By Bird Bouchard
For Sherbrooke native Marc-Andrée Fortin, “being a gym teacher is the best job in the world.”
While spending his days throwing, catching, dodging, running and teaching a variety of sports to his students is a dream job, Fortin said being a physical education teacher is a lot more than just play.
Being part of smaller schools where Fortin teaches at Pope Memorial Elementary School and Sawyerville Elementary School requires him to wear many hats. In addition to teaching the students about sports, Fortin said he also needs to pivot at times and set up the stage for school assemblies or other projects.
According to Fortin, he attributes planning to being the key to being a successful physical education teacher.
“It’s all in the planning, figuring out how I’m going to go through my instructions as fast and as clearly as possible, with as much visual as possible for the kids to be able to get into action,” said Fortin. “If you’re not flexible as a physical education teacher, you’re going to have a hard time.”
At the beginning of each class, Fortin opens his calendar with his students. He said he tries to be transparent so they can see the planning, the focus on the lesson for the day, how many more classes remain, among other things.
