Tuesday 11 December 2018

Meet an Athlete Virtually


A couple of weeks ago, a class of G5 learners was very lucky to interview Pablo Sotoca, a Track and Field Athlete, specialized in the high jump.

As we were doing an Individual Pursuits Unit, Athletics, I thought it would be a good idea to learn more from an athlete.

Pablo Sotoca, @pablosotoca, is a Spanish athlete based in Madrid. He has taken part in a number of competitions in Spain and moved to the Canary Islands for a few years to join a team and compete there. Now he is back with his team in Madrid.

During our unit, students had the opportunity to work with a partner, give a go to different track and field events and eventually choose one they wanted to get better at, master it and teach their partner.

I teach PYP PE, inquiry-based learning and at the beginning of the unit, students wrote down their wonders about the unit on a sticky note.

After that, students started to practice different events and shared their wonders and their thoughts on SeeSaw, an online platform that builds a portfolio and where learning can be shared immediately with parents.







During the unit, students had opportunities to investigate and find out more, create new knowledge and discuss with each other. They had access to a series of athletics videos that they could watch to improve their understanding and knowledge about the different events.

As these young athletes practiced high jump some questions and wonders raised so we put them together to build an interview for Pablo.











Below you can see the questions we jotted down for Pablo:

  • What did you do to become an athlete?
  • Why did you want to be an athlete?
  • What inspired you to do the high jump?
  • Did you have a hard time when training?
  • What is your record?
  • How long have you been doing this?
  • How are you able to jump so high?
  • How old were you when you started?
  • How much time did you need to train to become professional?
  • Which athlete do you look up to?
The interview was in Spanish as Pablo preferred to share his knowledge in his mother tongue so I was translating back and forth for students to understand but it worked well. I have to say that we were very thankful for Pablo to meet us at our PE time, 7:30am in Cambodia, 1:30am in Spain on a Tuesday morning.
He told us that he got his inspiration from his PE teacher, who was also a high jump athlete. 
One of the things I really liked from the interview is that he told students that Track and Field is a sport where everyone can find something they like. If you are fast, you might like to compete on sprints, if you are strong, you might choose shot put, if you are agile and have power, you might opt for high jump and so on, there is always space for anyone to join and give it a try, and I think that’s beautiful.



Pablo brought some trophies, and some other items such as his favorite shoes that were signed by popular athletes, his first bib, and a small sculpture showing the Fosbury.
He also told learners that while competing, high jump athletes are a real example of sportsmanship, they always respect and support each other. Here you can watch him jumping 1.90m. 

Click on the link to watch a video of Dick Fosbury surprising the world and revolutionizing the jump with his "Fosbury Flop" at the Olympic Games Mexico City 1968.















After the interview, our students got excited and kept practicing to improve their high jump skills.



Thanks, Pablo for taking the time to talk to our students, share a bit of what you do from the other side of the world and inspire them!







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