July 25th

First session we started dance with three classes in the student center. Beka and I were really excited about this class because it has a lot of ballroom dancing and partner dancing. We also both had Mrs.Cahill and will be bringing our experience into this class of students. Mr.Boaza taught the tango and the boston-2-step, so I was learning as well. For each dance, he had a boy and girl demonstrate in the middle of the 2 circles. The inside circle is always boys and the outside was girls. The students were dreading this a bit but you can tell they were all having a great time once they started. They were also pretty good at the dances for learning them in a half hour.

Second session I had my basketball lesson and I was a little nervous because the last one did not go as well as I hoped for and was a little boring. This lesson went awesome though! I had three mini games going on at once and taught through playing instead of with drills. The numbers divided pretty well and I gave them very specific instructions step by step this time around. I talked to the students after these games about getting open but I lead the discussion with questions to get them thinking.  Once the students came up with the ideas of a pick or jab step, I brought students up to demonstrate each. I had to demonstrate a pick on and off ball a few different times with different students so that they really understood. After another round of small game using picks, we played continuous basketball. Regular game of half court basketball and once a basket went in, losers jumped off and a new team came on. It would go fast sometimes and slower other times depending on how hard they played but they all pretty much got into it. I was very happy with the two classes today but I did have one problem with a student. He simply doesn’t like participating in anything for any class and he decided to mouth off to me about the activity sucking and me sucking. I chose to bring this to the head teacher’s attention because I did not want to make him sit out, since he wanted that. My teacher decided to make him sit outside alone while he copied a random power point on paper and then he had to apologize to me at the end. He was nice about it and I said I accepted it but at the same time I told him my expectations for the class. I hope he will not be a problem anymore so I don’t need to write him up or anything.

Third session was a good planning session for tomorrows lesson that Donna will be observing.

Fourth session I watched the rugby boys practice and I got to talk with a few of them who were sitting out. They were just asking a bunch of questions about New York and the states. Good conversations and got to know each other better.