MULTIPLE SPORTS: I was a tri-athlete in high school and now I am going to be a physical educator and my thought is that in season, some schools treat practice as your physical education time. Do you think this is fair for the other students? I know my coaches in high school did not want our team to participate in phys. ed. class during game days. What are your thoughts on this coaches/soon to be coaches? Please share in the forum.   CUTTING PLAYERS ELEMENTARY/MIDDLE SCHOOL: When coaching, do you think it is appropriate to cut players at the elementary/middle school level in any sports? Please share in the forum. SWIM TEAM WORKOUTS: I just recently became in charge of helping coach a swim team, and this will be my first coaching experience so I don't have much to go on. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on good workouts for the team to do, or if splitting the team up to do workouts is a good idea. Also any ideas on warming the swimmers up would be really helpful too. Also, the team has younger children up to high school level, so should the practices be the same or different. Thanks for any suggestions! Please share in the forum. DRESS CODE FOR PRACTICE: I believe if you look good and you feel you, you play good. Does this only apply to game day situations? I was thinking about implementing a dress code for practice. Our colors are maroon and white with alot of gray and black. Maybe having our team wear one of those colored tee shirts with black shorts or pants for high school softball practice. Maybe just to have a little bit more stucture. This will also stop some girls from wearing low cut or very tight fitting clothing to practice if a dress code is put in place. What are your thoughts? Please share in the forum.   MUSIC DURING PRACTICE: Music can be both a positive and negative factor during a sports practice. I have noticed growing up as an athlete that music in the background during a practice often times actually helped keep me focused on the task at hand; especially if the music was upbeat, it kept my work ethic at a higher rate. At the same time now being a coach I have noticed it does distract some athletes, and can take their attention from the coaches. What have been your experience both as an athlete or a coach having music being played during practice? Have you always had music during practices? Have you never experienced it, and if so what's your outlook? Please share in the forum.   BRAIN BREAKS: The human brain has on average a ten minute attention span. With classes ranging from 35-50 minutes per class, a lot of time is spent teaching but not remembering. Brain breaks are becoming more and more popular among teachers no matter what the subject may be. If anyone has any good brain breaks that they use or have heard about please feel free share them! By promoting PA in other subjects we are promoting everything that P.E. stands for. Please share in the forum.   LESSON PLANS: So I know that yes, it is required of us in college to learn how to write these long lesson plans. But they seem extremely unnecessary. Ten pages, what principal wants to read all of that. What are lesson plans like in phys ed when you are actually a teacher? I feel like it is a waist of time and will just get in the way of a good teaching. Please share in the forum.   WORKING ON NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: I am student PE teacher. For one of my classes I am currently working with a student who has little or no verbal communication skills and is at the higher end of the Autism Spectrum. The classes are based in a pool setting, and I have tried some different methods of working on their communication skill such as getting them to point at which color kick board they would like to use or which toy they would like to play with. Would love to hear from anyone who would have experience in this area and could give me some advise. Please share in the forum.   GAINING TRUST OF A HESITANT TEEN: I work with a 14 year old once a week in an aquatic setting. Each week, a new group teaches a lesson. I've been working with him for about 4 weeks now and every time we get in the water he will not communicate with me and will just stand in the pool with his arms crossed, giving no sign that he is willing to participate. I recently found out that he is known to be deathly afraid of the water, so the fact that he is getting in the water with me at all is fantastic.. My only issue is that, meeting with him once a week isn't exactly giving him the time to become comfortable enough to trust me. We aren't moving from the shallow end, but it would be nice to get any opinions on how to get him to participate because he is a very capable young man. Please share in the forum.