Blessed to be a PE teacher at Watkins

I am in my 29th year of teaching and enjoy coming to work every day.  Many people my age are now retired from teaching or preparing to retire to experience life without having to get up every day and go to work.   Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me because I love what I do so much, even though every morning on my 1/2 hour drive to work I have to "pump myself up mentally" to prepare to teach such large numbers of students and try to give each one the attention they need as we go through our lessons. PE is my passion! I get excited at the silliest things and laugh at kids stories and jokes which scares me because I actually get the jokes.  I guess I will always be a big kid at heart which is why I am such a "fit" for my job as the PE teacher here at Watkins.

Randi and I are "old school" when it comes to our belief on how people should be treated on a daily basis.  It is simple...Do unto others as you would have others do unto you".  We spent the first 2-4 weeks teaching our students our belief and the rewards have been way beyond our expectations! The Wylie Essentials go right with our belief as well.  If a student interrupts us during instruction, we just say "#5" and they put their hand down or stop talking.  If they don't ask their question at the end of instruction, we make sure to go to them once they are in an activity to see if they still need an answer to their question or maybe they just want to tell us something that recently happened at home, etc.
It's taking the extra time to go to them and let them tell us what was so important to them that has helped us build relationships that continue to grow every day.

It is so exciting to see a child learn a new skill and how the simplest thing to us is an enormous success to them!  I know it is just one of many reasons I love my job so much!  We can give more and more responsibilities to our students now that we have their respect and they have ours. It is awesome seeing them work independently so well.  I am truly blessed to be a teacher at Watkins Elementary. Thank you Mrs. Speicher for supporting us and letting us teach "out of the box".

Julie Sandy