Sub Ubi

3 ¹/₂ hours on the court yesterday. Most all of me is sore.

It felt good, but I’m sore. The most annoying thing right now is that I have been introduced

to a proper swing–I have not drilled this, but I know what I should be doing.

Knowing in your mind is very different than knowing with your body (Note to self:

similar sentiment lies at heart of using manipulatives in the classroom), and as a result

I spent more time early in the evening aggrivated myself while trying to swing “correctly” (and missing) than just playing

my game.

Once I managed to flush notions of a “correct” swing from my mind, and went back to my normal

hack play, I played quite well for the rest of the evening.

I think there is a lesson in the design process here as well. Students will write hack code

before they’ll plan one line of it if the net result is they don’t have to flex any mental muscles or

relearn any old, bad habits. While I want to become a better raquetball player, my students

are not necessarily striving to become better programmers–they just want to learn language

X. Or get an A. Or more likely, get their homework done so they can go play video games/go drinking with their friends/watch TV/do whatever they do for fun.

Argh. What an evil circle. The question is, how do you consistently motivate students to excellence?