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Rain fails to stop Whispering Palms PE
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Posted on Sep 23 2004
With all of the rain that has been falling on Saipan the past few days, the prospect of participating in the world of outdoor sports has become somewhat more difficult than usual.
Teacher Jeff Race of the Physical Education program at Whispering Palms Elementary School has found a way to teach the children around Mother Nature’s schedule, and have a little fun along the way as well.
Yesterday afternoon, Race and his squad of youngsters made the trip from Navy Hill to the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium in Oleai to learn a bit about the sport of volleyball.
“It’s nice to play here during this time. Today it’s raining so we’re in here, but on a regular day we’re out in the sun, it’s fairly cool, and we can get our PE done,” said Race.
While the school doesn’t have a gymnasium on campus, Race said that they are able to provide periods of instruction on their multi-purpose court at the school, to go along with an agreement with the DCCA to use the Ada gym.
So often has the class of aspiring volleyballers used the facility that Race needs only a minimal amount of time to assemble the nets and poles at the beginning of the session.
“I’ve got it down to a science now, it only takes me three minutes to set it up,” said Race.
As for the actual volleyball action itself, the children at times seemed more interested in playing the game than learning the rules, or figuring out whose turn it was to serve next.
“We were working on our volleyball skills at the school while we couldn’t come down here. Just now, on some points, it’s starting to look like volleyball a little bit. We worked on setting skills and things like that, but when you get into the pressure of a game, everybody just wants to get the ball over the net. So we’ll be taking it to the next level with the bump, set, spike skills, but we’re just not at that stage yet,” Race said.
Whether or not the children enjoyed the experience could be summed up by Audrey Motto’s three words, “It was fun.”
