MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
In this podcast, you will hear from educators and professionals in the field sharing their insights and experiences in the HPE (Health Physical Education) and allied fields. I hope you find this podcast informative, and inspiring. Learn about best practices and tools that you can implement in your teaching practice. We want to know not only what you do, but also the action steps you took to get you where you are. The Status Quo is not in our vocabulary folks, my guests are leaders in the field who are taking action to make an impact in their respective fields. If you have any questions or would like to be a guest on the show email mahperdpodcast@gmail.com
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" Henry Ford
MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
From Billboard to Breakthrough: An Educator's Journey
Meet Ginger Aaron-Brush, a veteran physical educator whose 25-year teaching career has shaped how we think about quality physical education. From an unexpected career path—sparked by a random college bulletin board flyer—to becoming Alabama's Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year, Ginger's journey reveals how passion and structured teaching can transform students' physical literacy.
What happens when you teach 75 elementary students physical education simultaneously? Ginger shares her masterful approach to large-group instruction, emphasizing immediate engagement through "instant activities," structured skill development, and thoughtful assessment strategies. Her philosophy centers on building student confidence before competence, ensuring every child experiences success regardless of athletic ability. One particularly brilliant practice: teaching students to provide "goods and shoulds" feedback to peers, creating a supportive learning environment where children celebrate strengths while offering constructive suggestions for growth.
The conversation explores how Alabama's daily physical education model (30 minutes every day) differs from many states' weekly rotations, examining both the benefits and challenges of this approach. Now working with HEAL United, Ginger continues championing health literacy through comprehensive curriculum development, free educational resources, and innovative programs designed for pre-K through college students. Her digital leadership extends to social media, where she's maintained the popular #PhysEdQOTD (Question of the Day) for years, building connections with educators nationwide.
Whether you're a physical educator seeking practical classroom management strategies, a school administrator interested in enhancing your wellness programs, or simply someone who values the importance of quality physical education, this episode offers valuable insights from an educator who's dedicated her career to ensuring every child develops physical literacy.
Connect:
Twitter: @gingeraaron
BlueSky: @gingeraaron.bsky.social
Support:
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/gingeraaronbrush
Teachers Pay Teachers: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/ginger-aaron-brush-physical-education
Resource:
Hello and welcome to Voices from the Field, a MAHPERD podcast where we talk with educators in the field to hear about their perspectives and experiences. My name is Jake Bursin, advocacy Chair for MAHPERD, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Ginger Aaron Brush. Ginger Aaron Brush is an advocate for physical education and has 25 years of experience teaching elementary physical education. And has 25 years of experience teaching elementary physical education. She also serves as an adjunct instructor at a local university where she helps shape the next generation of teachers.
Speaker 1:Following her retirement from the elementary setting, ginger took on a new role with HEAL United, where she continues to champion health and physical literacy in schools across Alabama and beyond. Her dedication to the field has earned her statewide recognition, including being named an AsaFord Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year and a Sweet 16 finalist for Alabama Teacher of the Year, an honor that spans all subject areas. Ginger has been an integral part of AsaFord for many years, serving in various leadership roles, including president, elementary council chair and currently a social and digital media manager. She also serves in the same digital leadership role with the National Academy of Health and Physical Literacy, where she continues to elevate the visibility of health and physical literacy nationwide. Welcome, ginger, it's so exciting to be in the space with you and thank you so much for saying yes to the podcast. Before we get started, what's making you smile these days?
Speaker 2:Oh, good question. First of all, thanks for the opportunity. I'm really excited to speak with you today. What's making me smile? Probably my daughter, who is graduating from high school. This is a busy season for us, with celebrations and graduation parties and all the things that that brings, and while it is bittersweet and there have been some teary moments and I'm sure there will be more it's definitely bringing a lot of joy and a big smile to my face.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic, that's fantastic. So, ginger, tell us more about who you are and how you started your education journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am from Alabama. I grew up loving athletics, was involved in sports from a very young age and played throughout, you know, elementary recreation opportunities and then middle school and high school. I knew that I wanted to go into teaching at a young age. In fact, I had one of those memory books where you can kind of record the things that you do throughout your first grade, second grade and beyond. And I was looking at it not too long ago and every year I put down that I wanted to be a teacher, except for when I was in second grade and I wanted to play in the NBA.
Speaker 2:Obviously that didn't work out for me. So teaching is where I landed and honestly, I had no idea that I wanted to teach physical education. That really was never, ever on my radar until I saw a flyer on a billboard in college At the time. I knew I was going to teach either history or math and was double majoring in both at the time, and I saw a flyer about coming to a physical education majors meeting and I happened to go into the meeting and it kind of changed my course.
Speaker 1:Interesting. You're the first person I've spoken with that's mentioned. You've gotten into it this way. So a flyer on a billboard, wow. And so. Was it at a college or was it at a? Was it like yeah?
Speaker 2:it was, it was in, it was in one of the buildings that I that I was in taking another class and they had the board and everything there and there was just a flyer for it. And, again, I didn't even know that the major existed. Honestly, I just had no idea and for some reason I just felt called to go into that meeting and the chair of the department was in there and that's changed my major that very day.
Speaker 1:That's what you call a true calling right. You're in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 2:Absolutely For sure.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned, you know, having these memories of wanting to be a teacher, but is there anybody who inspired you to pursue a career in your field? Are there any mentors or teachers along the way, or just people, friends?
Speaker 2:Right. You know, looking back, if you were to say, hey, ginger, who is your favorite teacher? I would name all of them because you know, every teacher in some way made me feel valued and made me feel important and I really had a very positive experience throughout my schooling. Now I went to a very, very small school. K through six was on one side of the road and seventh grade through 12th grade was on the other side of the road and so everyone knew everyone, um, and so I mean my teacher obviously had an impact.
Speaker 2:But then beyond that, you know, it's one thing having you know, going into the career of education, but it's another thing when you have such strong mentors once you are in the field. I had such great college professors, but also my first year of teaching, my co-teacher became a mentor and a lifelong friend. I went into a school that had a very good established program and my colleague just really helped me be the teacher that I was, and then she had been teaching a bit longer than me and then when she retired, I really felt like I was able to keep that legacy going of the, of the positive program that was already put in place.
Speaker 1:That's great that you were able to kind of go into that experience having a foundation and support system in place. That's really cool. So my understanding is, ginger, that you're retired now. Right, how long did you teach when you did teach? How is physical education different in Alabama or unique in Alabama as compared to where we are in Massachusetts?
Speaker 2:compared to where we are in Massachusetts. Yeah, so I taught elementary PE for 25 years and over the past 11 years I have also taught at the university level just an adjunct instructor, teaching a course for future teachers. And even though I retired from my elementary role, I'm still teaching at the college level and it's retirement was was bittersweet. But I went into a role that is still very, very meaningful. It's it's still very connected to health and physical education, so going into that role was very seamless. But in Alabama and PE I guess something that makes us unique from you all up north we do see our students every single day. So I saw all my students daily and they get 30 minutes of PE every day.
Speaker 1:So that's a really fantastic 30 minutes a day. So up where we are, we have, you know, art, music, tech, and I'm sure you have it there too. Is the PE class the teacher's prep time in Alabama, or is it? It is still okay, so that's, that's still the same then.
Speaker 2:It is is so, um. So there's a blessing in seeing kids every day because, I mean, really have an opportunity to, to build connections and you can really expand on our units. The the bad side is, because we do see students every day, we have very often very large class sizes. Um, it would not be uncommon for me to have two or three homerooms classrooms by myself and then my co-teacher have that same number. So me having 75 students by myself and I'm teaching out on the field, it would be very common, while my co-teacher might have, you know, the same number inside in the gym.
Speaker 2:So, while we do see them daily, so there's that repetition and we do get to build relationships, the behavior management sometimes can be, you know, a little bit more challenging. Just, you know, with that number, you know with with that number. But I will say you know my school, um, we were very active in writing for grants and you know getting, you know, good, good funding, because I'm a firm believer that for students to learn they have to have equipment in their hands. So, even though you know I might have 75 kids, uh, I'm also going to have 75 hockey sticks or 75, you know, badminton rackets and which can get crazy at times.
Speaker 1:I can only imagine let's talk a little bit about instructional strategies just with that many students, because we're here we're used to 25, 30 students max, so there's got to be some really intentional forethought that goes into teams stations. How does it get set up? Can you talk a little bit about that aspect of it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know I'm a big believer in structure. When kids know what to expect, it makes things run more smooth. But as soon as my students entered, especially the gym, the gym is a little bit more structured than if I was teaching outside. But as soon as my students entered, especially the gym, the gym is a little bit more structured than if I was teaching outside. But as soon as they enter the gym they look up on the wall. I would have a projector with an instant activity so they would come in and immediately get started. And the reason for that if I had them go and sit down, you know there could be. There's several minutes between the time that that first student entered the door and tool number 75 entered the door.
Speaker 2:So you know, just trying to maximize the minutes that we have. So they would come in and immediately get started with an instant activity. Then they would come and gather in front of me. I would quickly go over, you know, the instructional goals for the day, and my units typically would run for two weeks and so you know, several of those days would be breaking down skills, you know learning, you know the individual specific skills and then and K-1 and 2 are kind of grouped differently than third, fourth and fifth, but then for the upper grades, then we would go into more, you know, maybe a day or two of gameplay.
Speaker 2:And then I would always end all of our units with station work. And that would give them an opportunity to assess and it would give them an opportunity to, you know, work on a number of skills and it gives them an opportunity to kind of challenge themselves. So that was kind of the format. So most units were two weeks long.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's what nine, 10 classes. So that sounds great. It sounds like they had an opportunity to develop the foundation of the skill, but also play the game and also get assessed? Yes, so, speaking of students, with that many students, how did you ensure, what ways did you ensure, that PE was kind of safe in a brave space for everybody? I know I can only imagine trying to learn 75 names.
Speaker 2:Right. You know, I think when it made sense I always tried to offer or provide student voice and choice. You know, sometimes that wasn't always the case, but if I could provide that I would. I always made sure to to create activities that were built upon other activities. You know, that way even students who maybe were not as proficient at a certain skill, they had those opportunities to at least be proficient at something. Because you know, a lot of times it's about building confidence. Before you can build competence in the skill, you got to have the confidence to do that, and so I really tried to create activities where at some point every student found some level of success. Also, you know, if we were doing partner work or small group work, I really tried to encourage where they would give goods and shoulds. So, you know, I encourage students to communicate in a way that would tell their peers you know what they are doing good.
Speaker 2:And then if they see something maybe that they can improve on are doing good, and then if they see something maybe that they can improve on, they would word that, as you know, next time you should, you know, step with your opposite foot or you know, whatever it may be, and then that way, just trying to build those communication skills and so that they all really feel that they are, that their voice is valued.
Speaker 1:I love that idea. I've never, I've never heard of the good and should before, so I'm gonna I'm gonna snag that one. I like that a lot. It's just so um. It's so seems so valuable that they're giving each other an idea to progress, but something that maybe they could try differently next time. But it's also the way they say it, right, I'm sure. So how they say and and communicate with each other, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:This is an organization that you're a. It started out as a fourth grade program, then it went to fifth grade and at that point they wanted to bring it down to the lower grade levels. So me and a couple of other teachers were tasked with helping write that curriculum. And so that was my first time to really work with the Hill program. And then, after that, I became a Hill school, so I started teaching the Hill curriculum.
Speaker 2:Hill is an organization that is really trying to measurably improve children's health through education, and we do that here in Alabama we are able to provide. And so now let me back up for a minute. Once I retired from working, I did transition and start working full-time for Hill United. So that is now my job, and I'm really excited about it because I do get to stay so connected to teachers. Um, but we we're now a program in elementary school, middle school, high school, college. We're in the process of writing a dual enrollment curriculum, but it is all about making students have the opportunity to learn those health and physical literacy concepts in a fun and engaging way, while also keeping parents connected.
Speaker 2:In Alabama, schools who are part of our program do receive all the materials at no cost, and so they're getting the curriculum. They're getting monthly calendars for students to take home. They're getting heart rate technology and that may look like heart rate watches, pulse bars or oximeters. Our teachers are getting like medals and certificates to award their students. It's really just a curriculum that's put in place to support teachers in teaching these very, very important concepts. Anyone can go to our website it's hillunitedorg, and on our website there are tons of handouts that anyone could digitally download or project. We call our handouts, or the things that students may take home to share with parents. We call those handouts. And then, uh, paper and pencil type learning activities. We call those home plays. Uh, just to kind of change the mindset, from a kid doing homework, they can now do home plays and so they can you know, yeah, learn some other skills and some of our teachers do those in class.
Speaker 2:Some of our teachers send those home for, you know, parents to work with their child through that, through that work. But but I do encourage you know, any of your listeners, to just check out our website. We also have a book system and teachers can order our book system for, you know, for no cost. We will. We will ship it out and mail it to any teacher who wants any of our book system resources. We really are just intentional in wanting to empower educators and parents in the community into helping people lead healthier lives and obviously we're targeting children because we know that that's really key to preventing chronic diseases. Chronic disease is to, you know, help our students, help our children learn these things at an early age.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, when they build a foundation at a younger age. What's the book system? Can you just elaborate on that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So our CEO has written four books. One of them is called the Ultimate Treasure Hunt. There is a book called turning frowns upside down, which is focused on like functional wellness, and then there's abcs and one, two, three, and those are geared for early learners, like pre-k to first grade, and the cool thing about those two books is that they are laminated and they come with a dry erase marker. So students write, write. You know, practice writing their, the alphabet and their numbers in there. So we really, you know, try to say that. You know our program is touching kids, you know, pre-k, all the way through through college. So tons of information on our website, the recipes, blog posts, tons of information that teachers could use to share with their families.
Speaker 1:We'll make sure to get those in the show notes so folks can access those resources. So any idea or any resources you have, just send them my way. I'll make sure to link them up.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. What a great program. So, ginger, I know you're on what is it X Twitter? You're on social media. You post what is it X Twitter? You're on social media. You post what is it the question of the day? Right? You've been doing that for many years, right? Tell our listeners about some of the benefits that you've seen through social media, or any advice you'd give to somebody who might be on the shyer side of getting involved with social media. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:So you know I love Twitter or X as a way to connect with other PE teachers. Honestly, that's probably the one way're most close to, so connecting with people outside of here has really been very beneficial to me. So I do encourage people to become active on there and don't just read, but also respond. Comment.
Speaker 1:Engage with it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's how you're really going to get the fullest benefit. So, yeah, I don't know, like four or five years ago, how you're really going to get the fullest benefit. So, yeah, I don't know, like four or five years ago, I just I did a hashtag phys, ed, qotd and so that's been going on for you know, a long time now and I just try to come up with a different question each day related to the field of physical education. Sometimes it's silly, sometimes it's a little bit more reflective or more deep. Some questions get tons of engagement, some get none, but I think that's you know just all. You know all part of it. So, and doing it for so long, I know I've repeated questions, you know many times, but you know somebody new may see it for the first time, so I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the thing. Well, I have to admire that. It takes a lot of discipline to be doing something over and over again and interacting with the audience and, like you said, if people like it, share it, retweet it, you're going to. Not only are more people are going to see it, but you're also engaging with those people and learning about what maybe their thoughts are. So it's really cool that you did that. You started that Really cool. What is something you hope to see in the future? What goals do you have? This could either be personal or professional as far as yourself, or teaching or Heal United. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, well, professionally, just you know, a goal for physical education as a whole. I just I hope that we can continue having a seat at the table.
Speaker 2:I think that is really, really important. And, um, the 25 years that that I taught in an elementary school, every every day I felt like I was advocating for um, for the value, for the worth, for the you know credibility of PE, and so I do hope that you know, in the future of PE, that, you know, whatever the conversation is around education, I hope that PE, you know, still, you know, has a voice To me. I think that's very important Professionally, you know, personally, professionally, I'm really excited to continue my role with Hill United. I'm approaching being there a year and so we are currently, you know, working on a dual enrollment curriculum where students can get college credit and high school credit for a course.
Speaker 2:We've taken one of our curriculums and, through the grant funding with NCHPAD, which is, you know, a national organization based here in Alabama, we are working to make this curriculum inclusive, more inclusive for all learners. So our handouts, our home plays our game system, learner. So our handouts, our home plays, our game system. Everything has been really been analyzed and looked at to make it really meaningful for any type of learner. So we're, you know, I'm really excited to see the launch of that. And then, personally, I'm just, you know, excited to travel. My you know, like I mentioned, my daughter is a senior and she is going to school in Rhode Island.
Speaker 1:Actually, so not too far from us.
Speaker 2:And she will be a college gymnast and she's majoring in nurse. She'll be majoring in nursing. I'm excited to explore that part of the world a little bit more and you know just excited with all the things that empty nesting can bring. You know it's going to be a change, especially since she's so far away. So I'm just hoping to keep myself busy, you know, and be able to handle that without too many tears.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I'm sure it's like you said, it's bittersweet. So it sounds like she's going places, though, with her gymnastics and and her where she wants to go with her career. So that's great, you is it, uri?
Speaker 2:URI is a good college yeah, she's actually uh gonna go to Rhode Island College. Rhode Island okay yeah, they have a. They have a really great nursing program, so that's fantastic excited really cool.
Speaker 1:so, uh, how can our listeners connect with you? Um, I think I've seen that you also have a Teachers Pay Teachers, is that right?
Speaker 2:I do yes.
Speaker 1:If that's something you want to share, or if you have email, twitter, whatever you want to share. How can I listen?
Speaker 2:So on Twitter I'm at Ginger Aaron, Pretty easy to find. I think I'm also on Blue Sky.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:And I'm honestly not sure what my handle is, but it's probably something similar something similar.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then, yes, I do have teachers, pay teachers. But also, about a year ago I launched a Patreon page where people can I mean there's two membership tiers, there's a free membership tier and a paid membership tier just to. It's a place for me to put my resources and I still love creating activities and I love designing lesson plans and things like that. So it's just a place so that I can, you know, connect with other teachers there as well and email ginger Aaron at gmailcom. I'm always happy to you know connect with with other physical educators and certainly you know more than willing to help you know them along their professional journey as well.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Ginger, for sharing your experience and expertise with us. It's really been great talking to you.
Speaker 2:It's been great. It's been great to join you, Jake. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, listeners. If you have any questions, you can always email us at mayfordpodcast at gmailcom. We'll have this episode uploaded soon. We're also asking our listeners to leave a review if this podcast has been helpful in supporting you in any way, as it does help other folks find it. Thank you all for listening. Have a great week and we will be back soon.
