The importance of creating a safe environment and appropriate task.

Teachers can control two things when teaching. They can control the task and the environment. The environment should be safe and appropriate for learning. The task should put all the students in the best situation to learn. This week I was planning on teaching a relay race at St. Mary's. I always saw it as a fun cardiovascular activity as a kid. But I never really noticed all of the flaws with it until this week. One thing I didn't like about it was how it was a race. I didn't want the kids to get down on themselves if their group didn't win. Relay races really single kids out and put kids in a negative environment. I almost learned the hard way how important it is to have a task that will create a positive learning experience.
Another aspect of teaching that is important is to always being positive. If you have a injury or are just having a bad day, it is important that you don't take it out on the kids. So many of my teachers in High School would be in bad moods and just take it out on us as students. It is not fair for the kids, they shouldn't get in trouble and not be in a positive environment just because you are having a bad day. I hated High School PE and High School in general because of this. Some teachers would let there mood get in the way of teaching. I see it in college but not as much. I think teacher should always leave their personally problems separate from class. I had a personal experience with this; I recently broke my ankle and had a hard time moving around. This made it difficult to teach games at St. Mary's, but I had to overcome this and make it seem like everything was good. I had to smile, show enthusiasm and almost put on the front that my ankle was fine and that I could demonstrate enough of the game for the kids to understand. It just something teachers have to do, they have to always make a positive learning environment for the students.