Rock Climbing for a Class

First all, make sure you check out our webchat for prospective students where you'll get to ask questions of current students (I'll be there to answer questions along with the other GA's from the admissions office).  First Web Chat is Tuesday October 4 from 7:30 to 9pm.  Please RSVP by clicking here: Web Chat Link.

For my Foundations of Practices of Teaching and Learning class, we have to learn how to do something this semester and blog about it.  The "Learning Blog" that we're going to write will comprise the majority of our grade for the semester.  We picked what we were going to learn during the first week.  I chose that I was going to learn how to rock climb (other people chose learning how to make soap, bake bread, do yoga, run a 5K etc).  Throughout the course of the semester I'll be writing about my experiences learning something new, in the context of the theories I'm learning in class (how's that for practical application).  Being glib about it, I get to say that I'm going rock climbing once a week for a class.

It's actually a really neat idea.  We can talk theoretically all day about how people learn and what the most effective way to learn is, but this is actually putting it to use.  In keeping a weekly blog about it (on Blackboard which is the online site for the course), we get to not only explore the readings, but actually apply them to our own learning.  For example, this week I'll go climbing, take an introductory lesson at a climbing gym, and then write about how my learning process incorporated Piaget or Skinner. 

I went down to Go Vertical, a climbing gym at Delaware Ave and Spring Garden (between Old City and the Stadium Complex).  The gym was hopping.  People were super friendly and seemed like they were having a blast.  Only one other person signed up for this class (though her friend who had convinced her to take it after she herself had taken the class earlier in the week tagged along).  During my first session I got worked by the instructor, Lex.  He began by teaching us how to rope in, explained the climbing lingo (how to interpret the scale climbers use to evaluate difficulty), and then we got to climbing.  For our first climb, he said, just pretend it's a ladder, and get at it.  So I got to climb, explore what worked best to get me up that first wall.  Throughout the course of the evening, as we climbed, he gave pointers on how to improve our form, but mostly let us do our own thing, trying to explore what worked for us.  I'll probably write in my learning blog about how it applies to the Piagetian notion of creating schema based on our own experiences, but I need to do a little bit of reflecting before I tackle that one.  Needless to say, its an assignment that I'm pretty stoked about. 

Playing Sports in Philadelphia

This week I'm going to take the time to blog about my experiences playing softball and soccer in the various Philadelphia Sports leagues.  There are so many opportunities to get involved in different athletic events.  During my first year of medical school we experimented with the Penn Intramural leagues.  My medical school classmates and I decided we'd give these a try.  We formed a softball team, two different flag football teams (one all men and one coed), and a softball team.  We had a blast doing it.  In softball we, unfortunately, lost to Wharton in the finals.  Our soccer team that season had some difficulty scoring and lost on penalty kicks in the finals as well.  We've since branched out (for scheduling reasons) to some of the social club leagues. 

Big Papillare: Out at Ten Stone after our Semi-Final Playoff Loss

Our ace on the hill striking out the competition

This semester I'll be participating in two leagues, one a softball league on Sunday evenings.  We'll be playing at the brand new Penn Park with Philadelphia Sports Network (PSN).  I'm captaining this particular team, so it's mostly comprised of my medical school classmates along with some of my new friends at GSE.  When we played last spring, it was one of the highlights of my week.  Our previous league was on Monday, and I couldn't wait each Monday to get out to the field, hang out, and play some softball.  It reminded me of my old days as a baseball player in high school.  I got to roam center field, tracking down fly balls, and take some cuts at the plate.  My largest complaint about the last time we played was there was a gigantic tree in right field that was an automatic ground rule double when you hit the ball into it (which as a left handed hitter really put a damper on where I could hit the ball).  Apparently the new Penn Park has outfield fences, so I'll be able to pretend I'm a left-handed Paul Konerko (yes, I'm a huge White Sox fan), trying to hit the ball out of the ball park.  Or emulating a young Ken Griffey Jr. leaping over the walls to take home runs away from the other team.  The league starts in two weeks, and I'll undoubtedly be writing about it in future blogs. 

Yours truly modelling my PSSC Soccer Shirt

The other league is on Monday nights, it's a 4v4 soccer league.  I'm interested to see how this league works, as I've never played organized 4v4 soccer.  The league is run by Philadelphia Sport and Social Club (PSSC).  I've done a few of their other leagues, 7v7 on the turf field out in Manayunk.   This one will be out in Conshohoken (west of the city near King of Prussia).  I'm also looking forward to this one.  For this team my girlfriend and I will be joining my roommate and some of his classmates from Wharton.

Over the last three years while in medical school, I've found these leagues to be a blast.  It's a great way to get to meet people who are not at Penn, to branch out.  While both the teams I'm on are teams I've put together and entered in the league, in the past I've also done leagues where I've entered as an individual and been placed on a team with a bunch of random people.  It's also been a great experience and an awesome way to meet new people.