Dekeon's physical education page: Teaching Poems

*Can you believe it?*	Thomas Edison Was told he was stupid by a teacher
Albert Einstein Couldn't speak until the age of four	Winston Churchill Failed the sixth grade and had to repeat it because he did not complete the tests that were required for advancement
Isaac Newton Did so poorly in grade school that he was considered to be"umpromising"	Walt Disney Was fired by an editor because he was told he was"unimaginative" and had no new ideas.

    Thoughts in verse

Lessons learned in pe class
Are values that through life will last
Dress to play, and know the rules
Mind your manners. Keep your cool.

Good behavior earns the right
To share the fun. Try as you might
You'll never win by cheating here.
The winners come from far and near.
They make good friends and get along.
They put things back where they belong.

There's warming up, and stretching out,
And scoring less without a pout.
Always, all ways, know the score.
And when you do, then practice MORE.

Start a game by shaking hands.
Play the very best you can.
Obey the rules and share the ball.
Show respect to one and all.

End a game by shaking hands.
Sportsmanship in life demands
You never gloat. You always care
How others feel when you are there.

- Gray Komich
A person may make mistakes,
but isn't a failure until he starts blaming someone else.
We must believe in ourselves, and
somewhere along the road of life...
we must meet someone who sees
greatness in us, expects it from us,
and let's us know it.
That is the golden key to success
There is love in their eyes

-Author Unknown

Attitude

By Charles Swindoll

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of
attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important
than facts. It is more important than the past,
than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other
people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness,
or skill. It will make or break a company...a
church...a home. The remarkable thing is that
we have a choice every day regarding the
attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot
change our past...we cannot change the fact that
people will act in a certain way. We cannot
change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string
we have and that is our attitude. I am convinced
that life is 10% what happens to me and 90%
how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in
charge of our attitudes.

Teacher Power

I have come to a frightning conclusion
I am the decisive element in the classroom
It is my personal approach that creates the climate
It is my daily mood that makes the weather
As a teacher I posses tremendous power to make
A child's life miserable or jealous
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal
In all situations it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated,
and a child humanized or
de-humanized

-Haim Ginott

Famous Quotations

The following are some inspirational quotes and poems that I ocassionally read to help keep me grounded and help me focus on those things that are most important.

"A teacher effects eternity. They can never tell where their influence ever stops."

- Henry Brooke Adams

"Nothing works unless you do"

- John Wooden

"A jug fills drop by drop"

- Buddha

"Sports do not develop character, they reveal it"

- John Wooden

" I think everyone should experience defeat once in theri career, you learn a lot from it"

- Lou Holtz

"Whether you think you can or think you can't. You're right!"

- Henry Ford

"The real wealth is health"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth"

- Henry David Thoreau

" It is easier to build strong children than broken men"

- Fredrick Douglas

"Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and still trying when you know you may lose."

- Anonymous

"He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who has never left"

"You're not as young as you used to be, but you're not as old as your going to be"

- Anonymous

“ I love it when someone says you can’t do something, because it makes you want to do it that much more."

– Michael Phelps

"Those who wander are not necessarily lost"

- Joseph Stine

" Every morning a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be moving."

- Maurice Greene

" A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right"

- Thomas Paine

"The trail is the thing not the end of the trail"

                                        -Louis L'Amour

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”

- Dr. Suess

" I have finally figured out that the main reason to be alive is to enjoy it"

- Rita Mae Brown

"In the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way."

- Booker T. Washington

"The only one that can really motivate you is YOU."

- Shaquille O'Neal

"How we spend our days is how we spend our lives"

                                    -Annie Jillard

"Sometimes you just have to take the leap and build your wings on the way down"

" The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the amount of effort."

- Unknown

" We do not quit playing because we grow old... we grow old because we quit playing."

- Anonymous

- Kobi Yamada