TEACHER'S CORNER: GYM TEACHER RUNS STUDENTS THROUGH DRILLS OF LIFE

JACKSON -- You never know what to expect when visiting a physical education class taught by coach Eric Venable at Orchard Drive Elementary School in Jackson.

You might walk in on a class that is experiencing cooperative group activities employing the use of a push ball larger than the students themselves or a parachute that takes up more than half of the gym's floor space. Choose a different day and you might see young students learning the names of body parts during an intense game of "Simon Says." Yet another day might find students working on their running technique or physical fitness as they travel a circuit of exercise stations.

Venable tries to provide experiences for his students that show them what's right for each student individually and what's right for students in a group who are working toward a positive goal. The experiences are performed to teach students how to live in society, he said.

"Some skills need to be applied in group settings or small teams so that if an individual doesn't fill his role and apply what he has learned the entire activity comes to a screeching halt or at a minimum becomes less effective," said the 14-year teaching veteran. "It sounds a lot like society, doesn't it?"

Venable, whose wife, Martha, also teaches in the Jackson School District, said he enjoys seeing the "little light go on" in the heads of first-graders during the school year. They become aware of their own age and the age of others and usually get up the nerve to ask their teachers how old they are in front of classmates.

In my first few years here at Jackson I would get them to laugh by telling them I was 96 or 97, but they're not laughing anymore," he said.

Venable comes from a long line of teachers. His grandmother and mother were both teachers, and his father made his father do two things: Do right, and respect his mother.

"How could a kid have it any better? It was simple, honest, straight-ahead child-rearing," he said. "Add to that a host of fine teachers and good teaching coaches at Jackson schools and Southeast Missouri State University, and all I had to do was follow a path of many I respected and admired."