Make “Fetch” Happen in Your Classroom

Greeting PE nation!

Let's talk Mean Girls! Specifically, Gretchen Weiners trying to get "fetch" to happen. You can make it happen in your PE program, and kick Regina George out of the Plastics for good!

• Identify your "fetch" – a bold, new teaching idea you want to implement
• Create your masterpiece by combining ideas from various sources
• Convince others your idea will work using Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field" concept
• Make it stick through consistent implementation and quick wins

By the way, there's a 30% chance it's raining right now!

Dave

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-"Make Fetch Happen" article

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Mean Girls Introduction
• 1:07 Making "Fetch" Happen in Education
• 2:34 Step 1: Identify Your Fetch
• 5:27 Step 2: Create Your Masterpiece
• 8:50 Step 3: Convince Others It Will Work
• 11:04 Step 4: Make It Stick
• 14:25 Closing Thoughts & Website Info

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hello and welcome to the Super Size for Zed podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about Mean Girls. Yes, I love the movie Mean Girls. I don't know why, I just do. I mean, come on, virginia and George, and the plastics and all that good stuff. So let's talk about it along with the word fetch.

Speaker 1: 0:29

And so, without further ado, here we go. Welcome in pe nation. Yes, I love mean girls. I don't know why. I mean, I, I do, but I don't. I mean, come on, it's the high school antics, all the clicks, the drama, all that good stuff, the plastics and the junior plastics and all that good stuff. So, um, and you know, then Katie Herring trying to fit in, and um, it's just one of those things you know. So, but anyways, I want to talk about Fetch because throughout the movie, gretchen Wieners tries to get the word Fetch to become a thing. Like you know, she says oh, that's so, fetch. And the leader of the uh, Regina George, is like stop trying to make Fetch happen. And unfortunately for Gretchen, fetch never becomes a thing and it's just sad, you know, it's sad. We wanted Fetch to become a thing, we're rooting for her, we're rooting for the word, and sometimes things go viral and sometimes they don't.

Speaker 1: 1:38

But I was thinking about this for education and how we can get things to go viral, things to happen in your teaching and different programs you want to implement or different ideas you just want to get going in your classroom or in your PE program. So you know, I was like, well, how can I get fetched to happen in my PE program this year? So I was thinking about the leadership program that I already put out a podcast about my next level leadership program with grades three through five, and I was thinking, well, that could be my fetch. Right, that's the thing I really want to catch fire. I wanted to catch on with my students this year and I'm fired up about it. I can't wait to implement it in the fall. And I want to talk about the ways just to make new ideas catch on right, how we're going to make fetch happen. So here's how I have four ways to make fetch happen. So let's make this a boomer. Here we go, all right. Number one let's have a vision and we're gonna call this what's your fetch? So what new or bold idea do you have for your classroom? It could be a game, a strategy, a grant, you want to write a student-centered goal you want to implement or system in your classroom, or something you want to just try. That's totally unique, totally different, something new for the fall, in this case for me. And you know what does that fetch, what do you want to happen? So for each of these, I'm going to use my leadership program as an example.

Speaker 1: 3:06

And you know, for this one, you know I wrote down everything in my PE journal. I have a big old notebook with different sections and I just wrote for really a couple hours. I really inspired, and I'll tell you why in a little bit. For another, with another number here, why I was inspired or when I was inspired, and I just wrote for a couple hours, just brainstorming what I wanted to look like. And you know my class, I was really excited and I just kept writing and writing.

Speaker 1: 3:33

And then I identified the benefits of the student to the students and to my PE program. Right, the tangible items, their costs. In this case we're into wristbands which are like quote unquote martial arts belts and the way we track students progress. But then I took a hard look at it and I whatever and or pen, I don't know, whatever, and you know, take it with them to the, to their station and monitor progress. You know who was the hardest worker, who was participating, who was not. And to some degree we do that, the outliers. The outliers kind of stand out and we, you know, we, we, we monitor that and we deal with that as it comes up. But you know, I was thinking they could do that every day and I was like, well, that's a lot of work for my paras, a lot of extra work. It doesn't sound like a lot of extra work as we're talking about it, but you know, when you have three classes to sometimes four classes at a time and we're trying to monitor all these kids and what they're doing, and not just that, their skills as well, you know working on things right. So you know, I don't want them to have to chart too much data. I, because I need, and I also need them on board with my vision. Trust me, I right now I've two pretty good paras and you know I don't want to. I don't want to, like, overload them, overbear them and, you know, make them resentful or whatever. I just want to get them on board. So I want to.

Speaker 1: 5:04

I kind of scaled it down of my. You know my original idea, um, and then you know again, due to our class sizes, I just came up with a simpler idea and I think it's, you know, ready to unveil in the fall. So the goal for number one is to identify your fetch, have a plan and write it down. Number two is create your masterpiece now. Don't just copy what someone else is doing and I've talked about this recently on a podcast like yes, you want to steal ideas from places and then kind of tweak them and make them your own or, you know, just create something brand new.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Okay, in this case, what I did you're not gonna believe this, I am I stole ideas from a couple different sources here and combine them and made this leadership program, and the first idea came to me. The whole, the main idea, came to me from a, basically a failure. So I interviewed for a. It was actually after one of our field days. I hustled to a local fitness place for kids, basically, and I thought the interview went really well. Honestly, we were talking for a little bit and you know that's basically what I do every day, right? I mean, it's what we do. We inspire kids, we help them grow, help them learn, help them get more fit and active, and it's something I'm like well, this was perfect for me. And you know what I asked the lady interview me about. There's kind of there's a chart in the background about different levels and stuff. And I asked her about it and she said well, the members when I say members, I mean the kids can achieve different levels based on attendance, helpfulness, participation, all the good stuff, and they can monitor it with a sticker chart. And as they climb the ranks they can get more responsibilities, like being captains of a team, leading warmups and I guess more stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:49

I just didn't get all the details. I was just really excited. I'm like I can watch this program at their place and then maybe see what I, you know what we can do in PE and you know I was excited. I thought it'd be a good summer job and then they never called me back no-transcript school, so that's only for second graders. But so the current third graders have an idea of martial arts and you know how we implement it at PE. And also I've seen other people, other teachers, use a like a belt system with jump roping and hula hooping and stuff like that. So I'm like, well, wait a minute. I can combine leadership with martial arts and kids can move up the ladder as far as well the ranks, and I know some kids will hate it, some will love it, some will most will probably be in the middle, like it and want to be motivated by it. I hope so.

Speaker 1: 8:08

This is my potential masterpiece. I don't know, it might be great, it might be terrible. I think it's going to be great and I have that. It's just in my mind. I'm like I'm really excited about it. I've been thinking about it all summer and you know I'm excited to. You know, just the masterpiece by designing, creating, and I say, be bold and daring. And that is number two.

Speaker 1: 8:50

In his biography, a guy named Bud Tribble at Apple claimed that Steve Jobs created a reality stewardship field around his ideas. He basically said this is how Jobs would bend reality to convince his team that the idea would work, even though it seemed impossible. He would convince them that the idea would in fact work and that the budget would work and the time frame would work, and it was just something he had in him to convince people around him that he can make Fetch happen. Basically, there you go, so for the leadership program that I've already been mentioning. Obviously, I already talked to my classes about it.

Speaker 1: 9:21

At the end of the past school year I, just as we wrapped the school year up, I was just really excited about it. I'm like, okay, you know, I told the classes I don't know exactly how it's going to look, I don't know exactly what it's going to be, but it's going to be a leadership program with different levels and they seemed on board with it. A lot of them. They seem excited about it, especially the ones that are already, you know, my top notch leaders anyway, and it's a way to motivate to me, motivate students to go even higher with just being kind, showing good sportsmanship and also helping other students, like the little ones, like the kindergartners, and you know other students that need help in the morning. As far as my safety patrollers and even my field helpers, things like that, it's a way to reward and recognize greatness. So they're excited about it. And my paras I was worried about, honestly, but they seem excited about it too. Maybe not excited, but they're happy about it. They're willing to be on board with it because they know that there are kids that will jump on board with this and there might be better behavior next year. Right, I mean, that's the goal of this is to motivate and encourage students to shine.

Speaker 1: 10:27

So you need to do this with your fetch, like convince people around you, just like Steve Jobs. The idea will work, even if it sounds crazy. I've tried different craziness things in the past. I have crazy things in the past or ideas in the past that just did not work and things that people thought I was nuts. But even my shootball tournament like no one knew what that was. I had a vision for it and now it's an annual thing that everybody knows about and it's exciting. But share your vision and keep moving forward. Don't give up or give in. Just go for it.

Speaker 1: 10:57

And that is number three. All right, the final one is make it stick. That's number four. It's the final but most difficult step, and you know it's one of those things that if you're not consistent, it's not going to stick. Make it something that the students will care about. Your parents will care about, if you have them, your administration, the other teachers, people will care about. People will be motivated to do, will be motivated to do.

Speaker 1: 11:27

So you could do that by implementing themes. You know some people do like Star Wars or Avengers, toy Story, minecraft, roblox, fortnite it could be stranger things or something like a theme. You can have visuals like leaderboards, sticker charts, google Forms, team points, things like that. So mine is going to have tangible items which are wristbands, which are, you know, serve as the black belts or the belts, and the theme is martial arts and it's a gamification type system. Right, at least it's my how I feel about it. Right, they earn levels based on different things and I'm also going to help them co create it. Now, that's a big deal, a big step where you help them, kind of you give them input. Now, I'm going to take all their input, but I'm gonna take a lot of it and say, oh yeah, that's a great idea. And kids are smart, they have great ideas. Let them be helpers in creating this.

Speaker 1: 12:14

Whatever your program is, whatever your fetches, right From then, you have to be consistent. You can make changes if you need to tweak it. It's going to take time. Now, here's big thing for me. For my thing, this is like a three-year program and there's going to be some fourth and fifth graders are kind of like grandfathered in, because I want to start when they're third graders, as like, basically, no belt to white belt and then move on up. Every single, like so often, like maybe every half, you know half the year move up a belt, if I mean, if not, not everybody's going to move up a belt, not everybody's going to be black belts, trust me, it's like a pyramid. It's going to be a lot of no belts, white belts and you know the lower belts and very few higher belts. I mean, if it's easy, everybody can do it right.

Speaker 1: 12:58

But I want to give them a quick win. If students think it's going to take too long to earn anything, they're going to give up right away. So to me it's like a video game or Girl Scout badges or martial arts classes. You're going to get that first belt, that first reward soon and I feel like it's going to be by week two. I'm going to start giving out some white belts and you know I'm not just giving out to everybody the students. There are students that do not deserve even white belts right away, but there are a lot of students, most students do. The students I know that have done well in the past. They will all start with white belts and you got to give them that quick win because if not it's not going to stick. They need something tangible right away. The belts will take longer to get.

Speaker 1: 13:46

Again, black belt is to me is a fifth grade thing and I'm talking about like middle of fifth grade year. I'm not. I'm gonna start some of my fifth graders out a little higher and even fourth graders out a little higher, but nobody's gonna get a black belt before like middle of fifth grade probably. So the point is to start small, give quick wins, keep students interested and motivated and build that momentum to make it stick. So I will let you know if my fetch happens in my school year with my program, because I don't know what's going to happen yet, but I'm excited about it and I'm not going to do a cobbled tip of the day. That is it right there. Just make a fetch happen at your school. Get something going that you want to create and make it happen. Make fetch happen and that is it for the day.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Pe Nation. Thank you for tuning in. You guys and girls are awesome, as always. Go to supersizefizadcom for more information and to check out the article on this I'll put in the show notes, as well as a lot of free things and some other things in the show notes that you can click on Again. Go to my website or sub stack to uh, join the, join the club. Let's go pe nation, take care, have a great day, week, weekend, summer, whenever you listen to this, and let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.