Are you sick of boring school days where your classes don’t make a difference? Or taking long walks in the cold, doing yoga poses or playing competitive sports? Well maybe P.E. Mentor may be the class for you.
South High has multiple opportunities, but students may not know about them. One such class is P.E Mentor is a course students can take to interact with students with disabilities while engaged in physical activity.
The class is taught by P.E. teacher Dave McFarland. Each class day starts with a “walk and talk” where each mentor has a partner to check in and walk with. It not only benefits the students with disabilities, but it benefits the mentors as well.
“It is a really fun experience and I get better with my patience and persistence,” Gifford said.
After talking to them about their day or other topics that come about the class joins in a circle and does some basic exercises like leg raises and arm circles. Then they are instructed on an activity to prepare for a game or a game to play.
“Teaching our partners how to have correct form and get better at sports is really fun and cool to see them improve,” senior Luke Holmdahl said.
Although it may take patience, the mentors do a great job at correcting their partners in a friendly way.
McFarland has taught PE Mentor for 25 years and counting.
“I would recommend this course to students who like helping people and want to feel food after going to class,” McFarland said.
There is truly no loss when you are helping others and PE Mentor has an impact not many classes do, according to junior Jude Forbis.
“The class is really fun and I get to make friends in the grade above me,” he said.
He also mentioned his favorite activity the class has done thus far..
“I had fun playing the soccer bean bag game and me and my partner were really competitive,” he said.
It really benefits the students to interact with people who aren’t disabled as they spend most of their school day with the same classmates. It helps them to have better social cues and work on keeping up a conversation. It also helps them to stay active as they might not feel confident to do it alone.
“It is awesome seeing them make progress and getting excited for the sport activities,” Holmdahl said.
According to Gifford, taking PE Mentor has inspired some of the mentors to continue working with people with disabilities in the future.
“After taking this course I definitely want to look into taking other Mentor classes at South like the cooking one or participating in Special Olympics and stuff like that. The class allows students to connect with people at our school they would’ve never known before.
“I look forward to checking in with the kids in the class and seeing what they did over the weekend,” Holmdahl said.
According to Gifford, there really never is a dull day of class, and there’s always conversation going and many laughs.
“It is definitely one of the most fun classes I’ve taken,” he said. The class goes through different units including different sports and workouts.
“ My favorite unit in the class is definitely volleyball, it is awesome to see the teams work together and get competitive. It is really fun,” McFarland said.