Warrior Wellness: Willowbrook Physical Education Department reflects on first-semester successes, highlights future initiatives

Welcome to second semester of the 2018-19 school year, and I wish you all a happy new year!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and the start of a new semester finds you ready to make 2019 a better, healthier year for you and your family. Before we jump into the new and leave first semester in the past, I would like to share and reflect on successes that took place from August to December.

In the Physical Education Department, our students work daily on improving their physical fitness levels and making themselves physically, mentally and socially healthier. We combine physical activity and technology with relevant cognitive work. We also add cooperative education and teambuilding activities to help students become more comfortable with their classmates, as well as themselves.

Top left: At Willowbrook, the Physical Education Department strives to combine physical activity and technology with relevant cognitive work. As part of that focus, students use Myzone MZ-3 devices, which record their data and assign a point value to their effort level (as pictured above). Top right: Willowbrook students participate in a fitness game during a physical education class. They're playing a team flag-grab game similar to Capture the Flag, where the goal is to catch and freeze opponents by grabbing their flag. However, in this version, students also can re-enter the game by having a teammate bring them another flag. Bottom: Willowbrook students participate in a team building game known as "Cross the Swamp," where they have to work together to cross the gym (swamp) using limited stepping stones.

In the classroom, we look to grow student learning and improve students’ knowledge and understanding in the areas of human body systems, nutrition, preventable diseases and how to avoid them, how to personally assess your fitness levels and how to correctly prepare a fitness plan to address any weaknesses it might contain. Moving into the future, we look to include more work on helping students understand the importance of lifestyle (sleep, stress, exercise, etc.) and the effect it has on emotional health.

As we move into this next semester, we (the Physical Education Department) would like to thank all of the students who do their very best every day with us. I want to thank not only the fittest of the fittest, who have earned high levels of personal fitness, but also those who might not achieve the top 10 in fitness test scores, but work their hardest in and out of class to continue to grow and become healthier. We also want to thank all of the family members who guide the students and help them with their fitness goals. High school can be a tough time for students and their loved ones, and it means a lot to have your support.

Here’s to a healthy and successful semester, and thanks for reading!

With Warrior Pride,
Michael Haussmann
Willowbrook Physical Education, Health and Driver Education Department Head

• The Warrior Wellness column provides an inside look into the physical education, health and driver education classes at Willowbrook. This feature will highlight what students are working on in the classroom, as well as student successes in those departments. The column will run in the District 88 Newsletter on the first Friday of each month during the school year (second Friday in January).