Written by Rachel Gelven |
Photos by Rachel Gelven
Despite this year being the second year at the new Morgan, there are still changes in the Morgan community. One of the bittersweet changes that happened this year was with the health program.
Gym teacher Peter Gersz is known by most at Morgan as the fun-loving gym teacher who loves to play games from matball to football with his students. However, this year he has taken on a new role by stepping into a classroom and teaching one of the junior health classes.
Mr. Gersz feels that adding on teaching health classes to his daily schedule has not been as confusing as some would think. ¨I´ve always wanted to [teach Health]. I went to school for it because I was hoping in the future to get my foot in the door of the health room.¨
This new opportunity has also brought him some new excitement about teaching since he has been waiting to teach Health at Morgan. ¨Now that it´s taking place, I think it´s an exciting time for myself. I’m now able to come up with a lot of ideas and build a program, which I´ve been wanting to do for a while.¨
Mr. Gersz´s ideas have stemmed from new lesson plans to new ideas about how to make the class interesting for his students. ¨It´s only been a week, but one of the things that I feel is very important, since we’re talking about a lot of personal topics is the dynamic that I have with my class since I have a lot of different personalities and backgrounds.¨
He has come up with many ideas, although one of his main ways to make the class more interesting involves the entire class.¨ One of the things I like to do with my class is have a group discussion so that everybody gets a different perspective from all the different points of view.¨
Mr. Gersz has also had to come up with ways to mediate these discussions since health includes some touchy topics in its curriculum. ¨My job is to orchestrate [the discuissions] and also to fill in with the data and subject matter that the discussion pertains to. This allows me to get a lot of the information out, keep everybody on track, but allow people to expand on different ideas and different perspectives.¨
Many juniors have expressed their interest in this class even though they have not experienced Health with Mr. Redes, which seems to be a good sign for the direction that the new health program is heading in.
Pierson Physical Education teacher Ryan Jalbert also joined the staff of Morgan to teach Health, making it his first year at Morgan. Mr. Jalbert is teaching Health periods F and G, while Mr. Gersz is teaching Health period E, along with his other physical education classes throughout the day.
Juniors Angela Recine and Kitty Shortt have Mr. Jalbert for Health. Angela thinks that he ¨makes sure we are prepared for quizzes and has taught us about the six domains of health and the triangle of like needs.¨ Anyone who has not taken Health should know that the health teachers are doing well at keeping their students prepared. Kitty also says that the health teachers seem to be planning some team building activities which would be effective de-stressors for students!
Although Mr. Redes is greatly missed, the future of the new health program is looking bright with two new teachers to teach juniors now and for many years to come.