I would venture that Big Sean hadn’t spent an entire Friday indoors while in Australia when he said he feels better at work than on vacation. Most likely since he’s a rapper and not a teacher or a child development researcher. Either way, I can’t say I feel the same way- which could be why he’s a millionaire and why I have piles of student loan debt, hard to say.
As you may have guessed by now, today was lesson planning day. Which was fun, but in an exhausting, “pretending to be a preschooler is hard” kind of way. The good news is that since we did spend this entire day inside learning how to perform motor skills, studying videos of students hopping to decide if they were using their arms for balance or force production, and then creating lesson plans to try to teach them to use their arms to produce force, we don’t have any more classroom days this month! Best 4-credit college class I’ve ever taken! 14/10 would recommend highly.
So, like I said, we started out learning how to gallop, slide, hop, throw, catch, and kick like true motor skill all-stars from Kara and Dr. Robinson. Then, we watched and coded oodles of recordings of children demonstrating motor skills for practice, so we could go to the preschools the next week and code students on our own. And finished up with planning lessons (read: fun games for children), and then teaching one of these lessons to the group as they acted like preschool children. Picture lots of grown adults ignoring everyone’s personal space, crying, and saying “um, um, um…” a lot as 2-3 other grown adults stand at the front of the room trying to get the group to kick balls at dinosaurs and gallop like horses. Honestly I’m a little mad I didn’t record it.
Essentially, while spending a day hiding from the sun deep within the Early Start Research Institute (and not the fun part of it) was not my ideal day, it was certainly more engaging and interactive than any biology or chemistry class I’ve ever taken. Seriously, if you’re a student reading this, do yourself a favor and consider studying abroad for credit. And even if you’re not a student, I still recommend traveling if you can, because it’s more fun and exciting (albeit more expensive) than most any book, podcast, or educational YouTube video (those probably exist), and will teach you all sorts of cool things about yourself and the world around you!
Kines Down Under 