Before this year started, I thought I was going to only be teaching one class, and would have plenty of free time to be working on tons of other projects. I wanted to do tutoring, and run an English corner, but the main thing that I wanted to do was start a girls' soccer team. Sadly, I haven't had time (or energy....mostly energy) to start it, but I've started occasionally taking my students out when they've been good to play soccer, and it's been awesome.
I haven't actually been trying to teach them how to be good at soccer, I just want to give them a chance to run around and play. As of now, the instructions I have given:
1. Don't use your hands. (Some of the boys have added to this: if you use your hands, you have to drop down and do push-ups.)
2. Try to use the inside of your foot when you're kicking it.
3. Kick it between the cones.
It works out surprisingly well. I let them divide up into groups, and play. It's a madhouse, but everyone has fun, and trying to organize 55 kids and teach them to actually play soccer and run drills by myself just sounds like a nightmare.
Anyways, they've been playing soccer, and it's been great to see everyone running around, especially some of the girls who just haven't had a chance to compete and are getting really into it. Getting called over to a 6v6 little game because one of the girls was so proud of getting a goal by kicking it through another girl's legs is definitely one of the happiest memories I'm going to leave here with. I've taken a few pictures, but none of them turned out very well, so I'll try again and upload them later.
(I'll also try and update this blog around once a week between now and the end of the year. I've been doing applications for next year, programming prep work, and prep work for summer institute (I'll be an instructor for next year's fellows) and I've been a little overwhelmed, but I'm getting back on top of things.)
