Food, I wish I could quit you

*Food Journal Reflection*

For my Health and Fitness course this quarter we kept to keep a food/ activity journal.  I had never done this before and was not entirely sure how it would go.  I am fully aware that I do not have the best dietary habits and have not been nearly as physically active as I used to be.  It’s been a project of mine to slowly get those two elements to a point where I want them to be before I go into the classroom this autumn. 

Overall I learned that my eating habits, while not good, are not nearly as bad as I thought they would be.  I definitely need to eat more vegetables, but I eat more fruit than I thought, so my number of servings per day in that category is not as deficient as I had assumed. 

Even with the use of the campus gym, my activity level is lower than I would like.  My exercise time often gets hijacked by the need to read for class, and when that is finally done each day, it is late and I need to get to bed. 

I think I am fairly realistic model for my future students; not all of my habits are perfect, but I have identified some areas to work on and am striving to make those healthy changes.  It lets them know that no matter what their starting point, they can set some goals and work to better their habits and gain and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Speaking of goals, after the first week I noticed I had eaten very little in the way of fruits or veggies.  I decided to try to change that for week two.  I started bringing fruit for snacks before and during class, and tried to do some increased cooking for dinner using the vegetables ripening in our garden.  It really just ended up being me eating a lot of carrots and kale, but I suppose it still counts.  My biggest obstacle was on the supply side.  I am pretty lazy about shopping and will just eat what I have on hand.  For me this is a bigger habit that needs changing than the actual diet; making sure to keep the elements of a healthy diet around. 

I set a simple and attainable goal for myself; one that I felt I could reasonably reach.  Kids need to know that it is okay to not always start out reaching for the sky when it comes to goals.  Start small, win big.

Even if there was not time to teach health, kids could still keep a food journal on their own.  It is an easy way to get more understanding of what they eat and could motivate them to pay more attention to food labels.  That new interest in food labels could be turned into studies of percentages and/ or what certain chemicals do in the body, possibly leading to letters to grocery store about the dangers of their deceptive product placement, etc.

Coincidentally appropriate

Today was one of those rare days in which our reading material was illustrated for us first hand.  One of our sources discussed the negative effects that stress has on the brain and our abilities to learn.  Our "break" today left me extremely stressed and tense, and I truly was unable to focus-in and pay much attention during our afternoon class; it was hampering my desire to learn.

Looky there, living proof that not feeling comfortable and being stressed can affect your student's ability to learn and desire to participate in class.

Like the scrambled up brain-science reading example said:  "it's amaznig!"

Ladies, all the ladies, louder now, help me out

Things I learned in class today, part 7: Sex Education

Apparently, "circumcised" and "of a certain size" sound very similar.  Also, the musical stylings of George Michael and Salt 'n' Pepa (google it) did not prepare me to teach sex education nearly as much as I thought they did.

Mostly I learned that even current teachers who's lesson plans are light years ahead of mine still search for a way to make them better, a way to find that missing piece that allows their material to click in with the kids.  For me it was not only reassuring, but inspiring.  I felt very fortunate to get to see an in-service k-8 educator plying his trade right in front of my eyes, going through the same thought processes to develop a lesson plan that we did, and kind enough to narrate them for us as he went.

It raised questions for me about teaching style, teaching methods, and how to deal with your objectives and the state standards.  Our instructors give us the raw basics and most of the tools, but we never really know how to use them.  That is why I thought seeing an educator put them to use and grapple with things first hand was so cool.

Yuck! (tm)

Oh, dear me.  My son is very adventurous, and he has a new found love for candy.  Relevance? you ask. Well, he enjoys pulling over a stool or chair to climb up on to the kitchen counter and get into the cupboards where his new favorite treat resides.  I have requested that he not do this, alas he is a free spirit and cannot be contained!  Actually, he is a very stable climber, so it's not the counter that makes me worry.  It is that he could certainly do this in the bathroom cabinets as well, where the medicines are.

Another thing about my son; he has been taking medication since he was born, so pills are normalcy to him.  They don't scare him in the least, he takes them with relish (no, not literally the condiment, he doesn't seem to like the taste- which is strange because he loves pickles).  I am pretty sure that I have instilled in him the belief that medicines should only be dispersed by his mother or me, yet he is only 2 1/2 years old and precocious; therefore not to be trusted. 

Again, relevance.  Hold on, I'm getting there.  So our segment today on the Yuck! Box makes me very nervous.  Those pills and candies look waaaaaaay too much alike.  Not that it would matter to my child, who has no aversion to pills.  It is a great eye opener to me that I need to invest some free time (I know, what's that? AmIright?) in Yuck!ing up my house.  Honestly though, I think the super-sweet rave-green Mr. Yuck! stickers would only encourage him to be deviant.  What's a father to do?

I think the Yuck! Box is a great teaching tool for both parents and educators.  Both to alert kids to be careful because medicines are increasingly looking like candy, and to show the deceptive advertising and packaging used by manufacturers (very similar to the cereal aisle).  "Buy our drugs, they're just like candy!"  Our little activity in class today really got me thinking about this.

Mr. Yuck! isn't totally to keep the kids away from stuff.  It also helps serve as a reminder to us parents, or anyone with a vested interest in the safety of children, to not become complacent.

Just do it

I tend to waffle when I am not sure what to do.  It's a failing of mine.  I am sure there are many people out there who are the same.  There is a compulsion I have to sure of a decision before I make it, know all of the details before I act.

My wife works with assault and abuse victims of a regular basis.  Knowing what she does about me, one of the first things she did once I was accepted into this teaching program was to explain to me my future obligations as a mandatory reporter.  The basic gist of it was that it was not my job to gather all the facts- there are people paid to do that- it was my job to report if I had any suspicions at all.  Sure, it may turn out to be awkward, but better to err on the side of caution.  Me feeling silly is a far, far better result than a child being harmed.

So Thursdays presentation on Abuse and reporting was, for better or worse, information I was already privy to.  That being said, it is extremely important stuff to know.  I tend to take a moral and ethic stance when it comes to education, and the problems of abuse run counter to my ideals of community and people having respect for, and being good to one another.

I think we have all learned that it is our duty to report if we have doubts in any situation.  We should all prefer that we potentially experience some awkward moments as opposed to any child being mistreated.

Yeah, I can do that

I came away from today's class with two clear thoughts in mind:  First, teaching the Micro-lesson for first graders left me feeling that although the K-1st sector wasn't really high on my radar, I think I could see myself teaching at those grade levels.  I had a lot of fun with the lesson.

Secondly, and counter to the first idea, I have no idea if I could handle that young of a group of kids every day.  It was all fine and good until you all started asking age appropriate questions for first graders that I had not anticipated (expecting, of course, adult appropriate questions).  I know kids say the darndest things and all, I just didn't expect my students to do so.  Lesson learned.

I will be doing my dyad with younger kids and cannot wait.  I think it will really give me an idea if the early age groups are something that I may want to look at.  There is a certain element of fun involved with the younger kids that gets lost as they age and everything seems to get so serious.  I've never pictured myself as a Kindergarten teacher, but then again, I've never NOT pictured myself as one either.

Hopefully getting some more practice with lesson plans across all the ages will help me find where my true strengths are.

Fear the halo of evil

I guess I haven't done the shopping very much in the past few years.  Or, actually, it is probably more of a case that my family doesn't really eat cereal.  After spending an awkward 20 minutes in that aisle researching, I was blown away to find out just how much sugar was in everything.  Discussing it all in class today, and having one of our Micro-Teaching lessons being all about sugar really brought it to the forefront of my mind.

I suppose that I just assumed the sugary cereals were all geared towards the kids, but I found it was actually much more common for the adults to be targeted.  For every Special K or Corn Chex, there was an encircling "halo of evil" of sweetened and modified versions of those same cereals.  "If you like this, then you'll looooooooove these!"  *Ugh*.  Then to actually see how much sugar 17 grams (the standard for sugary cereals as per my research) is, via the presentation from our classmates, provided stunning evidence that we are not being encouraged to make healthy choices by our nation's food providers.

I have been struggling recently to cut down on my sugar intake to provide a better example for my two year old.  Coming from a man with a sweet tooth, it has been a tough battle.  Delving into this topic a bit further is helping me to find some tools that I can use on myself, and potentially with my future students.  The knowledge of what sugars do to the body and where they come from is great information for teaching .