Day 8: Finding your tribe

I don’t really watch sport on TV. I’m not sure why this is, I will watch it with a fleeting interest but I am not aware of key players or significance of matches. This revelation can come as a shock for other PE people or coaches I work with or new acquaintances who make assumptions about my sports-watching habits.

When I go to PE conferences, I can find it challenging to find my tribe. As an introvert who has a hardness of hearing; a lack of team sport skills (compared to some of the amazing athletes/colleagues/friends); a passion about pedagogy over sports units and someone who doesn’t drink but would much rather get up early to run with another keen runner… it can be hard to find my tribe.

But I am increasingly finding more amazing members to my tribe. There seems to be a shift in the tide of PE teachers who go to conferences for the drinking and activity-grabbing and I am really loving feeling more connected to the people I am meeting and learning with. I am excited to keynote my own PE experiences as a teenage student and undergraduate (which range from harmful to inspiring) and to find out how others came to be where they are – the tribe is growing full of so many different pathways, passions, focus areas with more visision to Do No Harm and to promote lifelong movement.

I hope you’ll come join us. And stand up to those who aren’t yet on board and invite them along too.