Physical educator wins 'Jump Rope for Heart' grant

MAT-SU — Standing in a gymnasium with about 100 second-grade students jumping rope seven different ways may sound dangerous to some, but for Goose Bay Elementary School physical education teacher Nancy Blake, it sounds like success.

“Anything you can do to get kids moving more and feeling successful is a win,” she said.

For American Heart Month, schools all over the country have been invited to participate in the American Heart Association’s “Jump Rope for Heart,” “Hoops for Heart” and “Red Out for Heart” events during the month of February every year. The idea is to promote physical education and increase knowledge about heart disease and strokes, with the option of fundraising for cardiovascular research and health education on a national level.

In conjunction with the program, SHAPE America — the Society of Health and Physical Educators — offers 13 $2,500 grants for which physical and health educators involved in Jump Rope or Hoops for Heart can apply. Recipients are selected based on “their passion and commitment for physical education and the JRFH/HFH program,” according to a SHAPE press release issued Feb. 3.

About half the grant money goes toward each teacher’s trip to Seattle for the SHAPE America National Convention and Expo March 17-21, where they will be able to learn about programs and products to enhance their students’ education as well as their own, according to shapeamerica.org. It’s up to the teacher to decide how to use the other half in their school.

Two of the 13 grants will be awarded to Alaska teachers at the expo, Blake said — Anchorage School District’s Nikki Whittemore, and herself.

“Nancy helped me gather information on the state of PE in Alaska as well as identify some key players to expand Jump Rope For Heart in her district. She updated me on what our current physical education standards were and how different pieces of the curriculum could best incorporate JRFH,” said Sunni Danielowski, Youth Market Director for the American Heart Association in Alaska, in the release.

Danielowski said in an email that the Mat-Su Borough School District “has the highest participation (of) any district” in Alaska, with 20 schools involved in the program:

American Charter Academy; Colony High School; Cottonwood Creek, Goose Bay, Iditarod, Machetanz, Meadow Lakes, Pioneer Peak, Sherrod, Snowshoe, Swanson, Sutton, Willow, Talkeetna and Trapper Creek Elementary Schools; Fronteras Spanish Immersion Charter School; Houston Middle School; Mat-Su Career and Technical High School; and Palmer Junior Middle and High Schools.

At Goose Bay, Blake said there are three things that her students have learned that Jump Rope for Heart “reinforces”:

“They want to make sure they never, ever, ever, ever, ever smoke, number one. Number two, they want to make sure that they move everyday,” she said. “The third thing is… to eat lots of fruits and vegetables.”

While these principles may seem simple, even cliché, putting them into practice is about more than mere adherence to arbitrary rules.

“(Jump Rope for Heart) gives them something to achieve,” Blake said. “We’ve had kids come in during recess to practice their jump rope skills.”

The event also teaches students how to receive feedback and improve those skills — or any other, for that matter — as they were required, at Goose Bay, to have a “jumping judge” check off each skill on a task card.

“I think that’s the magical part for me,” Blake said. “Where else can you have that where there’s somebody watching you, what you’ve done, what you’ve achieved? It’s kind of cool.”

For more information on the American Heart Association and its programs, visit heart.org.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com