Advice from BF Net Teachers

[DHonks]

iHARTbrewCREW, I got a job in my first summer looking in Social Studies here in Arizona. At the time, my district posted about 6 Social Studies jobs at the last minute in July '07 and I got one of them. I had a number of other offers here, especially in early August. If you want to consider Arizona, be mindful of the early start date for school. For instance, I report to work next week Thursday.

[iHARTbrewCREW]

DHonks, I guess I was talking about more about the wisconsin area. Im not really up to date with my out of state teacher openings, but thanks for the info. I'm actually going for elementary education, so this doesnt really apply to me any way.

[UtilityInfielder]

Hey, I wanted to thank all the bf.net teachers who provided advice. I was able to get one more interview, used some of your suggestions and got the position. I'm the new social studies teacher at Granton Area High School. I've been asked to coach cross country (which I have no experience in) and maybe baseball in the spring. Any CC advice would be awesome. Now I just gotta get moved from Green Bay to Clark County before monday. Thanks again!!!

[BillScottCanRake]

Congratulations on finding your job! And good luck with your move this weekend.

 

When you coach cross country this fall, I suggest you tell the kids to run faster then the other kids. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

Seriously, good luck with the job and coaching.

[TooLiveBrew]

Congrats, UI!

[nodderman]

Congrats on the job. Is there anything that you tried differently than the other times? I always like to hear and learn about the interview process.

[UtilityInfielder]

This time I did more preparation. I answered about 75 practice interview questions which really helped me calm down for the interview. I also went to kinkos and got copies of my portfolio printed. I was able to give these to the interview team to keep. That's about it...oh, and agreeing to coach a sport I have never played or coached cuz they needed a coach or they'd have to cancel the season.

[Mike Felder]

Are you the head cross country coach? Or an assistant? I'm an assistant CC coach at the school I teach at...mostly I just go on the runs with the kids, encourage them, keep them positive, and help out the head coach with splits and race planning. It's pretty fun and there isn't really any prep work or anything like that. If you're the head coach, there's more to do...season planning, workout planning, etc. Is Grafton a combined program? Or are there separate boys and girls coaches? If there are, the other coach can probably help you get started and provide you with VDOT charts and whatnot to help you plan some things.

[sauveb]

I believe it was Granton, not Grafton. With the size that Granton is I am guessing he is the one and only Cross Country coach.

[UtilityInfielder]

Yeah, its Granton....I'm the only coach..haha. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

 

[DHonks]

I am starting to think I might have made a mistake. I work at a middle school and took a job with the local high school to coach girls' golf. Well, I figured in a rather wealthy area of Scottsdale with 2300 kids at the school, I'd have a decent team. It turns out that I have a mere 4 golfers, 2 of whom are awful. Beyond that, the different bell schedules are making communication a logistical nightmare as I can't easily call meetings.

[trwi7]

Any CC advice would be awesome.

From my personal experience in cross country (which is none) I would tell them when the race starts, run really fast, but not too fast that you get tired before the race is over, but fast enough where they keep the lead.

[Blancofan1]

I actually have a niece who will be in the Granton Education system very shortly. She is in Nasonville(sp.) right now and my brother and sister in law are planning on here going over to Granton. Not the most exciting area of the state, but if you are really interested in getting to know your students and impacting each of their lives in small class sizes, you are heading to the right kind of place. congrats!!!

[Mike Felder]

Sorry, I hadn't heard of Granton before, and being from the Milwaukee area, I just assumed it was Grafton. Here's a rough outline of a typical week for us in CC.

 

Monday - long day (50-60 min.)

Tuesday - 40 min. or so, situps or pushups afterwards

Wednesday - workout - 800 or 1000m repeats at race pace

Thursday - recovery - 30-40 min. easy, situps or pushups afterwards

Friday - recovery / pre-race - 20-30 minutes easy

Saturday - race

Sunday - off

 

Obviously, things change if you have a meet during the week, and workouts get scaled back a bit as you get into October and the championship part of the season (conference and sectional/state meets), but this is a pretty good template. You can mix things up too...sometimes instead of just running, we'd run two miles to a park and play ultimate frisbee there for awhile, that gives you a pretty good workout. A few times, we put people in groups of 4, got disposable cameras, and gave everybody a list of 10 random objects they had to get a picture of sometime on their run, like a picture scavenger hunt. Sometimes we'd go on real scavenger hunts, although that was usually on our own, and not necessarily with the coach's knowledge. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Little things like that help break up the routing sometimes and are fun. Anyway, good luck! If you get a chance, let me/us know how you're doing.

[wallus]

The real question is this: how do you punish Cross Country runners? Make them run more? Thankfully I am starting to coach sports where the threat of running will work! (High School Basketball and Baseball)

[dadofandrew]

My old roomie coached CC, they ran, a lot. They'd do 3 miles, then 5, then 3, then take a day and work on sprints and such.

[PlayerHader]

The real question is this: how do you punish Cross Country runners? Make them run more? Thankfully I am starting to coach sports where the threat of running will work! (High School Basketball and Baseball)

Anyone who chooses to run CC is already punishing themselves. Discipline would definitely be tricky. Make them work their abs until they puke!

[Mike Felder]

The real question is this: how do you punish Cross Country runners? Make them run more? Thankfully I am starting to coach sports where the threat of running will work! (High School Basketball and Baseball)

I coach basketball as well, and there's a big difference between the sports. In general, I've found cross country runners to be a harder working bunch who don't need to be "punished" very often, if at all. There are also natural consequences for not doing what you're supposed to in CC. If you fall off on a run, you have to run by yourself, which sucks. If you're lazy in practice, you're going to suck at meets. I think in general, there's more of a sense of team and community in CC, and if you are lazy or a jerk or whatever, you're usually not part of it. Things kind of take care of themselves that way most of the time.

 

Of course, if you have to, you can always add repeats during a hard workout. Everybody tires out eventually.

[Jimbo]

The real question is this: how do you punish Cross Country runners? Make them run more?

Push-ups. I did a few back in the day.