my internship experience and it is the second week of my inquiry research implementation. The students seem to be very receptive of the inclusion of exercise in their morning routine. Thus far, I have only had one student come dressed inappropriately. Students often greet me the mornings of work out days excited, asking what kind of exercise we will do today. I thought that by having different exercises each day, students would be more likely to participate because they wouldn't know if we were doing a kind of exercise they would not be interested in. It turned out, they were more eager in the mornings just to find out what we'd be doing, let alone excited to exercise each day. Throughout these two weeks of implementation, I have lead a variety of exercises. Some have a "girly" stereotype while others are typically considered "masculine" activities. I decided to implement a variety of exercises styles so that the students in my class would not feel that the exercise activities were dominated by a particular style or type of exercise like dance themed or sports themed. I expected that during the dance style exercises, many boys would not participate and during the sports themed exercises many girls would not participate, however, after implementing Zumba instruction and football drills instruction, I observed my video tapes of the activities and found that both sexes were equally likely to participate in either exercise. In fact, some boys were more active in Zumba than football drills and some girls were more active in football drills than Zumba. I wonder if students liked having a chance to participate in an exercise activity they are usually not given a chance to participate in. For example, football drills are done during football practice outside of school and it is uncommon for girls to be a part of a football team. Likewise, Zumba is an activity often done as "mommy and me" or girl dominated activity that boys would not have the opportunity to participate in without feeling surrounded by females. Also, I implemented some exercise activities that did not have a gender bias like warm up exercises and cardio. I felt the participation in these exercises was limited compared to Zumba and football drills. I believe one cause of this could be that these types of exercises are often done in the physical education classroom and therefore dull or routine to most students. After talking to other teachers in my school, I found that the physical education teacher does not typically implement activities that are considered male or female dominated. I assume the physical education teacher does this to not leave out any students in the activity, without realizing that students may be open to all types of exercise, especially at such a young age as they are eager to be active and have fun, whether it be a "girly" or "boyish" activity. As a result. I wonder if we the adults are to blame for these biases and judgments around different forms of exercise.