Meet Kingsley Middle School's physical education teachers! Mrs. Jolie King teaches sixth, seventh, and eighth grade PE and Mr. Greg Johnson teaches fourth and fifth graders. This school year marks Mrs. King's 30th year of teaching and Mr. Johnson's 19th year in Kingsley Schools.
What's your favorite part of the job?
JK: The way I get to dress! I get to be outside all the time. Really, my favorite part is the kids. We get to meet the kids on a different level, and that's my favorite.
GJ: Yeah, she took the words out of my mouth! You know, we're teaching a lifestyle.
JK: And changing lives!
What are your teaching philosophies?
JK: Bettering mental health is one of our standards. We're teaching kids how to set goals and achieve them. We are teaching how to increase endorphins so students have positive mental health. A lot of times, kids are really afraid of me at the beginning of the school year because I'm pushing them. And then they see, 'Oh, I can do this.' They can do hard things and just that part alone increases their self-esteem.
GJ: ...and value not only to themselves but to others!
What units do you work on throughout the year?
GJ: The year starts and ends with physical fitness testing. I focus more on skill development and rolling that into a lifestyle of physical fitness. We do sports units and bring student-athletes in to expose them to that so that when they get into middle school, they have an idea of what events they could be involved in.
JK: I teach functional movement, which is a fancy way of saying strength training, twice a week. We work on squat development because they need to know how to squat correctly without ruining their back, and we work on overhead presses. So every Tuesday and Thursday, we're weightlifting. My favorite P.E. unit is dance. We do a full week of dances you'd do at weddings. That week we learn dances like the hustle, the chicken dance, and the cupid shuffle, and more.
Other units:
Football
Soccer
Ultimate Frisbee
Floor Hockey
Track and Field
Basketball
Golf
Speed Racquet
Dance
Combative Sports (wrestling, thumb wrestling, etc)
Capture the Flag
What do you want the community to know about you or your job?
"P.E. should be mandatory. Every single kid, I don't care if they're in sports or not, needs this class. This class is all-encompassing. We talk nutrition, we talk personal hygiene, self-esteem and self-worth, and mental health. Fitness is a lifestyle and every kid deserves to be here." -Jolie King
"It's so important to expose kids to a healthy, active lifestyle at this age to make it a lifelong habit. You learn how you're going to live, and if you miss this component, you miss a healthy lifestyle." -Mr. Greg Johnson
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To learn more about KMS gym class, reach out to Mrs. King at jking@kingsleyschools.org or Mr. Johnson at gjohnson@kingsleyschools.org
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