Teaching PE in a virtual world

Mr. Robert Steen is a third year Physical Education (PE) teacher at Armijo High School, but he’s not new to teaching. He worked two years at a Montessori School, two years at a middle school, and spent one year as the Athletic Director at a high school, all before coming to Armijo.

As a PE teacher, Mr. Steen loves interactions. He said he’d rather be in school than distance learning. The kids and the department make it fun for him because he’s not the type of person who likes to sit on the computer all day. In addition to teaching, Coach Steen is also responsible for boys’ and girls’ golf teams, which have both been negatively impacted by the pandemic.

His favorite unit during school is badminton, partly because he gets to play against his students and has never been beaten in his eight years of teaching. One of his least favorite subjects is swimming. No matter what he is teaching or where, Mr. Steen said his biggest challenge is keeping the energy up so that the students can feed off of him and put that energy into their activity or workout.

When it comes to class size, Mr. Steen said that he doesn’t care. He’s willing to teach whomever, just point out his class. Also, it doesn’t matter the students’ gender. He just wants everybody to learn something from him.

According to Mr. Steen, it’s hard to say whether grades will be better or worse in PE during the pandemic. He thinks grades should go up but the work is different than with normal PE classes, and participation is a must. When school is in session, grades are often influenced by whether or not a student dresses out, but this is not the case online.