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Pam Haffely, Deerfield
4/9/2009 12:34:00 PM
Pam Haffely was working up a sweat while taking a fitness class near her home when it hit her: Why weren’t her students doing this?
Haffely, a physical education teacher in Deerfield, had been organizing basketball sessions and racquetball games for years in gym class. It was time for a change, she thought, from rackets to barbells, from nets to benches.
Haffely, who studied physical education and joined intramural sports teams at UW-La Crosse, says she wanted to bring the weight room, yoga and treadmills into her gym class for students who probably wouldn’t continue sports that typically dominate gym class, such as floor hockey, after they graduate.
“I wanted to give them a taste of something they’ll face after high school,” Haffely says.
So Haffely designed “The Challenge,” a summer test run of a fitness class for students. Run in the boot-camp style of modern fitness classes, it incorporated lunges and crunches for 10 students. When school started up again, Haffely posted a sign-up sheet for a new gym class, hoping to attract some kids disinterested in traditional gym activities.
“If I got 15 kids to sign up, I’d be thrilled,” Haffely remembers thinking. “All of a sudden the guidance counselor told me I had 88 kids. I was floored.”
The list of students keen on the idea was so great a wait list had to be implemented.
“Kids were so hungry and so ready for something different in physical education,” Haffely says.
Haffely runs the class just like the ones taught at private facilities. She brings in an expert to do body fat analyses of students (81 percent improved in the initial class). Participating students now get excited at the prospect of everyday abdominal crunches and one-weekly yoga sessions.
“I’ve never had someone say before ‘What are we doing in gym today?’” Haffely says. But that’s just what happened recently, just before a Tuesday lower-body workout class in which two dozen high school students worked their hamstring, glute and oblique muscles following Haffely’s instruction.
Haffely leads the class in their daily workouts, going through the exercises with the students. She also encourages them along the way, even singing along to songs pumped from a boombox.
“I know it hurts – it hurts me,” she tells students during a recent workout. “But you’ll thank me in June.”
Haffely says her “Total Body Challenge” class has exceeded her expectations. The class has recruited a cross-section of students, from three-sport athletes to those who don’t exercise regularly, if at all.
“The class removes barriers of age, gender and physical background,” Haffely says. “I don’t think of it as a class only the jocks take.”
Haffely has approval from school officials to start “Total Body Challenge 2,” for students who want to continue the class next year and progress in the exercises. She’s also applied for a grant for elliptical trainers and treadmills, to further her idea of modernizing the school physical education curriculum.
Haffely says the class fits in with her desire to have an impact on students’ overall health and wellness and it introduces them to lifelong physical activities.
“It’s everything I hoped it would be,” she says.
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