Teaching and Coaching

Why events?

2012-02-01T07:19:00.000-08:00

When Dustin Booth asked me to do a triathlon with him in 2007, there were exactly four multisport events within 100 miles - the Spring Fling, Millerton Triathlon, Shaver Lake Triathlon, and Sierra Kids Triathlon. 5 years later, and there are a multitude: those four events plus the ViTri, Tri-This's Hensley Offroad Duathlon, Splash and Dash, Fig Kids Tri, Pinnacle Cyclocross Duathlon, Tulare Triathlon, Hanford Duathlon, China Peak Triathlon, and Bass Lake Triathlon. In terms of Triathlon Clubs in Fresno, the Sierra Multisport club went away but a stronger TC3 has emerged in recent years, along with the Visalia Triathlon Club, several new Cycling-only clubs, ICAN, Fig Kids Triathlon Club, Pinnacle Youth Triathlon team, and tri-this alone has brought more than 50 youth into the experience, most who are continuing their pursuits of fitness after they graduate high school (we have 8 youth currently who graduated high school but are still either borrowing a tri this bike or Tri-This helped them build their own...).

For myself and Tri-This, we host events partly to support the non-profit financially - overhead costs alone are about $500 a year and last year on bike parts alone we spent $3,000 in 2011 to keep the bikes as safe as possible for our population (thanks to bike shops generosity, they donated about $600). In the first two years of Tri-This, we had about 25 kids solidly involved - 15 of those students had at least one parent who had a job or even both parents. In the last two years, Tri This has had about 35 new students who in contrast, had 25 (71%) whose parents/parent did not have jobs or only one parent involved in their lives, and were entirely dependent on government assistance.

So as the needs go up, Tri-This has done more fundraising (hosting events seems like the most logical way, easier than asking for donations and more reliable than receiving grants) because we believe that income shouldn't be a barrier to a healthy, active lifestyle. By hosting our own events, we can let our kids race those events for free, give back to the community that has given us SO much, and in the words of one kid who camped with us all three weekends last year at the Hensley Offroad Series - "Hensley was the most fun I've had since my dad died four years ago - thanks." It's quotes that like that which motivate me to keep convincing kids to come out for practice, for the camping, for the community - and to Try This!

tri-this.org

trithisevents.com

The Big Picture

2011-12-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Since it started in 2007 with a few kids, the goal of giving all kids the multisport lifestyle is getting closer!

Now at a middle school and a dedicated donor and volunteer base, Tri-This is poised to reach even more kids directly in 2012 than ever before.

The goal would be for any kid to be able to say, "I'd like to go mountain biking this weekend," or "road biking" or "trail running" and check the tri-this calender and connect with a leader taking kids out there that weekend... or maybe they just go camping with their friends one weekend and end up getting hooked with being outdoors.

To that end, we went more facebook-friendly this year and update a google calendar at fresnomtb.org and tri-this.org

We also made cards to give to all the bike shops talking about our events and about our donation program. We don't just give the kids bikes, we make sure they can do basic fixes, and as kids proress in the program they can do more complicated repairs and upgrades. If a kid knows how to replace a Fork, change out handlebars with confidence and install a new chain, I'd say they're doing better than a lot of regular adult cyclists!

Through low-cost and high quality events over a diverse spread of disciplines, we can partner with other groups looking to get kids outdoors. (ICAN, Fig Garden Tri, Central Valley Trips for Kids, etc.) our core focus remains helping kids from low-income areas get involved and then use the training and trips as incentive for mentoring and to help keep them successful.

It's going to be a great year, thanks for an amazing 2011!

Perceived Difficulty vs. Actual Difficulty

2011-10-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

In teaching as well as coaching, the main part of our job entails helping students achieve goals. These could be goals we gave them, goals they set for themselves, or goals that no one even intended to achieve.

When I give a test in class, I often will have given them a 'practice test' beforehand - an ungraded/collected by me summary of the types of questions I will give on the real test.

I usually make it much harder than the actual test - so there are MORE tricky plus/minus questions, places where simple mistakes can make. Then, they get to the performance assessment, and it feels easier.

The same goes with a race, except that I've found often no matter how hard you train, the race should still feel difficult! You don't pay money to slack off, right? However, the goal for training is to do more hills on the bike, faster sets on the swim, and more sprints on the run so that the actual race should FEEL easier than that you did in practice.

One of the best coaches and athletes in the Fresno area is Faron Reed. I was once at a talk he did for the Visalia Triathlon Club and he stated, "When I'm on the swim, I look forward to the bike. When I'm on the bike, I look forward to the run. And when I'm on the run, I enjoy my training to the finish line." This was inspirational to me because at the time, I was a good swimmer, enjoying running, but didn't have the time or fitness for the bike. As time has gone on, I've become a cyclist who can hold his own, still a good swimmer, and a struggling runner. But that mindset is inspiration while training to not hate the run, but make it something to look forward too!

Getting back into things

2011-06-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

For over five years I've had this blog and used to post to it fairly frequently. Recently I've decided to do so again. I'm starting my Masters in Education at Fresno Pacific University (also my alma mater), and a ton of the stuff - the Masters itself even - is online. It's made me really think about how I communicate online and how I hardly ever actually write online anymore! I need to get back in the practice of analyzing things in a public forum and be ready to respond to criticism, so I will start to update this blog about things that relate to teaching and coaching in a public education system!

Long overdue update

2010-03-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

It's Spring break here in Fresno, and that means Kids Tri Camp!

Pictures

It was a great week but I'm tired now!

My fave's:

quick update

2009-05-26T14:26:00.000-07:00

Counting some students that have turned in their paperwork and super discounted price ($10), registration is up to 50 and we anticipate about 60 athletes! Wow!

Shirts are ordered, swim caps are in... good times!

Posting elsewhere now...

2009-04-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

In an effort to better compartmentalize my life, I'll now be posting exclusively on Facebook for personal posts and http://trithisfresno.blogspot.com for Tri Team stuff... I mix the two too much anyway but this way at least I can 'build a following' for the tri team and not distract them (and keep them!) from my personal life a bit. Thanks for your support of the new location and FOCUS!

Great Kids Camp and first triathlon next weekend!

2009-04-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

By all accounts, it was a great three days at the first ever Kids Triathlon Camp in the central valley.

Pictures are here: http://www.kidstricamp.com

10 campers (two of them siblings of my students) participated in swimming, biking, and running. I personally learned that it wasn't that hard to put on a great camp chock-full of skills and fun because it's really just a combination of the past 7 years of my life... (I worked at a summer camp in 2002 and 2003 and have been teaching since 2005.)

My high school students were coaches for the week which was the best part. They did a great job disseminating knowledge and I really only did the main teaching for an hour or so a day - the rest of it was all my students teaching their cadre of kids! That's how it's supposed to work! Rock climbing in the afternoon was a lot of fun too and great to show the kids something different!

We are hoping to offer more camps (as a side profit thing for Tri-This!) this summer and next spring break for sure too. Possibly going to other locations throughout the state to help spur on development of more school-based programs.

This coming weekend is our first big triathlon - the Icebreaker Tri. Because I'm friends with Bill, the race director, he still has my picture from two years ago on there for the water portion. That was my first triathlon and I should have used a wetsuit! Won't make that same mistake next weekend... I'll be running tomorrow morning and probably the following week as well so I don't lose to my students this time around!

We'll also be volunteering at the local Millerton Triathlon on Saturday morning... should be a trip with about 7 kids (two relay teams and one individual) so fairly straightforward and more importantly, cheap... we're still waiting for the IRS to get back to us regarding 501c (3) so until then I'm keeping track of expenses and will get reimbursed!

Visalia Triathlon

2009-04-06T21:46:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to do any triathlons this year, but I couldn't resist the super sprint Visalia Tri this past weekend.

I was first out of the water, had some mechanical problems on the bike (my gear cables seemed to be malfunctioning and refused to... shift...) but still had fun and did ok, and the run was fine/i passed some people/got passed too.

http://onyourmarkevents.com/results.asp?id=2171

the name is Brandon Dorman, age group 25-29.

Awesome race, some kids came along too and we handed out flyers for the Splash and Dash, Kids Tri Camp and Kids Triathlon too. good times.

The Kids Tri Camp is going great this week; I'll post a full review when it's done on wednesday!

a poverty of expectations - countered

2009-03-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

A friend made on facebook came by to watch our swim meet the other day. He's a really cool guy and also grew up with a fellow McLane teacher and friend of mine (rhea).

Sometimes it just takes someone observing from the outside to help spur positive thinking. He commented how he was amazed that our kids struggle to get a 2.0, aren't motivated to... win... and often miss practice for strange excuses, don't have the money to get proper equipment (goggles, swim suits...), and don't really even have a basic knowledge of sports nutrition (not drinking water the day of a swim meet).

One thing I reminded him (and me) is that I really am struggling against a huge cultural change. I come from and expect to be able to demand a culture that has high standards for school, for COMMITMENT, for sport. I think that sure, they won't want to work hard in practice - that's my job to make them - but that they won't quit when I do push them. I am so proud of the current swim team who for the most part responds to this and tries to work in practice... but still, at meets the drive for competition just isn't quite there - Yet. That, and swimming/water polo/triathlons aren't exactly popular culturally in the populations that we serve - another Yet. :-)

It would be an understatement to say a defeatist attitude pervades many of our students.

I've always tried to use sports as a way to undercut that attitude and show the kids there is something more. We do that by enforcing rules like you miss three practices, you don't Letter. Miss the day before a meet, don't swim/play polo, etc. But low-income doesn't really refer to money, it refers to mindset.

I don't want to be a complainer any more (in just a minute). I don't want to enable my kids and make excuses for them or for myself. I just want to get in there and treat them the way they need to.

But before I get all happy, my top 5 things that bug me in students:

1) Drug use
2) the F word/sexual stuff
3) babies having babies
4) lack of motivation to do anything
5) sneakiness (Gabe^4)

when kids are cussing a bunch my heart just kinda sinks. plus i never cussed really ever until becoming a teacher and now something'll slip out every so often. just disappointing not so much because i'm actually cussing but because it means the negative slipped through my defenses. This swim season (and night school being done!) has been really great for me especially as I've been able to get back in the pool on my own and even getting back in shape.

This Friday night (the 27th) I took 11 kids out to the local park to go riding and running! Those that rode (we switched off bikes and running) did about 14 miles including some nice hills and they really enjoyed it. For all but 4 it was their first time running or riding with me. I wouldn't call them all triathletes but some of them were just kids in my class who surprised me by saying they wanted to come with us. So they drove themselves and ran. (note: COMBINED GPA of those three kids is about 2.0 right now... so getting them involved in anything is great!). Good times. Today and tomorrow I'll be frying myself in the sun as I hopefully complete lifeguard instructor training...

2009-03-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

http://picasaweb.google.com/trithisfresno/BikeRepairDay#

Taught bike fundamentals (hand signals, wear a helmet, don't wear baggy/'regular' pants) and how to fix a flat, align and adjust brakes, seats, and put chains back on/take tires off. very productive day. started with five non-working bikes, ended with five working and pumped up bikes! Also went on a little ride in a park which required a bit of a drive to get to but was fun.

I'm too tired to write more, as i also took the bikes out to Valley Teen Ranch today, a local group home i used to work at and the kids there LOVED the bikes. i took one kid out twice and he would have gone again but his parents came to visit for the afternoon.

it's great to see new kids and awesome attitudes coming together with great volunteers and solid, life-changing principles of academics and athleticism. This, is Tri Season!

cool thought

2009-03-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

a quote from a recent Masters swimming newsletter states that:

"We love sports, both as participants and spectators, often because, for an instant, they strip away the noise of life and put us face to face with ourselves. "

And I thought about how true this is for myself. I shun wetsuits because I feel like I'm removing my body's natural ability and supplanting it with something else. If I could do triathlons in just bike shorts (and shoes), i would. I guess nothing except modesty is stopping me. and getting sun burnt.

Tomorrow I am going to swim somehow, some way. And running in the afternoon with some kids!

Swimming and Tri Training!

2009-03-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

The swim team expanded last year 10 kids (winter sports ended and we got a few new kids.) to 25. In our six lane but only 4- lane-line pool (vandalism last year broke a lane line a week or so, until the cable itself snapped and thus we are missing it still with the budget freeze's.).

So with 4-5 kids to a lane that's doable, but considering all of our newbies it was getting pretty hectic and collisions were often. So the head Coach and I decided to (this week) create two practice times:
3:30-5pm
5pm-6:30

I'll coach the second part so I can do triathlon training from 3:45-5pm instead of the early morning stuff. For one, I hope to be able to maintain energy to go Masters Swimming in the mornings (I've been able to get up earlier and quicker now that I'm downgrading my daily caffeine intake!), and for another, on Friday I showed up at 6am and only one other kid did... not worth my time!

So next saturday is 'bike day' at the school from 10am-2pm with bike fitting, fixing and RIDING going on! I will be calling the IRS this week to check the status of our 501c(3) application. I am kinda tired of being in the hole $500 as I am currently from our activities and government fees. We need grant money!

It should be a great week!

swim season!

2009-02-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

Swim Season is once again upon us in Fresno Unified. This year the McLane team has about 15 dedicated kids and another 15 who are trying things out. A bit smaller than last year (and water polo) but they are already showing some significant results and training much better than in years past. It's SO great to watch kids that I (sometimes literally) taught how to swim/play water polo now going and teaching others how to do it... hearing one's own words come out of the mouth of another is one of those shining moments as a coach.

A kid I am trying to really help (it worked during water polo...) who currently has a 0.0 GPA and almost as many suspensions this school year alone as he is years old (14 years old... 13 days total of suspension this school year.) came out to the pool today and I'm taking him and his friend to the pool tomorrow at 5:45 am for 6am morning practice. As previously mentioned we had 7 kids there on Wednesday - the extra practice is what will make us a REAL swim team. Tonight at the gym I was able to get some strength training in as well as swimming; tomorrow morning I plan to swim some too.

Hopefully a bike ride this weekend with the girlfriend and... no... kids... !

http://www.kidstricamp.com is our kids triathlon camp website

http://www.splashdashfresno.com is our big RACE website (entry forms are coming in!)

http://www.tri-this.org is Tri-This's website!

Another successful camping trip

2009-02-22T20:33:00.000-08:00

This weekend saw 7 students and three adults going up to Folsom Lake to volunteer once again with Total Body Fitness. (http://www.tbfracing.com) Awesome company, awesome people.

I have to say I wasn't really ready for this trip in a few ways. I was feeling pretty drained from an exhausting week (have I mentioned how I'm ready for night school to end? 4:45-8:30pm twice a week is getting to me now that I'm coaching swimming too...) and ... dealt with more cancellations than normal because I didn't think it was a big enough of a deal to enforce the $5 a week before the trip policy. Thankfully I have a pretty large reservoir of kids to pick from as backups, so we found the kids to fill the spots no problem. I literally wrote kids names down on pieces of paper this time, and it ended up being 3 of the same kids that go on every single trip... kinda crazy. (Aaron, Albert, Billy).

Newcomers Rogelio, Michael B, and Jr. came along for the ride and volunteering too. Rogelio and Jr had only expressed an interest in triathlon stuff before, mostly water polo (rogelio did a great job his first year of water polo last year) and Jr. (I'm trying to get him to do swim team still.) Mike has expressed interest for sure but his mom hadn't let him do tri stuff before. He is on the Dive/swim team this year and played water polo last year (would have been MVP for JV but his attendance was spotty.) They did great.

Saturday probably because I was tired things weren't the best behavior-wise. I'm not used to having to really enforce things on triathlon trips - with the veterans I tend to have zero problems because they know what to expect and also what consequences will happen. So instead of me doling out pushups or other tasks I just kinda got frustrated. And took it out on meagan (girlfriend who came with me!). Whups. I recovered by nightfall and when I did walk over to their tent and told them no more talking... there was ... no more talking :-) Oh, I forgot to buy buns for the hotdogs and forks for cup-o-noodles that were donated for the trip... but i mean, it's a camping trip so I thought that just added to the camping trip charm.

And they got up and did a great job this morning cleaning up before we left. Kids and myself did everything from directing traffic to cooking to organizing and cleaning.

Afterwards we went to the obligatory Round Table pizza in old down sacramento that is cool because of two things - 1) To get in you walk down underneath the sidewalk and 2) $7 all you can eat pizza and salad bar buffett!

Some good conversations were definitely had this trip and it all worked out in the end. When I got home I took a SHOWER my first in two days after running around like crazy last night playing tag and then sleeping in the rain basically and volunteering in the rain all day... aka my suburban smells like wet dog, but it's more like teenage boy smell too which isn't a good thing. Poor Meagan!

I've typed too much; just waiting for my laundry to be done so I have something to wear tomorrow!

salsa dancing

2009-02-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

Back for another post this morning.

Last night (the day before valentines day) I went salsa dancing with Meagan and some friends. It was some instructional thing-before-dancing, and it was kinda fun. Moreso for the people and the activity than the actual dancing (I still suck) but it's all good and it was indeed for valentines day! Then we went to a place afterwards for beer and food. always a good time and this week was pretty rough school-wise, so it was good to just... be 25 :-)

I'm itching for night school to be over in two week so I can begin seriously training for swimming. Although for the first time in several months I made it to a pool and swam hard three times this week, which was very encouraging. My shoulder was starting to have some pains on Friday so I've been stretching it this morning in preparation for a mixed weights/swimming sesson in a bit here.

For weights, I work mainly on a rowing machine, lats, abs, and some legs too since I'm doing less running now. Obviously it's more about the duration of the set than pure weights... 4 sets of 10 or 15 with less weight, etc. I love that feeling of swimming after some weights when the arms and legs feel so heavy! Lets me know I've done my workout job correctly :-)

Oh, and federal tax exemption was mailed off and received by the IRS this week, I made myself a Tri-This! shirt to wear around town that says coach dorman on the front, and the Kids Tri Camp is really shaping together nicely. Also the Splash and Dash's (http://www.splashdashfresno.com) active.com registration is good to go and we've been receiving entry forms!

just an update

2009-02-09T18:31:00.000-08:00

Things have been really busy around here lately... to sum it up, we're finally really almost ready to send off the papers for non profit status... registration and online registration is up and running for the Splash and Dash event, sponsors are happening and the Kids Tri Camp is almost ready to be unveiled to the public as well... etc.

and the new way of teaching math is going 50/50, with two classes doing AWESOME with it and 2 of them not as much. but it still gives me thrills when one of my students who in all reality is a gang member states something like,

"so after we do the rational root theorem, we use synthetic division to find the other roots?"

- priceless!

peace and love. off to go swimming! (the marathon attempt last weekend at hungtington made it 18 miles but i didn't want to push it after that because I knew I wasn't ready... but it was a lot of fun! Now i'm training strictly for swimming and cycling for a while... just to see how fast i can get swimming-wise!)

a new approach?

2009-01-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

Following my review of Gran Torino last week (and also posted with some edits on Facebook) some people agreed and some didn't, but it's all good. Still a great movie in my opinion. I hope you all liked it if you saw it, even if it didn't live up to my hype!

This semester out at Fresno State again for Turning Points Academy, I'm going to try something new. Due to lots of schedule changes and various other events this past week and a half, I've only taught two days! But starting again tomorrow, here's what I'm doing:

A normal instructional week looks like this for me:
Days 1-4:
10-15 minutes: Warm up, review homework
30 minutes: instructional time
10 minute: wrap up/practice

Day 5
Quiz (usually part homework-quiz where kids have to copy their work from the weeks' homework, as well as original problems to solve.)

But what I'm proposing is this:
Days, 1, 3:
Two lessons worth of material presented in one fell swoop. Homework the first night is simply to copy all of the homework down so that they can work on it in class the next day. Highly encouraged to try especially some of the later problems to know WHAT QUESTIONS TO ASK in class the next day.

Days 2,4: Questions from copying the homework down are asked, and students given rest of the period to ask questions of each other, ask me questions, etc. Homework is to finish whatever didn't get done in class.

Day 5: Individual quiz after some review of the previous day's homework.

Because the days will cover more territory and hopefully be able to be all deep stuff, I should be able to cover the same amount of material. Last week it seemed to work exceptionally well.

For example, tomorrow and the day after I would be going over both polynomial division and synthetic division. Pretty similar topics, each better suited to cetain situations than others. By doing it this way, students can see the relationship between both topics and also the differences. Highlighting similarities and differences - and thus giving students the chance to choose for themselves - has been shown to be one of the most effective methods of teaching for retention;. Morover, giving more time in class for discussion and practice should be a great way to increase homework completion and thus comprehension. Also, the "every other day" approach is more like a college class, since we are on a college campus and everything...

Drawbacks:
- Cheating. While it should be easier to catch cheaters as their homework will be done in class, that's also where the chance for cheating happens... Hopefully the threat of a quiz will keep them accountable and their grades will suffer if they don't do the work. If they aren't working on anything in class (ie, they didn't do the first night's homework) it will be obvious.

- Crammed material: the trick will be to think of how not to cram too much lecture into the opening days. The goal overall is BETTER UNDERSTANDING, after all...

I'll try it for a month; giving myself time to adapt and the students to adjust as well. Then if I have to go back to how I was doing it I will have time to do so.

Thoughts?

Gran Torino

2009-01-09T21:55:00.000-08:00

Gran Torino is a car, but also a movie that came out (today?) with Clint Eastwood. Costarring Bee Vang and Ahney Her, it packed quite a wallop for me.

"The movie is basically about an old dude who gets fed up with the gangs in his neighborhood - and a strange group of people he calls the "Ha-mong" - (hmong is pronounced mong). Through getting to know them including facing a tragedy with them, he finds himself and rights a wrong - dying in the end as a type of savior."

That's what a review of the movie will tell you. And they just don't get it.

Fresno is home to a lot of Hmong people - my school included. You can wikipedia "Hmong" if you don't know what the hell I'm talking about - if you don't live in Fresno, you probably don't. Let's put it this way - I have an actual student named Bee Vang right now...

What struck me most about this movie were a few things:

- the portrayal of gangs: So much of the press is about how much they suck. And pulling no punches - they do. I've seen gangs chew kids up and spit them out - perhaps in a body bag. At one point the hmong gang protects the protagonist hmong boy Thao from a mexican gang ('appropriately' in a low rider... with the asian gang in a souped up small car aka 'rice rocket'). They then expect him to join the gang... which makes a lotta sense. Thao is smart and pretty weak - definitly takes direction from his womanly overseers - at one point he overhears his grandma telling his sister "he'll never be a man of the house."

Acceptance, protection, leadership. Hmm, not like that's anything teenage boys need or anything... oh and Thao's father is dead before we meet him.

The different slant on gangs was appreciated - as was how later they show the ugly side - a drive by where people get hurt... one girl in a deeply personal way.

Gangs are not a mexican, black, asian or white problem - they're a Fatherless problem.

the mentoring relationship: You aren't gonna see this movie trotted out as "how to change the world" ala "Stand and Deliver" any time soon. There are a lot of things Clint Eastwood's character subjects poor Thao too that are just kinda strange and he insists on calling him Toad until almost the very end - as well as a few other choice racial slurs. But it's all in love so it's understood. He does indeed teach him how to be a man.

the culture: It's totally ok if you don't know what Hmong are. But if I hear one more time that "hmong are good at math/school/science" I'm gonna punch someone. Some of them are - but because they work hard at it! Because the Hmong in the movie are actual hmong (many of them from fresno actually), I loved seeing a culture I know pretty well on the big screen.

I guess that's it. Today I spent most of my day with Meagan, and with a bunch of my students from school on a snow trip. We went last year and it was a hit. Today was no different. Good times, a new experience for several of them (as in, they live less than an hour away from the mountains but had never seen snow before.). It feels good to introduce students to something they wouldn't have seen unless the triathlon team existed...

So I guess because I see so many of my students in this movie, it was actually pretty emotional for me to see. How thin the line between not only them and gangs, but ... me and them? I mean - Clint Eastwoods character interacted/interceded even on these people's behalf, and it ended up causing a lot of harm. Sure at the end it was "made right" but I can't help but think of some of the students in whose lives I've gotten very involved. About how perhaps sometimes I do more unintentional harm than good. Interacting with cultures far different than my own has been one of the best things about being a teacher.

Last weekend after a run the group of us were invited back to the kid's house we used as 'base' for an awesome meal of Carne Asada, rice and beans, and mexican salad.

I've been invited to a Hmong barbecue before by a student. I was the only white guy and it was an awesome experience for me - although I learned I can't eat papaya salad too fast... it's very hot! (and made my forehead sweat much to my embarrassment)

That's not to say I don't think I've helped some of them or think I'm not making a difference. Quite the contrary - I was very inspired by this movie. A GREAT way to start the weekend before going back to school.

volunteers

2009-01-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

Volunteers make the multisport community go 'round!

I had a volunteer meeting tonight for Tri-this! and it went fairly well. Because we're just starting and I've done a LOT of behind the scenes work (like make contacts for different events, insurance information, etc.) there was a lot of me talking and them listening, but it was cool. The deeper I get into this, the more I see the essential work volunteers do to shoulder the actual workload of the dozens of events that take place in just the Fresno area alone, and it's hard to find people that are interested in multisport and want to volunteer too!

We are hoping to volunteer at some events this year in order to get our name out there (not being the Fresno PAL team anymore, etc.) and give back to the Tri community which has given back to us so much over the past two years.

Volunteering is what makes events happen and I'm looking forward to introducing my students to what I have found to be the greatest gift I can give as a regular human being - giving someone my help for free.

We also are still one board member short of being able to officially file for non-profit status. Gotta get that going...

hello 2009! - catching up

2009-01-06T00:06:00.001-08:00

It's been almost a month since my last blog post. craziness. this year i'll be retooling the blog as i've long been talking about to make it more focused on teaching and coaching triathlons. especially as we start a new company and all that jazz... http://www.tri-this.org

The first week of our glorious three week break was spent with family and traveling. I love my family and I love meagan, but i gotta say i really just needed a day alone after it all was over. highlights included seeing my twin bro Daryll and his lovely wife Trish when meagan and i were down in L.A. and Meagan and I's One year anniversary on the 26th. Almost everything went according to plan which was awesome; including the sunset!

Then last week (week 2) was spent setting up meetings for this week and doing more relaxing. Oh, and lots of running. But nothing with kids or with math. However I did happen to see quite a few students around town which was strange. Also got to hang out with meagan and friends quite a bit which was fantastic.

This week started back to school activities. Saturday saw a run with a handful of kids then biking with Meagan and mike fast in the RAIN afterwards. Cold, wet. Sunday running then some awesome carne asada and home-made tortillas with a student athlete, which no many times it happens is always something special. I mean here are these parents of a kid whose life the triathlon team has really transformed. They hardly speak english and I barely speak spanish, but we respect each other and they genuinely care about me. It is at once a humbling and gratifying experience.

This week did some research on different things for the triathlon team. Specifically insurance, background checks for volunteers, sponsorships, a planned kids tri camp, and more! It is fun but almost never-ending! A meeting for tentative board of directors people tonight went great, although I need one more person before I can turn in the paperwork to properly incorporate. I'm excited though.

Tomorrow will begin some school prep stuff(talking with some students today I realized how much I sucked at teaching this semester. quote: "yeah, first period said you were always kinda just waking up and didn't really have a plan yet..." True i was just waking up, untrue I did actually have a plan, but yeah was usually hindered by the fact that i just woke up :-( ) and more triathlon team stuff mixed with relaxing.

i need to finish the 'series' on the journey of the triathlon team. maybe tomorrow.

watching a basketball

2008-12-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting at a basketball game blogging just like a real blogger.

Things right now are pretty darn good... a few weeks until Christmas break which is three weeks long, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm building support for the splash and dash as well as the Pi Day run and just need to be looking at more sources for grants and money basically... will do that in a bit. While i'm watching the game to support some students I figure I'd get the "extra" work done now. I know when I go home I'm not really in the mood.

After a great 3 mile sprint workout yesterday and an easy 2 mile run today with the kids to stretch things out, I decided it was time for new running shoes. So I got some nice new Nike's the same Air Structure ones I've had... just new! Tomorrow the plan is to do 2 long runs, not really caring about distance just an hour each. HOPEFULLY in the morning and another in the afternoon before night school.

night school, which I'm teaching twice a week 3 and a half hours each time, is a bear but the financial reward will be worth it. The kids are alright and I'll probably have to kick a couple kids out tomorrow to set the tone. So far they are great.

Today in Algebra II we did our last new stuff; from here on out will be just review and getting ready for the final next week! woohoo! I'm starting to relax a bit. This weekend will be an Ironman party with the Visalia Tri club on Saturday and family reunion with the lady friend on Sunday!

getting ready...

2008-12-08T11:24:00.001-08:00

break from the beginnings story to copy and paste an email i recently sent to friends and supporters:

Greetings,

Just a SHORT holiday note to catch you up to speed on what's going on
for next year.

In early 2009 a new company which we're calling Ascension Multisport
will be formed to further the goal of the triathlon team - to increase
the opportunities for exercise of at-risk youth in Fresno. The last
two years have been fantastic but success thus far requires more
people to continue being a success.

We are planning on two events thus far - a March 14th Pi Day run which
will be a fun run. The idea as it stands now is to have teams of
"millipedes" - runners grouped together connected by a thin, loose
rope - running about a mile. The reason for that is mainly because
March 14th is Pi day..(3.14...)

The big event on the horizon for us is the MAY 30th Splash and Dash.
At this point all i should say is we'll have a 400 meter swim and 5k
run. We are also hoping to add a version that is twice that distance;
I'm in the USA Triathlon and Millerton events sanctioning process
currently, but the date is set. Please mark it on your calendars.

Funding-wise, once we incorporate and then apply for non-profit
status, we are hoping to rely mainly on grants and fundraisers like
the splash and dash instead of the generous support of people like who
you helped us get going.

We plan to work closely with PAL, group homes (especially Valley Teen
Ranch), and of course continue recruiting from the general population
in our target area of McLane and surrounding schools. We certainly
want to spread the joy and benefits of triathlon to our target
students, but need to have the infrastructure (Volunteers, money,
etc.) to be ready for them to continue to change lives.

There will be an informational meeting JANUARY 6th at 7pm at the
Me'N'Eds Victory Grill (Cedar and Ashlan) conference room for
interested parties. Please let me know and thank you for an amazing
year!

2 years ago

2008-11-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

2 years ago this week was the beginning of the relationship that would form the triathlon team.

A student, we'll call him Dustin, was in my geometry class my first year teaching. I made acomment that if 'they' didn't understand slope, they should have failed Algebra I. He came up to me (big, 6 foot plus football player) afterwards and admitted that he didn't know anything and had somehow slipped by.

So he came in for about six weeks every day at 7:30am and we went back to the basics. And the focus of the conversation was the occasional 'how's it going' etc.? But after a while, we started talking a bit more. I challenged him to do winter water polo, and he accepted (mostly because his girlfriend played water polo at that high school so he'd get to see her for 10 minutes before practice started.).

The week before Thanksgiving break, we decided to do some running to stay in shape between water polo/football ending and winter water polo. We decided to run the five miles between Fresno State and McLane. But he asked a few questions about life as we started, and we pretty much jogged/talked the entire way there and back. I was a new teacher, and he was thirsting for an adult to talk to. He's lived with his grandparents most of his life and because of the teacher-student relationship we had due to the math tutoring, the seed was planted. At the end of the run, he informed me we'd be doing it again the next day. And we did - more running, but still tons of talking before and after the run. I hardly said a word; just listened. I remember going up to my parents that first thanksgiving break being very excited about this new opportunity in teaching - already I could tell I was actually forming a helpful relationship with a real student. For sure the first teacher-student relationship of any substance.

The first day at water polopractice, even though he had a swimming background, he just about drowned, but started to get better. After six weeks he was a proficient water polo player. At one point I knew he was comfortable with me when he noted as we were running during Christmas break, "what kind of deodorant is that?"... could have been awkward but I thought it was quite disarming and showed the level of comfort he had with me and the other kids that were now running with us.

So we were sitting as a class before Christmas break in 2006 watching a movie, and he asked me the question as a teacher you want to always hear:

"So Mr. Dorman, what can you do to challenge me next?"

Prompted by my inability to compete with a friend in mountain biking a couple of months before, I suggested we try triathlons. We did an internet search and found the Ice Breaker Triathlon in April 2007. We learned that not all triathlons were ironman distance... but that there were sprint, olympic and half ironman distance ones too (news to us.). So without bikes, running shoes, or any idea of what was going to happen next, we set a practice schedule for Christmas break and shook hands.

And the Triathlon team was born.

Thanksgiving Break

2008-11-20T09:43:00.000-08:00

It's almost thanksgiving break! We're doing imaginary numbers in class right now, and the kids seem to be kind of enjoying learning something cool. I'll be posting today's quiz up on my website with answers after the day is done. http://www.mrdorman.com

Unfortunately, last night I went for a run and after about 2-3 miles, my left knee really started hurting again. IT Band. So I started walking and immediately iced it on both sides. Then i did some single-knee squats nice and slow to strengthen the muscles around it. I knew i'd been favoring my right side because of the plantar faciitis which hasn't been flaring up since the half marathon which is good news. So... a day or two more of rest and these exercises and I should be back on track for 20 miles by December 1st.

The guy in charge of things at Millerton is 'really' supposed to call today... the ladies in the office know it's me now when I call because I've left about 3 voice mails and called every day for the past week. I've also sent two emails... all of it talking about the splash and dash. I will be meeting with some more people tonight to talk about what needs to be done. This weekend I'll be looking over some documents with my dad (former attorney and registered CPA) in order to incorporate at the beginning of the year.

Some more donated bike gear came in yesterday! The plan is to bring in some bikes for repair on Tuesday of next week! run on monday at 2pm.

Training/races/$$

2008-11-17T23:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, so after the marathon in February:

- I'll be doing as little racing as possible to save $$.

- Kids won't be doing Olympic Distances as much as possible.

The latter advice from a couple of leading USA Triathlon people, so I figure it's time to stick to it!

- Meetings every day this week regarding triathlon stuff; which is great but already getting a bit too busy. Good thing next week is thanksgiving break and I can try to get ahead on school stuff! (I'll make myself!).

- the back of my left knee started to hurt running yesterday. I iced it again today and then went also to a hot tub and did some walking/'running' motion stuff underwater. tomorrow will do absolutely nothing except go to a concert with meagan for a guy named Matthew West. very cool guy/music; we saw him in february too. best song is probably either 'More' and i really like 'life inside' and 'You are Everything'. he's a christian dude so if you're not into that don't be offended/you've been warned.

Starting next week I'm going to kinda recount the history/specific cool stories of the Tri club thus far. Two years already. just an FYI. I'm going to also work on growing the readership of this blog by trying to comment more on other's; I'd really like this to be a place for others starting up youth tri clubs/interested in the movement to be able to come for community and I've really been realizing lately that I do have a formidable leadership position in the Fresno tri community when it comes to kids doing triathlons. Time to really start developing my Program!

social justice, environmentalism, and triathlons

2008-11-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

Few things it seems to me are more connected than the aforementioned topics.

Triathletes swim in lakes/oceans, bike on roads and on trails, and run... well, everywhere.

And I see a lot of tri-companies promoting environmentalism. (blue-seventy changed their name to reflect the 70%ish nature of the Earth, etc.)

But I wanna see more. Not just because that is part of the focus of my new company to be formed in 2009 (a tentative mission statement reads:

"The goal of ________ is to enhance the lives of students in the Central Valley to experience the benefits of a healthy lifestyle in fun, safe, and supportive environments. Through challenging physical and social activities, we hope to foster a spirit of social and environmental justice in the lives of young people."

social justice is becoming more and more one of my life focuses (insight) - some focus on africa (google invisible children) and well, I focus here in Fresno and spreading that focus across california and perhaps further.

Today i was able to spend 4 hours at school grading papers and am all caught up. Now it's just a matter of doing a good job preparing for new lessons and good quizzes for the future. going to bed now to go on a nice run tomorrow morning...

another half marathon

2008-11-11T19:33:00.000-08:00

It still does strike me as somewhat odd when i felt myself thinking after sunday's race, "that wasn't that bad!"... or maybe it was when I realized I'd been running for over an hour and I wasn't even tired. of course, those things conspired together to mean my time on Sunday wasn't super fast - but just two days later I did 3 miles and could do them injury free still!

Of course, the real awesomeness of the day was that my student and athlete Albert Noyes finished with a time of 1:30! Wow! He arrived to the race site a bit late so was getting up to the line just as the gun went off, so raced hard to try to catch up to me... after about 5 miles he hadn't seen me so figured he'd passed me after all! And he had... but he kept running! he ended up placing 26th overall in a field of almost 2000 runners! this coach was very proud and hope that albert gets to recognition he deserves... just gotta keep his ego in check, his grades back up to the 3.0+ range, and ... no little alberts running around anytime soon! (sorry bad joke. albert's a great kid and i'm not worried about that really.)

Oh yeah, I got 1:59. At least I broke 2 hours :-) I'm going to run again tomorrow though and keep on trying to push myself both distance and speed wise for sure! Tomorrow probably will try to six miles if I'm still feeling ok and try to do another half marathon perhaps this coming weekend on my own and see how fast I can do it in. It's time to bust out my USAT Coach book and really put together a good plan for myself complete with goals and all that stuff... just as when I coach my students!

I was informed indirectly this weekend that fresno PAL will no longer be able to sponsor the Triathlon Club. This saddens me if it's true (hasn't been confirmed yet) but regardless, I will be creating a non-profit corporation soon in order to handle the Splash and Dash. So I've been looking a lot @ the IRS and Secretary of State websites for articles of incorporation, etc. I'll have my kids help me define purpose of the corporation as well as picking a good name... pretty exciting though too I think. Just adds to the work I'm trying to get done in the offseason. However I will be able to apply grants now too as a stand-alone 501c(3) instead of as part of PAL which will expedite the process of writing them and also reimbursement stuff because I'll have the finances under my control (as well as a Board of course!).

anyone with cool ideas for names?

teaching-wise, things are humming along in algebra II with factoring/translating quadratics. to me, more of what I remembered liking from algebra II and I think I did a good job preparing the kids for it when we spent a TON of time working with distributive property earlier in the semester as well as absolute value graphs/piecewise functions. Sorry non-math people reading this... basically what we're doing now is when you change where a graph goes.

Geometry is doing proofs and I have a cool activity for them tomorrow if I have time at lunch to finish it. if not, Friday. I'll have a sub Thursday as my small learning community, Turning Points Academy , meets.

names i'm thinking about include:
Youth Adventures
Fresno Triathlon Club
Youth Multisport

... something that demonstrates we don't just do (nor do we just want to do) triathlons/duathlons/aquathlons/races, but camping and living a healthy lifestyle is a big part of what we do too... things like community service, going to the zoo, etc... it all fits. and of course i wouldn't tell the kids, but the mentoring is the biggest focus part of it for me... it's the part that makes me committed to it all! (and often seeing their grades rise/attitudes get better simply because they've involved in something new/cool and have positive peer pressure as well as adult pressure to do their homework/study hard!)

Half Marathon coming up

2008-10-31T12:55:00.001-07:00

Greetings,

I cancelled my comcast internet a few weeks ago to save money, but after two weeks i realize how much I actually do need/miss the 'net at home, so will be starting up next week again with At&t internet for twenty bucks a month. Still saving $50 a month. Combined with saving fifty bucks a month for turning 25 on car insurance, it's nice to know that I'm $100 richer every month to apply toward that credit card payment - and I saved another $100 this month in unrelated cost-cutting (like doing better on making my own healthy food... low-fat mac and cheese mon/tues and baked chicken with greenbeans and corn on wednesday! Yesterday I did buy a teriyaki rice bowl for dinner and did some upper-body weights at the gym.

I've been training for a local half marathon november 9th. 9 miles on Monday, 6 miles on Wednesday and will do 11 miles this saturday. Next week will see a few speed-based 5K's to be ready for 13.1 next Sunday! I'm doing it with my student Albert and good friend Dave Castro is doing the full marathon. I've really been enjoying running these past couple of weeks but am sad I seem to need new shoes every few months/the bottom of my feet start to hurt. I figure these shoes have about 100+ miles on them but didn't keep a running journal or anything.

A placeholder website for the race is up at http://www.splashdashfresno.com I'm still waiting for official confirmation from the Fresno PAL board of directors before going further. (they'll handle the financial side of things.)

USAT coach!

2008-10-16T23:34:00.000-07:00

i'm an official USA Triathlon certified Coach now!

- and will be PUTTING ON A RACE (Aquathlon most likely) sometime between April and August of next year! (with proceeds to benefit my triathlon team).

Two Tri's in a weekend!

2008-10-14T20:31:00.001-07:00

Ok, so here is the race report I've been waiting to write!

This past weekend I did two triathlons - the Tulare Triathlon (sprint; pool swim) and the Golden State Triathlon (also sprint, river swim/criterium style biking). Both went great overall I would say and I wasn't even that tired Monday from them so apparently my post-race stretching and such is getting much better! not to mention I tend to be better prepared for races...

I obviously wasn't ready for the bike (I'd been on the bike one time since August; not even any spinning or at-the-gym bike trainer stuff) but was feeling ok for the swim and run... Tulare was with the Fresno State Tri Club and at the last minute I decided to take a handful of kids with me to Sacramento to volunteer with TBF Racing on Sunday.

Tulare Triathlon
- on the way there we saw a fellow Fresno State Tri Club'er with their bike on the bike. Jokingly I accelerated behind them saying, "the race starts now baby!" and someone in the car made a joke about their bike falling off.

Then it did.

Well, not off but one wheel off and the rest was dragging as we were on the freeway at 5:30am going 75mph. so we honked and flashed our brights to get their attention and it was all ok.

It was butt-cold as we readied for the swim, and the pool deck was SUPER slippery. During the olympic race part which we watched first a lot of people almost fell hard and we had to scream at them to SLOW DOWN!

I got in the third-from-fastest lane because I hadn't trained as much as I normally do for even a sprint distance swim; but I knew I should be ok because I get in the water with my kids "enough".

I was first out of the water! I couldn't believe it but the guy counting laps and my internal counter matched up as I finished the 400 yard swim and hopped out! Very cool. I did good on the to-bike transition and headed out.

Things were going ok considering... then on the way back a group of 3 of us got led astray by the CHP. Seriously... there were quite a few turns getting out of the pool area to the main road part, and as I was with the pack going out and just with the group of us coming in got turned around. So we went straight intead of turning in! I found out later the guy right behind us stopped to ask the police officer guy, "are they going the right way?" to which he replied, "nope," but he waved us to go straight and didn't say anythign when we didn't! So... after at least a 10 minute detour we went through downtown tulare and found our way back to the high school. I was pretty upset because I certainly passed people on the run and was feeling quite good overall. Still got 1:24 overall which isn't bad but... ah well :-)
http://onyourmarkevents.com/results.asp?id=2094

PICTURES

It was great seeing my good friend Luis there and tons of people from the Visalia/Tulare area there (I basically grew up in Visalia but haven't gone back a whole lot since I graduated college in '05, so fun to see people I knew including teachers and old friends!).

SUNDAY - Golden State Triathlon

After going to a students' quincinera saturday night (interesting experience...) I got about 4 hours of sleep saturday night (fri-sat night about 4 too because we went to the Fair on Friday night to see Randy Travis), i was awake at 3am to pick up the students and leave fresno by about 4am. Pretty much everyone awoke and called me like they're supposed to (kids I mean). I got meagan and we took off right about 4:10, and made it to Sacramento at 7am as planned. I got the kids set up volunteering and Meagan was body marking. Met a first-time triathlete next to me who was really cool and we had a good time talking tri and stuff. I kept seeing him throughout the race too which was fun.

Because I've done a lot of TBF events over the past two years with kids and by myself, I love going up there and still have it feeling like home. the TBF Staff could not be more awesome to my kids... it really makes the whole trip worth it. Two kids (Edna and Albert) even got to do the kayak thing for water safety! They totally loved it and got to help a few people too which was a good experience except Edna got wet.)

My arms were really stiff on the swim part (perhaps not enough practice with the wet suit/improper stretching of the arms/warm up before hand?) but I was still 8th out of the water (about 100+ in my field) which was alright but oh man, it was ugly! The bike I loved especially after the first of three laps. I started passing more people in my age group and everything; usually on the bike portion of a Tri I just count how many people pass me...! I felt pretty good on the run but lack of sleep, nutrition and doing a tri the day before/being not in the best of shape caught up to me and I could not lengthen my stride to save my life. I estimate a 26 min 5k on that part, but oh well. the broken-down-results should be up soon, but for now here are the overall results:
http://tbfracing.com/results/results/2008/goldenstate/gstritroverall.html

So overall I would definitely love to do this more often! I loved it. Tomorrow morning the plan is to run about 6 miles while it's still dark. We should have a water polo game at school tomorrow against our arch-rival Roosevelt High School, but something's wrong with their heater and ... our pool too is all messed up. so... we'll see.

New Algebra II test

2008-10-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

I did not wake up to go biking this morning at 4:30 like I was hoping, but did make it up for morning water polo practice. but only 2 kids showed up so we went to mcdonalds. and got iced coffee! so i'm all jazzed today.

http://mrdorman.com/alg2/alg2unit1.html is a new algebra II unit test they will take tomorrow. they've been learning the stuff with quizzes thrown in for a month and a half now. they just finished a "benchmark" three-problem test where they had to more explain than do the math for each of the main types of problems (inequalities, graphing/modeling, and slope stuff/piecewise functions). so today it was super easy to them, which was certainly gratifying to see! On the pre-test most of them got like 2 right out of 11...

then tonight go to go to Fresno State and swim along with my asian Josh and myself. tomorrow is bike to work day and we also play clovis north in water polo! Big day! It's 10:40 and i better get in bed if i have any hope of waking up around 5 to actually get a 10-20 mile ride in before school starts and get there early too! and safely :-)

more water polo - and Triathlon - and teaching news

2008-10-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

It was once again a very busy and productive week!

Teaching wise my kids worked on their "understanding by design" units and i am getting pretty pleased with the results! It's basically focused questions that make them explain their results more and show their answers in a variety of modalities. so one problem will have them getting an answer by graphing, functions, and explain what it MEANS. pretty cool. i will probably try to scan some of them in for work-related stuff, so will post a link. algebra 2 is cool!

Water Polo established a website at http://www.mclanewaterpolo.com which links to the existing google site. we officially split up into JV And Varsity.

Friday night: Fundraising (made about $70 but hey, better than nothing).
Saturday morning from 9-11am when it was raining!: Scrimmage! (http://picasaweb.google.com/mclanepolo/Fundraising_scrimmage#)

Saturday afternoon: Took two kids to work on computers for the fresno seniors computer lab! http://picasaweb.google.com/brandon.dorman/FRESNOSENIORS02#5253880204609849058 a 2005 article. great to see people are still using it 3 years after i left it and almost 8 years since i started it.

Sunday morning: A trip with 4 kids and my girlfriend to Merced for a triathlon! We just watched it, which was pretty cool actually! It's been a while sine I just watched a race and cheered friends on... so pretty cool. Also made contact with the Merced Jr. College water polo coach and will probably try to send a couple of kids his way next fall...

Then this afternoon took a nap, hung out with meagan, made dinner, did some swimming at the gym to prepare for next saturday and sunday's triathlons (just two sprints), and now am doing laundry and will prepare for the week some more! two polo games; both away against tough teams but it will be fun!

Water Polo Game

2008-09-25T21:45:00.000-07:00

The water polo season is upon us. Today mclane water polo battled Edison HS and well... it was 11-3 them, but the score doesn't tell the whole story! We had nine kids out of 22 that had never played a game of water polo before which led to quite a bit of confusion when they were in the water but it was really good times and we learned a lot.

some other stuff happened this week that made the week kind of stressful so after the game i went on my first solo run in more than a month. i ran twice last week but it was with kids so it wasn't really hard and we stopped a bit to talk etc.

so it was a 24 minute 5k but it was fun and i'm not sure. then afterwards i cooked a great spaghetti dinner (well i just have spaghetti with butter and parmesan cheese) and a pluot(cross between a plum and an apricot... i'd never heard of it before last tuesday when i bought some at a farmers market. before meeting Meagan, I'd been to exactly zero farmer's markets in america. now I've been to one like 5 times!) it was really good but at the end i accidetnally dropped my bowls on each other and they BROKE! one was my favorite bowl ever i bought at target a year or two ago. the other was from the family home i smuggled to myself during college at one point. so that was sad. but it inspired me to clean up the living room a bit and i invited meagan over to feel like a regular 25 year old to watch The Office. Meagn's not a huge fan of the dry humor, but i enjoyed it. of course, i'm also a HUGE fan of xkcd.org ...

it's been a while!

2008-09-21T22:41:00.001-07:00

Indeed, it has been a while!

Things have been busy with school and water polo starting, my brother getting married, trips to Yosemite and the like. All good though.

Teaching algebra 2 this year and geometry has been pretty tough. I feel like I'm working harder than the previous two years and not getting further. But I'm finally caught up on grades so now can focus on just the future. So that's good.

Water Polo we have been lucky to have about 20 kids out there which is a great thing! Actually the most McLane water polo has had in about a decade. So I'm quite encouraged. Slowly they are all getting the hang of egg beatering and passing and driving and swimming head-up freestyle and plays and all that stuff... our first game is Thursday, so we'll see how it goes!

I got really bad poison oak a few weeks ago on my ankles so that running made it bleed and hurt a lot. but after 3 weeks i was able to run last week for the first time and it felt GREAT! I hope to run again tomorrow (3 miles) and am making myself ease back into things! My marathon hopes in november are off but i should still be good to go for a half marathon. and i've got two sprint tri's coming up in october.

updates

2008-08-16T00:19:00.001-07:00

- The Olympics have been great for publicity for swimming! (and a bit water polo...)
- Michael Phelps is awesome
- Hell week for McLane Polo went great!
- school starts monday!

i'm tired that's it.

Turning Points Academy

2008-08-11T10:05:00.000-07:00

At a meeting today for TPA (Turning Points Academy). Not bad so far... but i'd rather be sleeping/working out! basically school begins now...

last race

2008-08-07T23:56:00.000-07:00

It was the last race of the season for the Fresno PAL Triathlon Team.

Normally i copy and paste the race report as I type it to my growing army of supporters, volunteers, sponsors and athletes. And mom and dad :-)

This time I'll type it out anew. Basically we left at around 1am on Saturday MORNING to make the three hour drive up there. Well, i started picking kids up at that time after napping a bit. We actually did leave Fresno at 3:30am after stopping to get a bite to eat at some all-night taco place called Robertitos. It was very crowded too!

I sadly lost my $500 (last year) JVC Everio harddrive video camcorder as i placed it on the back of the suburban at a gas station that morning. i obviously don't have the cash to replace it so i was quite saddened by that fact but realized once we drove off, this is south Fresno so it would have been gone.

Once at the race the kids racing did great. We did have a problem with Edna getting into a crash but she was ok. As far as we can tell she was slowing down for a speed bump (the race starts out coming out of a campground) and a guy behind her ran into her. Looking at the pictures of the bike/tire, I'm amazed she was ok with just some bumps and bruises. Still, the runner on her relay team (daniel) was probably the most excited for this race so he still ran after we got permission/he knew his time wouldn't count.

Special Moment #1: Daniel helped billy run through the 5k even though billy was cramping (i didn't feel bad for him... told him not to eat that breakfast burrito but he'd already bought it and his other friends - not racing that day - had one...). It was amazing almost out of a movie!

then we set up camp and all kinda slept for a bit. i don't remember much except crashing on the grass. (sleeping)

For my olympic distance triathlon, i'd been doing more bike work so obviously wanted to improve on that. i'd done enough swim work but didn't feel great about it. normally i do 10x 100's on the 1:20 to make sure i'm ready for a long distance race but i hadn't had a chance to do those, so was kinda nervous; just relying on natural swim ability and my shaved body.

here are my own two times:
Place
2007 2008
Age 24 25 (by USAT)

Gndr. M M

Division 21-24 25-29

Swim Split 23:20 23:24

Swim Rank 27 40

Swim Pace 1:35 1:34

Bike Split 1:35 1:22 (13 minutes ain't bad)

Bike Rank 228 heh 160 getting there...

Bike Pace not given 18.1 mph (my half ironman pace was 16

Run Split 1:08.53 1:03.26 (almost a minute per mile...)

Run Rank 206 199 (still not much better)

Run Pace not given 10:14 :-(

Finish Time 3:07 2:49.01
----------------------------------------------------

my goal was 2:30 but perhaps that was overly optimistic. Still, i beat my time by a substantial margin and improved the most in the bike. Gotta love looking for those nuclear cooling towers (a pic of my team with said towers should be below):

I've mentioned before i developed some planter faciitis after my quick-to-trot half marathon in may. it's been getting much better with regular icing and stretching. what bugged me most on this run was that my feet just HURT. i need new running shoes that have actual arch support or get insoles that have it. my breathing wasn't labored, my legs felt fine and didn't cramp, my feet just dang hurt and i had to stop a couple of times to rest them. But it was ok. my students that raced in the aquathlon did excellent (run times for the 10k of 35 minutes and 40 minutes, respectively... so i'm training someone correctly!).

most positive for me was the rave reviews and the chance to say THANK YOU to the volunteers and staff at TBF Racing. from bill driskill, the co-owner and main guy we work with:
"Thanks for your email. It was great to have your team at the events this summer. Thanks for the letter and the cards to our staff this weekend, it meant a lot to them.

I am going to post a piece about your team with a link to your website on the home pages of TBF Racing and Total Body Fitness.

Congratulations Brandon on the success of your program and the success of your athletes."

so that was nice; through our kids working as volunteers we've raised a lot of money through them... and it is indeed changing lives. (had a meeting with the director of the police activities league and she is committed to the triathlon program too... good stuff!).

- i've enjoyed being on vacation this week. it's nice to just sit and clean sometimes! i officially put away all of the triathlon stuff so it's clean here:

yes... that's much more organized than it was before! ok i'm out.

for more pictures and fun see http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon/Triforreal3

amazingly true

2008-08-01T00:49:00.000-07:00

i couldn't have written it any better myself. click the title link - long read but explains a ton about my kids... i thought of a particular kid at almost every description! (sadly, even the one talking about kids cutting themselves...)

- great "taper" run today, tomorrow last little swim and bike along with some transition training. getting ready to leave

http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon/Flyer/photo#5229454658058071314

i couldn't get it to export to pdf for some reason tonight, but i'll be distributing color copies of that this weekend at the triathlon in sacramento in an attempt to build more support and perhaps sponsorships for next year.

getting ready!

2008-07-30T22:21:00.000-07:00

Getting ready for the (official) last camping/racing trip of the 2008 season.

I'll post something sentimental afterwards, but this season has seen:

it hasn't been the easiest of seasons - balancing a new girlfriend to the incredible pressures of coaching and teaching math in a low-income, high need school has been challenging. i had to quit church involvement with the jr high group after 6 years of faithful service. Had to kick out about 6 kids from the team due to disciplinary issues including issues related to sexuality.

- got to help a team member move from his house. i was one of the first persons his mom called when he went to the hospital later that night (and was ok).
- was told by a mother, "my kids life is in your hands, and that's ok with me."

but my personal favorite thing thus far? Despite my fallacies as a coach, taking a step back and realizing that no matter what, I hope they've improved their life as much as they have improved mine. Through these kids, I've become more patient, more firm and effective, and more cognizant of my place in life - it is so EASY For me as a white middle class male to become complacent, and these kids expose my "unfairness", my lack of seriousness or my over-seriousness as it may be. The Triathlon team has been the best thing that's ever happened to me, and no matter what happens to it after this point, this has been a season of incredible triumphs amidst incredible odds. Can the kids do better? Absolutely. Can I be a better coach - both athletically and sponsorship-wise? For sure. But that's not the point!!

It's NOT ABOUT ME!

It really is and has been and will always be about the kids and them showing themselves THEY CAN do this sport called Triathlon.

- for those who still read, what are some things that as an outside observer you'd like to see happen next year? if you were in my shoes, what would you dream for?
(hint: I am looking into putting on at least two races as fundraisers... = no more asking for donations and car washes/yard sales etc...)

bikes are bad!

2008-07-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I watched as a bicyclist was hit and drug by a car... we tried to help and i called 911, and the police came within a few minutes too... i keep replaying the scene in my head but at least she's ok!

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=6285893

then today i was out biking with some of the kids, and one of my athletes (albert) got a flat in his back tire and lost control - literally jumping off his bike as he fell to avoid hitting a light pole. he wasn't going super fast, but fast enough! it was pretty scary for all involved but he was ok aside from a few cuts and i'm sure bruises. could have been a LOT worse! we only did about 8 miles max today, but that's more than most of them bike in a month so it's cool. at least we tried, and they learned how to fix a flat tire...
http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon/BelmontRoadBiking

(the tall hispanic kid is Justin - his first time biking! the shorter one with the red shirt is Benny, also his first time biking. Albert is the shirtless one, Eric is the kid putting the bikes up on the car... and is becoming an amazing athlete! I'm excited to see his sprint tri time next weekend!)

training

2008-07-26T03:33:00.001-07:00

wednesday: flat 20 mile ride to test new tires
thursday: Hilly! 20 mile ride with friend (Justin)
friday: great 3 mile hill run and mile swim brick with the kids
http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon/Millerton_run_swim

saturday: easy bike ride followed by either a strong swim... or cleaning the apartment?

olympic distance tri next sunday! i will shave for it! :-(

USAT Level 1 Clinic

2008-07-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

Reflection from the USAT conference

You can find out all about what a USA Triathlon (USAT) coaching certification for Level I is. But to actually be there was really one of my favorite non-kid-related parts of what I’ve started to call the Triathlon experience of the past year and a half.

Some people there (43) were professional coaches, but most weren’t yet. That was encouraging to me. Many of us expressed an interest of turning this triathlon training stuff from more than just the hobby it is now into something that is really making some side (or full-time) money. Obviously my goals are a little bit different, but that’s for a different time.

Each day was 2-3 topics ranging from pretty technical but useful nutrition, mental focus for athletes, the business side of things, the protection our USAT Coaching Level 1 Certification provides us, Running by Bobby McGee, Tactical parts of cycling, swimming and the sport as a whole. Todd Waldner from Fresno was also there and we found at least one other youth-oriented coach but heard rumors of several others throughout the country. So that was encouraging and disappointing at the same time.

Basic Synopsis:

Nutrition: Eat to Train, don’t train to eat (so I can’t justify drinking mountain dews any more by saying, “oh well I ran 6 miles this morning…”)

Sports Physiology: I have a lot to learn about how the body works

Psychology: Good here, but I should be able to talk to my kids about it without smirking.

Swimming: rotation, learn to ADAPT to different conditions.

Biking: I want to better learn how to “fit,” someone and get my kids fitted for the bikes we have.

Running: Lean forward about 5%, pretend that you’re pulling strings down from your face. Bobby McGee is a god among men.

Coaching: Time=Money. Most people coach because they love triathlons, but this conference wasn’t free after all… (hint: I’m still very committed to keeping my club the only one in the country that I know of taking low-income youth and teaching them triathlons)

Training: Periodization baby… (I don’t really do this for my own athletes… need to do a better job about that.)

Two ideas for next year immediately:

1) Divide things up into “sessions” as Todd does… make them pay like $10 up front but then give it all back if they come to all the practices and stuff. This will take more donors and fundraisers, but hopefully ensure more commitment.

2) Less races, more training. I love how we were able to do a ton of races this year, but it was a lot of money and time that perhaps didn’t need to have happened if we really want to focus as a triathlon club.

3) I need someone willing to help organize camping trips, HELP apply for grants, keep the records of the kids times, etc… which could all be done on the web hint hint? Email me if you’re interested.

USAT conference

2008-07-16T21:57:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I head to New Mexico for a USA Triathlon Coaching Clinic. It will be three days of classes, demonstrations, lectures, etc. so that I can take a test at the end to be a certified Coach. Crazy. I'm very excited and have been preparing pretty extensively...

In other news, the triathlon last weekend was amazing! I wish I had time to express how great the kids did, not just performance-wise (2nd and 3rd in the relay division both days!) but maturity-wise (with a few exceptions of course...) and looking at the big picture.

Water polo this week continues to go well, with more kids coming to all three programs going on - jr high polo, Masters, and regular high school polo. Two kids from summer school have come every day this week and are getting to become better and better swimmers.

Summer school will be over this time next week. That's a relief. I've loved it but am really regretting having the USAT conference making me miss this Friday... it's so close to the end and I only get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week to do stuff. Tomorrow I'll end confusion on similiarity in geometry as well as volume and maybe surface area?! Either way they won't be ready for a test on Friday so i'll make it a double-point quiz then they can watch Numb3rs when the sub is there. (the sub who is having problems getting himself authorized to sub - he guaranteed me he was in the system even though he didn't show up when i checked on monday... it's thursday pal!).

We will do one more triathlon weekend after all because we have so many USA Triathlon volunteer vouchers and stuff left over. So that's cool if we cna figure out how to pay for the transportation costs and such. I am in negative numbers personally thanks to some unexpected expenses recently (the USAT conference being about $1,000 of it and that will be paid for when I get my summer school check...) and last weekend ended up costing too much although $200 cheaper than expected which is a good thing! August 2nd and 3rd.

I am definitely going to get some armadillo's or something... went out on a ride today with a friend and hit a pothole while passing on a down hill... both tires went flat instantly and i'm surprised i didn't crash hardcore. he had to ride back and bring his truck because of our two spare tires the first one had a tear in it and thus the second wouldn't have done any good either.

but these are the original tires and i figure i've done several hundred miles on them, so... pay more for better tires this time around!

mentoring

2008-07-04T15:02:00.000-07:00

I've read books on mentoring (To Own a Dragon, Mentoring: a Framework, Raising Cain, to name a few...) and considered myself a mentor to a number of kids ranging in age from 11 (and now 18!) to 21.

It's pretty much never not "messy." Asking a kid to open up with trust takes a lot of time the longer i teach/coach the more i sometimes almost want to say, "wait, please don't tell me everything," - yet they sometimes do knowing full well I'll have to "report" what they say to others...

So this one kid on my triathlon/water polo teams I met around October of last year - just as one of the messiest periods of my personal life was ending. Partly because of that, I made a conscious choice to just be seen as, "coach," to this guy.

After a few weeks, one time his mom asked me to take him home after water polo practice and because the mom had been really good about taking him home normally/picking him up, I said sure. he mentioned how hungry he was and that his mom wasn't gonna be home (working), so we stopped at mcdonalds and talked. i don't remember what we ate, i don't remember most of what we talked about, but that was when i stopped being coach and started being mentor.

I began to ask about his grades. About his goals in sports and life. And he began to realize that someone cared about him enough to make him not play water polo if he ditched school, got suspended, or got caught lying to me. But I always made sure to provide a, "next time," to see him and let him back in the activities to be clear I wasn't giving up on him.

Yesterday I spent about 7 hours with the kid through a variety of activities ranging from riding bikes at the group home, swimming, eating taco bell, water polo, and taking him home again. While helping me out at the group home, I noticed how proud he was to say, "I've known Coach Dorman for almost a year now," and stuff like that. The group home kids were in awe of his athletic ability - which I can take some credit for :-). His attitude was great and he worked out hard in both biking and water polo.

At the end of the time, he made a comment that really made me pause - "i don't have many people to just... talk to." and went on to explain how his dad didn't speak much english, his mom kinda expected him to be a good big brother/chores, etc. and his uncles were drunk all the time. I try not to bring it up (bad experiences with some kids in the past), but he talks to me about his parents fighting and stuff sometimes too. I rarely prod (but sometimes it's needed!).

A great reminder as we celebrate America's Independence that the best moments are usually the ones we don't plan for. Ironic given this. No matter what happens to this kid in life, I hope he'll always feel he can just "talk" to me or someone about what's going on in his life, and even with his future kids.

p.s. If you know me, my new title picture makes perfect sense... that's me running on the beach after the California Ironman 70.3 March 29th. The ocean seemed to cold by that time though even though I'd swam 1.2 miles in it at 6:30 that morning... hope no one's offended :-) doing an olympic-distance aquathlon this sunday which should be cool even though i'm not ready for the run really.

updates

2008-07-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

Triathlon Practice (swim, bike, run this week): Check

First ever Junior High Water Polo Practice for McLane: Check

First ever Masters Practice for McLane: Check

Sports is going well! Tomorrow will take some bikes and a kid helper out to Valley Teen Ranch, where I worked full time in 2005 and part time until I became a full time teacher in February of 2006. I still help out occasionally because I love the group home environment. i'm pretty excited about it... that and we get Friday off!

social justice

2008-06-26T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'm just in Fremont (Bay Area of California...) for tonight and then off to Oregon for a family reunion this weekend. Mexico was fantastic and I feel more refreshed than probably 2004. even got in some running on the beach (harder!) and ocean swimming, along with healthy-ish eating and drinking. Visited Sr. Iggy's and the other big bar in Rosarito beach.

Read a book on the trip by a Brit named Craig Borlase, called God's Gravity. It was about thinking bigger about social justice in the world. (the basic idea being that God's gravity calls us toward Him: love, joy, peace, patience etc.; while the world's gravity that pulls us away are things like pride, greed, etc. Read it - I finished it in about 2 days and it's easy_but_not_light, engaging reading.). I was really inspired. For example, it talked about how perhaps we can't make sure every thing we buy doesn't have a sweatshop somewhere down the supply chain - but we can try to make sure at least one shirt we buy doesn't. Same with foods and other things. (a water bottle instead of tons of gatorades... rainman :-)

So for my group of triathlon kids, I'm stewing over ways to incorporate that into the fray. Definitely thinking about getting my "regular" math students involved next year in the work of something like Blood:Water: Mission but will need to wait for approval that. My friend Matt is currently in Africa doing work with Invisible Children and working with the Education Ministry of a country there to improve their teaching methodology. Social Justice was the theme of his history class this year.

Hey... doing "regular" teaching and yet getting our kids to reach out to the wider world? To know that they aren't the only kids in the world who like Chris Brown and Fergie?

That they can make a difference to make the world a better place.

Now THAT, is changing the world. (fellow bloggers: know any good triathlon companies that are eco-friendly and worth supporting? We are already sponsored by Oomph Sports and Xterra Wetsuits, at least last year... or math curriculum that might help support this?)

Also am thinking more about how perhaps I want to re-focus my life on the "tentmaker," strategy... teaching and coaching to support things like the Triathlon team, more administrative and integration with Turning Points Academy, etc. This is going to be a great summer of change and focus.

week after

2008-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

It's been a great week of teaching and coaching.

Teaching-wise we have been working at a workshop all week. A bit more of Understanding By Design but with a math focus! It's been hard work especially after school just ending but good preparation for me teaching algebra II next year!

Athletically, it's also been busy but good. Running a few miles on Monday, a good water polo practice on tuesday, a vigorous run complete with sprints and lunges and wall-sits yesterday (in our new clothes from Oomph Sports!) and today will be more water polo. Mexico starts tomorrow and i'll be back june 29th...

22 mile ride

2008-06-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

good afternoon!

went on a nice 22 mile ride with one of my students, and a kid from church and his dad. a nice 22 mile ride - good for the first of the season in quite a while. (we took pretty much all of May off - myself included). my speedometer wasn't working but it was a nice rolling hills with some big ones too.

tomorrow is a one mile open water swim for me and the goal is to hit 25 minutes perhaps.
Albert taking a break @ the Millerton country store.

end of school!

2008-06-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

Wow! It's over!!! (still a few paperwork things to take care of, but...)

I didn't realize how tired and ready I was for the end of school until it happened yesterday. I had a chance to actually go to starbucks with a friend last night to talk about a great book on Humility and not set time limits on when I had to go!

today i slept as long as i wanted too, went on a medium-tempo 3-4 mile run with a friend and then kinda hung out. cleaned the cars (suburban still smells from... something... a bit.), did laundry, played starcraft on the computer... dinner with Leo at 6:30.

the summer:
- USAT Level 1 coaching conference in Albuquerque, NM in July!
- Water Polo practice Tues/Thurs 6-8pm
- Triathlon practice M/W/F 4-6pm
- Adult triathlon practice!
- Summer School July 1-22 (geometry review! a lot easier than full-on Geometry all summer!)
- Math conference in July 28-Aug 1
MEXICO with Meagan and family in just over a week!!

Mud Run

2008-06-07T22:23:00.000-07:00

It was a very successful (and relatively cheap!) mud run today as 10 students and 3 adults went down to Lemoore Naval Air Station for the Mud Run!

5 miles of running with mud-laden shoes.
Climbing over 8 foot tall walls.
Sliding through 2 feet thick pools of gunk.
Good times had by all!

Pictures are located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon/MudRun2008

Some great pics of myself, fellow McLane Turning Points Academy teacher Erin Pullen, Meagan Friedrich and 10 students from McLane(5), Roosevelt(1), Duncan(3), and Buchanan(1) high schools!

Please visit the Website for a preview of our new logo - currently being professionally produced by Jeffery Scott Advertising in-kind for the team! Founding team member Sovann Mey created the version you see on the page.

Since the article, we've also picked up sponsorships from Training Peaks training software (10 licenses), Oomph Sports sent us a box of cycling/triathlon gear for the kids, and several of you generously donated your money to the cause. Your donations helped directly with this event and our upcoming Tri for Fun and Tri for Real events in July. It's been a great few weeks for Fresno PAL and McLane High School!

- one week left of School!
Monday: Graduation at 7pm and I'll be staying up all night to help out with Sober Grad. partly because I live next door to Blackbeards, the Family Fun park so can take a nap if I have too real quick.
Tuesday: TPA field trip day! (church @ night)
Wednesday: Bbq (my responsibility - including the TPA olympics!)
Thursday: last day!!!!
Friday: relax. well, plan for summer school...

Vision

2008-05-25T04:50:00.000-07:00

let me know what you think about a "vision" page i just added to the site in preparation for May 3rd's "After School Program Provider Conference."

http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com/vision i should probably post our mission statement and stuff sometime too...

good news!

2008-05-25T01:09:00.001-07:00

after doing what i was supposed too, my foot feels tons better! I even rode my bike a bit with the kids yesterday and did a bit of running (we are talking 5 miles of biking and 1-2 miles of running, then a quarter mile swim... but its something!)

yesterday at millerton i took up 7 kids, another teacher(miss renfro!) met me there as well as a dad and his son (who goes to a higher-income school and i know him from church.) it was a great time and the first time in a while we got to have the bikes out on hilly terrain. (jose, billy, albert, eric, omar, edna, austin, joseph!).

On tuesday june 3 i will attend a conference for after-school programs and will present a plan to replicate this program at other schools in fresno county... and beyond? phase 1 in "making triathlon accessible to everyone anywhere".

hats off

2008-05-23T09:26:00.001-07:00

my hats off to the McLane baseball team - 2008 division 3 valley champions!

http://www.fresnobee.com/sports/story/621859.html

- a good week for McLane in the media... the triathlon team last week, the baseball team this week... water polo next fall?

Shedding Wait

2008-05-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

I spelled the title correctly.

Last week I decided i wouldn't go play Masters Water Polo anymore. After six years, I'm also stepping down as a leader in junior high ministries at my church (www.riverpark.org). BTSA is done. The swim season is over. Fresno State Triathlon club is over.

For the past nine months, those events have taken up at least 2 hours every Monday-Thursday night. So tonight, free of obligations, I really, really enjoyed!

Oh, and Rainmaker - pretty sure I have Plantar fasciitis. It's been hurting about since my half marathon a couple of weeks ago and tomorrow I'm going to see a specialist in the morning. Bummer. So I lifted some weights tonight and tomorrow if I wake up early enough I'll go for a hard swim.

A question I asked myself today and now ask you:
1) After the past few weeks, I really feel like I'm making a difference. but what do I really feel? What will they remember a year from now?

A few weeks left...

2008-05-18T22:08:00.001-07:00

Greetings!

Good things are indeed happening at my high school (I'm trying not to mention the name/geography any more). We got back California Exit Exam results last week and good stuff:
from my department chair:
"Our new 10th grade pass rate is 72%!!!!!
This is only 3% behind E_ HS which has the computech kids, and a full 10% and 11% ahead of F_ High and R_ respectively. I realize a lot of factors can contribute to these variances, but we should all be VERY proud of ourselves and our students. "

when the test first came out a few years ago the average pass rate for our demographics was around 50% (which not coincidentally is the average pass rate for 9th grade algebra... we're working on it!)

- had a nice lake practice Friday for the tri team as the temperature soared to over 100 for officially the first time this weekend... yesterday hit 106 or 107 i think. but it will be back down to the 90's by the end of the week. I know Nevada we got nothing on ya...

I did a cool assessment on Friday where I let them pick how they responded to questions - either they could raise their hand and tell me, they could write it out, they could show it like normal, or they could use pictures. For example, there are plenty of ways to show the pythagorean theorem (which we used as an example of how to use the different modalities)...

- one of the questions i had them do were:
"circles and squares are very different. Why do both have 360 degrees in them?" (they had to show why using perpendicular tangent lines and such...)

some GREAT responses; if I have time i'll scan them in tomorrow but i probably won't. but they showed a lot of maturity in geometrical/proof thinking (so i guess all those two column proofs last semester paid off!) and i couldn't have been happier with some of the things those kids wrote - wow, they understand some stuff!

but it was such a great weekend, with the kids throwing a "surprise" bbq for me on Saturday due to the article and hanging out with my girlfriend all day Sunday I kinda just feel like calling in sick tomorrow! ha ha.

Fresno Bee Article

2008-05-14T06:47:00.001-07:00

http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/warszawski/story/598423.html

all three areas...!!!

2008-05-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

By all three areas, I mean the three areas of my professional life:

1) Teaching (Math)
2) Water polo
3) Triathlon

Teaching: Last week after a couple days of different word problems involving volume, surface area, and manipulating variables to solve for different things, I too was getting tired. So... after I went to a fantastic conference last WEdnesday night with Alan November, I decided to have my kids make a wikipedia page for our high school, which didn't have one yet! (they allow ones for HS'ers)

it took some classtime and a lot of collaboration, but it is turning out pretty well. Now that we've got the bare-bones, I emailed some other teachers and am hoping to get their students to work on it too.

Math-wise, it was a great project to get them to learn how to better work WITH each other... building off of each others work rather than copying it, etc. And it was fun. Probably a dozen of them came back on Monday and told me they'd shown it to their friends/family... and we think they don't always care about what they do in class!

The page is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mclane_high_school

2) Water Polo started yesterday! We had a handful of kids at the meeting, and about 4 stayed for practice. Good stuff! We're about a week away from being an official USA Water Polo Club which will allow us to expand to Masters, jr high, and the High schoolers (including those from other schools) to enter into tournaments.

3) The follow-up to last year's Fresno Bee article should happen tomorrow! Check www.fresnobee.com and it will be under "sports" and the columnist Marek Warszawkski! He came an interviewed me and the kids yesterday... he'd even dug up an article done in 2005 about my work with the Senior Citizens Village near Fresno Pacific... I mentioned my faith was the motivation so i'll be curious what he puts down.

We've also gotten 3 newly-donated bikes in the past week and a half; always exciting! Took some kids up to Millerton last friday for some SWIMMING and running; good times. This Saturday we're having a little party thing and will soon start training for the Mud Run in June.

---
Lots of BTSA stuff to do by tomorrow! :-( Could be a Rockstar night!

no standardized tests left!

2008-05-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was a milestone of sorts...

After 5 multi-sport races in the last six weekends, I have none now until June! I did a half marathon last weekend and while my time of 2:02 wasn't great/didn't hit my goal, proportionately how many people can say they did a half marathon then hopped in a car and went to another triathlon festival (wildflower)? and i wasn't sore today! Tomorrow morning i may try for six miles, depends on how long it takes for my sheets to get dry/me to get to bed. i may just bust out the sleeping bag cuz i'm getting tired and want to go to bed before 11...

Well Standardized Tests finished last week, as well as the swim season! So without swimming this week I have an extra 15 hours or so which is cool. today i cleaned my apartment, and cooked a great salmon, green pasta, and strawberries(!) dinner with milk. a full meal on a weeknight... probably a first for me! but i also wasted a lot of time...

i was going to take a picture but a type of emergency came up so i had to go. then Triathlon club meeting (for Fresno State) and then home to clean some more and talk to the girlfriend for a bit :-)

Today we did a great problem experiment that went something like this:

Sale price of grain: $10 per cubit ft.
you have a 30x30 plot of land to build a grain silo on. Assume you will sell all of your grain at the maximum price. For this problem, you are only talking about the FIRST year.

You have four options on how to build your silo:
1) Rectangular prism: Cost is $100,000
2) Cylinder: cost is $90,000
3) Cone - 60,000
4) Pyramid: $50,000

(they could have figured out surface area and all that cost stuff, but i wanted this problem to get done in one day.) overall there were some kids that really understand it and were into it - and turned in some GREAT looking papers, but by and large the kids got confused because hey, they had to use their brains and re-frame the problem and do the work, etc... no one was telling them the radius was 15 ft, etc.

I was going to give them bookwork tomorrow (as evidenced on the website, mrdorman.com) but i think i may give them another performance-based task like that tomorrow. i mean they ahve the formulas already and know how to plug and chug... it's good for them to be confused sometimes!

half marathon training

2008-04-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Probably hard to see, but 11,2 miles yesterday at a sub 9 minute pace. that's the longest i've ever run-the-whole-time. my legs are sore today, but after another visit to the hot tub tonight i should be ok. tomorrow or thursday i'll do a 3 mile sprint session to be ready for saturday's half marathon!

Standardized tests

2008-04-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

Lately most of my posts have been coaching related, so here's the teaching part.

We're taking standardized tests this week. Not fun for me or for the kids. The good thing is I feel comfortable with what and how deeply we've covered the things in geometry they need to know. But testing all day zaps energy, motivation, and morale!

The only good thing about it is there's no homework for them to do or me to grade, and I can try to get caught up on stuff like BTSA paperwork and kinda relax too. All of my lesson plans and observation are done for BTSA, now it's just a matter of doing the paperwork and compiling the student work, which is cool.

Last night i ran 11.2 miles! My last big run before the half marathon this Sat. about a 9 minute mile pace but that was with a mountain dew and just a granola bar for a snack and stuff. it felt good though! I'll do some speed work(3, 1 mile sprints) on Wednesday or Thursday (probably thurs. morning, as i have morning swim practice on wed. and night tri-club swim practice on wed.)

I'm also dreaming up lesson plans for the next month and and doing research for water polo starting in a couple weeks in my spare time.

4th Annual Kids Triathlon a smashing success!

2008-04-27T23:08:00.000-07:00

The stats:

Medals: 3rd place in boys 15-17 division (Aaron). 3rd place in girls (technically she skipped the last lap, so we're kinda guessing here...) Edna Martinez

Participating:

Albert (hurt knee but still did fine) - 5th triathlon

Eric: 3rd triathlon

Edna: 4th triathlon

Angel: 3rd triathlon

Daniel: 2nd triathlon (first one by himself)

(14 - goes to Sequoia middle school): Ebony Esparza: first triathlon

11 yrs old: Eliset - first triathlon

8 years old: Gerardo - first triathlon!

Josh couldn't run due to a hurt toe but came to support us anyway!

It was an amazing morning! Partly due to this being the third triathlon in a row (and the fourth triathlon in the past 5 weekends starting with the Half Ironman March 29th) I wasn't as organized as I usually am in terms of registration (thank you thank you Alma!), but we got there early enough to get all set up in transition and doing so many recently really helped the kids know what to do and help each other.

I was most excited though that the PARENTS of Angel, Daniel, Albert, Eric, and Aaron were there! Edna's parents helped transport bikes too. Thank you!

The Fresno Bee was there for us and will publish a follow-up story sometime in the coming months. Marek was there on his own time; he'll come out later as part of his job to interview etc. Pretty amazing!

Pictures with some comments are here:

Kids Triathlon Pictures

Next weekend I will be running in the Visalia "End of the trail" half marathon with friends David Castro and Joey Hull. Then Meagan and I and others will head up to Wildflower to cheer on our friends doing an Olympic Distance Triathlon.

Next stop: June 7th Lemoore Mud Run! Today marks the one year anniversary of having the Suburban available for transportation to and from events! Forever grateful!

bike repair day

2008-04-26T23:09:00.000-07:00

Well, there were four of us out there today cleaning and fixing up the bikes! Good times and a great exercise for the kids. Amazing what a little wd-40 and chain cleaner will do to things!

Afterwards we registered for the kids triathlon and that was good times. i'm afraid from an ititial sign up of 17 i'm down to about 11 depending on who wakes up tomorrow :-( A lot of it they can't help though...

Most of them are super excited for tomorrow's super-sprint kids race and so am I! They're gonna do awesome. Pictures from the day are at http://picasaweb.google.com/paltriathlon

Meagan (girlfriend) and I ran 6 miles in the afternoon then i rested, ate, and did some weights and light swimming at the gym. then came home and cleaned up a bit, did laundry, and played old-school starcraft! am reading a great book right now too about love languages (Dr. Gary Chapman) to try and communicate better in a relationship...

new article goodness

2008-04-21T18:48:00.001-07:00

http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com/media

updated with the USA Triathlon Life Article :-)

i'll take it down if i hear otherwise from USA Triathlon. Thanks guys!

- Bike Repair day this Saturday at McLane (Cedar and Clinton in Fresno), 9am-1pm. Bring your own tubes, tools etc. and we'll provide the people with the know-how and some supplies too. Also some technique drills, probably some running biking and swimming too... all getting ready for the Kids Triathlon on Sunday!

new article goodness

2008-04-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

USA Triathlon Life article

2008-04-17T22:15:00.001-07:00

If you get the USAT members magazine Triathlon Life, check out page 44.

I was pretty pumped to finally get the magazine after responding to a bunch of emails, phone calls and such back in October. Unfortunately it mostly focuses on me, but also talks about the fantastic kids and their improvement. I'm hoping for more interest and visits to the website at http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com if people search for Fresno PAL Triathlon Team or Brandon Dorman Triathlon in google. (right now it points them to the right sites...).

Reading the article, it was cool to sit back and just kinda enjoy a job well done in the midst of aiming for higher and higher aspirations for my students (and myself!).

a more somber post

2008-04-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

Officer kills young attacker at Roosevelt High

- not my high school, but 2 of my triathlete students go to that school and it's less than two miles away from where I teach at. In other words, just down the street.

Scary as hell in some respects. A student (sure, not the brightest idea to go after a cop with a baseball bat...) is dead tonight. I can't even imagine. And to think just tonight I took 4 kids to swim practice for triathlons and tomorrow will take even more running... which is GREAT. And certainly probably the main reason I take them on everything is to keep them away from that stuff.

So I guess that's good motivation but not the kind I want to see every day...
Yesterday: easy 2 miles, then some sprints, pushups, squats, and the PLANK for 1:30.
Today: about 2,000 yards but mostly focused on technique (like breathing) with the noobs Josh and Daniel. Angel and Edna came along too.

Tomorrow we'll try for 2-3 miles at a bit of a faster pace. More kids from my classes should be coming too! Millerton triathlon this weekend!

Professional Development

2008-04-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

So this past Saturday (exactly one week after Ironman California) I attended a conference for "Computer Using Educators" here in Fresno. Good stuff - http://cvcue-conference.pbwiki.com/ is the conference website. I attended three sessions and all but one were fantastic and inspiring.

Tonight I also went to a mini-conference on teacher team collaboration sponsored by a local school that has been doing it for years. http://www.cart.org/ They did a great job and I was again encouraged to see all the great things that local teachers are doing to make learning come alive in the classroom.

One thing I am doing is the use of webpages for my students. They are all engaged in creating a "space project" based on specific job descriptions and a common theme across the five subject areas out in Turning Points Academy, my small learning community. http://dormanmath.googlepages.com/spacepage has more information.

So the good news is, I'm already doing a lot of the things they recommend! (such as making the students accountable to their peers on a weekly basis, and only using me as the "hammer" in the final grade decision - but if certain students pick up where others are supposed to, that will be reflected in each weekly grade/status report.)

Also good is that I'm caught up for the moment with BTSA (beginning teacher stuff) paperwork after staying up til 2am last night (and waking up at 5am! I had basically two 24 oz energy drinks today plus a 20 oz mountain dew! I will be going to bed before 9 tonight...)

Back to P.D. My main questions for the teacher-readers out there - so far I've often felt the biggest thing missing from professional development is teachers from other schools just... talking and thinking together. I appreciated at tonight's forum we did have a chance to do that and it's great - no egos, no agendas to get past, etc. Just strangers that love math talking about how to teach it best! Good stuff...

- Small Triathlon this Sunday!

running

2008-04-07T21:39:00.000-07:00

workouts this week:

Tuesday 6:30am meet @ McLane; 2 mile run.
wednesday, 7-8 swimming @ State (practice a 400)
Thursday: 3-4 miles same time/place

Saturday ride in the later afternoon (after the swim meet)
sunday: Visalia Sprint Triathlon! (going: Ramiro/Josh as a team, Rico(??), Josh Wise maybe, Albert now maybe too?

amazing kids

2008-04-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

I just love and am always amazed at how a little bit of attention to a kid can go a long way. Just tonight I received a phone call from a kid I was a camp counselor to in - get this - 2002. He is the age now that I was when I was his counselor. He talked about a time back in '02 when he was getting picked on, and walked into the cabin and apparently I'd told the guys to say something nice to him. He was really surprised and it stuck out in his mind.

In fact it seems to have made a big impact in his life. I mean, it's 6 years later and he still remembered it enough to call me about it. He's never called me before - got my phone number from the "signature" line of my emails which we've corresponded maybe every six months to a year over the past 5 or so. He is one of those kids that initiated/kept in contact with me well after camp, and i even went and visited him and some other people a few times as he lived nearby my hometown. I'm realizing more and more the importance of my role as "that teacher who didn't give up on me" in these kids lives. Even if I feel too persistent or annoying or like they're taking advantage of my kindness. I'd rather feel those feelings than give up and not find out it put their life on the right track.

Here's to the small moments that make lifelong impacts. (share a story of yours?)

Half Ironman

2008-03-31T17:41:00.000-07:00

It was an amazing Ironman weekend for the Fresno PAL Triathlon Team! I (Coach Dorman) competed in my first (half) Iron man race (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) in 6 hours and 35 minutes; I was hoping to finish between 6 and 7 hours so hit right on the money! Seven students (Albert, Marvin, Edna, Michael, Aaron, Eric, Omar) came down with me in the Suburban as well as my girlfriend Meagan and friend Jen. The students did a GREAT job volunteering/cheering people on as I raced and Meagan and Jen took pictures and cheered me on!

To make a long story short, we left Friday around 7pm due to a swim meet against Fresno High, arrived around 1am and went to bed at 1:30am… only to wake up at 4:30 and leave by 5am for the race! Saturday after the race we hung out at the beach for a bit, had some great Pizza and Guitar Hero at my good friend Jeff's house. Sunday we went to some tide-pools at the beach and played some football. Then it took about 8 and a half hours to get home due to traffic and some pit stops. Car time is quality time...

Preliminary results are here:

http://www.nasports.com/results/cah2008prelim.html you can search for Dorman.

Some pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/hightri/halfironman

Special THANKS to the Ironman staff who helped make it happen, Fresno PAL of course, my brother and his fiancée Trish for letting us invade their house, and the parents of my students who gave us sandwiches for the road!

Some kids and I will do the Millerton Triathlon April 19^th with Sierra Multisport (http://www.sierramultisport.com) and others have chosen to do a Visalia super-sprint triathlon(http://www.onyourmarkevents.com/Vi-TriInfo.htm) and the Kids Triathlon here in the Fresno area April 27^th! http://www.triclubcentralcali.org/kids_event.html We are going to try and get some more kids from Fresno PAL's mentoring programs involved the Kids Triathlon as well. We are having some problems with bike maintenance so if anyone has some forks laying around or chains we always welcome donations!

Any questions, comments, etc. should be directed to Brandon Dorman or http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com Thanks for your support! I was SO proud of these students this weekend!
------------------

my race report:
Swim: LOVED every minute except getting kicked by some guy in the face. felt good about a 1:33 100yd split. water wasn't that cold with my new skull cap thing!

Bike: Really enjoyed it although the hills were challenging and I was Way slower than everyone on the bike... i honestly don't think i passed anyone! but that's ok. it was fun to cycle for the first time ever for me... I was super stoked at the end, especially considering the longest i'd ridden in one sitting was 45 miles on March 1st. Some people complained about the wind but I didn't mind it really... also I appreciated the slightly overcast weather sometimes because it kept me cool. I did feel like I perhaps needed some more liquids, but the aid stations and water i had kept me fine. I downed 3 packages of shot blocks and several gels as well, and always did drink water or gatorade after those!

run: I was tired so walked quite a bit as shown by my 10:30ish average mile time. also hadn't done a full half marathon in training. there were some hills and what not but was the most challenging part for me was looking out on the beach and smelling barbecues, people having fun and just spashing in the waves, etc... ugh! I wanted to just jump off the course and into the ocean for a minute!

analysis: more training of course, also more bricks. and rash guard for the wetsuit... looks like a giant hickey much to the amusement of my high school students... But overall a GREAT trip overall and great race too! also need to get a second water bottle for the bike...

teaching and... Ironman-ing?

2008-03-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Ok so now some students and stuff are starting to read this as well... we'll see if they post back though!

- this week we will be refreshing the past few months (i know, a week is a LONG time!) and doing a project on the Pythagorean Theorem to finish it off. I didn't want to finish it before easter break because it's so important it's good to start off now with it. Eh, something like that.

- You'll also be working on your space projects! I posted a sample website as well as job descriptions and examples here.

- One week from Saturday - March 29th to be exact; I will be racing in the Ford Ironman 70.3 California race. Basically it's a "half ironman distance" so not the full ironman, but something about teaching and coaching, and a Girlfriend/life get in the way right now of doing that. and i enjoy mountain dew too much.

- still, I'm very excited! You may see me riding my bike to work a few days this week to keep my legs loose for the race.
- I will be checking homework every day again and you will have a quiz on Friday.

pi day

2008-03-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

not sure if i mentioned it in the last post, but PI Day was awesome last week! Above is a picture of one of my classes spelling out PI!

a great few weeks!

2008-03-17T14:47:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted... mostly just general busy-ness and high school exit exam testing last week!

Several more successful events in the past month - February 22-23rd saw 7 kids and myself going up to Folsom to volunteer at a duathlon and a great time was had by all. Pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com/hightri/camping The week after that was our second time doing the Tree Fresno race in downtown Fresno. 12 participated -including Eric's family (mom and 4 siblings!) It was absolutely amazing to see them racing! First race for Francisco too which was cool. Albert got 10th place overall, and beat me by about 8 minutes in the six mile race. (I got about 45 mins, so about a 7:30 mile).

This past weekend we figured since it was spring break it'd be cool to do a big camping thing. So I took 9 kids along with fellow teacher Wendy up to Folsom. We borrowed mountain bikes from Jen/CSU Fresno Triathlon Club, and 7 kids did the Chanoko Duathlon either as a relay or individual. (2 mile run, 12 mile Mountain Bike, 2 mile run). I did the six mile trail run and completed it in about 50 minutes which considering the hilly terrain I was happy with!

We will practice this week but not a whole lot... I need a break too! This morning I rode 30 miles and it felt great! I did get a flat tire though. This afternoon I'm going to do some reflection time at Woodward Park and probably do some running as well; Ironman California 70.3 is LESS than two weeks away!

This weekend I was pleased that I felt much more like the coach than previous trips. Last year I focused a lot on mentoring and that kinda thing... this year i feel like I know the kids less, but it is helpful sometimes too because they seem to be more willing to share stuff sometimes too and there's less risk of them telling me something they shouldn't. However I still feel the relationships being developed on this team are incredibly powerful. It gets more complicated sometimes when I go on a trip such as this past one and I know for sure that I have strong relationships with at least 4 of them - tensions sometimes rise if they perceive favoritism and such. But that's life. It was a great trip and after a great time talking with my girlfriend Meagan last night, I'm on cloud nine right now! And my car's in the shop so I'm stuck at home :-)

First Race

2008-02-18T18:29:00.001-08:00

We did a 5k this weekend. 9 kids in call, thanks to the heroic last-minute efforts of my girlfriend Meagan. Thanks Meagan. For six of these kids, this was their first actual race before with numbers and everything, and we had a great time! 3 kids beat me too... one kid by just one second despite my best efforts at sprinting at the end! So I'm seriously going to start running twice a day.

Doing special right triangles this week! If you hadn't seen the myspace pages yet (which I'm afraid I'll have to take down soon because some kids are abusing them):
http://www.myspace.com/306090tri
(and the more popular http://www.myspace.com/454590tri )

Hilarious stuff. "i love long linear walks on the beach..." etc. I think I'm funny. The kids think I'm goofy. I don't care!

On a personal note my grandfather is very ill and I spent all day Sunday visiting him up in the Bay area (about 2 and a half hours away). We'll see...

first official triathlon club practice of 2008!

2008-02-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

Preseason is over! The first official swim practice of the Fresno PAL Triathlon Club (the largest active high school triathlon club in the country as far as we know! (seriously!).

Two kids came along to the fresno State tri club practice and we had a good time swimming. Albert noted that "I'd forgotten how hard and yet fun swimming is!" and Sovann got several cramps so didn't swim much - but it was the first time he'd tried actual swimming since Triathlon season last year (march)! So I was very proud of both of them! Next practice is wednesday!

cool connection

2008-02-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Last night one of my earliest mentored students (all the way back from 2003 when i was a camp counselor) sent me a message on facebook basically saying what's up.

the cool thing about that is i hadn't heard from him since probably 2004... he'd been going through some problems at home, so i sent his parents a letter around Christmas time offering to talk to him or whatever; to, "get inside his head." apparently he hadn't liked the wording of that and had gotten pretty upset.

well, he said that he'd forgotten about that... it was "in the past" and was excited to be talking again. i reminded him to not send me "email" type messages on facebook since im a teacher and stuff now... but wow, it just really made my day to get the message from him! relationships that matter are truly why we are in this profession! even when we think the kids have forgotten about us!

sick

2008-01-28T21:03:00.001-08:00

I'm sick so had to skip out on most of the buyback day today, but will be in class tomorrow! Tylenol rocks...

Finishing up Quadrilaterals this week for Geometry; point-slope form for Algebra. Triathlon Meeting on Friday and some swimming stuff during the week.

on teacher-student relationships

2008-01-20T02:15:00.000-08:00

It's cool how we work and work and work and -- somewhere along the way are often able to become more than just math teachers to our students!

Today I was working out with some students - just three guys today... but one new guy to the Triathlon Team which is great, a kid from a different high school who I'm starting to get to know through Winter Water Polo as well, and another kid that started out as just a cross country kid and was also in my student teaching class - 3 school years ago! So it was a good group.

We biked about 5 miles then ran probably only about a mile and a half or so, but it was all hills and stuff so it was hard! Sprint up the hill, do 5 jumping jacks, back down, 5 pushups, and we did that four times! I was sweating for sure when we finished! Afterward we went to Riteaid to get some water and such... good times.

Anyway, I mention all that to talk about the subject line. As I've gotten to know about a dozen students really, really well over the past few years, I'm amazed at how much they in turn know about me even though I don't really talk about myself that much. I mean, some of them even know what radio station presets the Suburban has; ask me when the last time I got it oil changed, etc. And there is a growing list of stories and inside jokes ("We left Sovann @ the gas station... check for carrots...). I was talking with some students today and noted that I am simpily enabling them to "do their thing" in regards to sports. Sure, I set the tone, the rules, and provide the means - but this is THEIR triathlon club. It is the students who last year succeeded in being the first organized high school triathlon club in the Central Valley - and one of a handful in the US, if not the world. Can't wait to see what will happen in 2008!

Good second week

2008-01-18T10:55:00.000-08:00

Twas a good second week! Had a nice meeting with my BTSA provider this morning as we assessed student work based on projections (some kids I thought would do well didn't; likewise some students I thought wouldn't do well did great!)

I gave them two point (-4,-5) and (4,5) and they had to completely put it into slope-intercept form without any notes. this week we went from reviewing slope on Monday to point-slope on Tuesday and Wednesday, and yesterday practiced this. Most did very well and I was pretty proud of them! These are my second-year algebra students...

Gotta go get some Carl's Jr. for lunch today! I'm hungry. Last night dinner was a frito boat because I went from coaching winter water polo (4-6pm) to dropping kids off from that to working the basketball game to sell license plate frames for Turning Points Academy, the learning community I'm in. (http://mclane.fresno.k12.ca.us/academics/tpa.html) Got hoem from that and i Was tired!

This weekend will be busy as well! Tonight goin out to dinner with the girlfriend Meagan and some colleagues from school, tomorrow morning working out on the bike, afternoon doing a nice workout again (should have more kids and volunteers tomorrow!), and Monday doing a service project with some volunteers from Fresno Pacific University and my students. Sunday will be spent planning the week's lesson and finishing up grading today's quiz.

Today my geometry students will have to draw and completely label a parallelogram such as a rhombus, square or rectangle. probably rectangle cuz we did those yesterday... i'm off to get food and caffeine!

Good Bike/Run Workout

2008-01-13T02:54:00.000-08:00

Today went running and biking with some (mostly new) Triathlon kids. Thanks to Kristina for coming to volunteer... (last time she came with us she fell and had to go to the hospital for stitches and a concussion! :-( )

It was a good time! I ran 4 miles and biked just two, some kids biked as much as 8 miles on a somewhat hilly course and combinations in between. Very positive kids and it was really fun to hear and see friendships between the kids start to develop (no one knew more than one other kid before today's 4 hour outing)... including getting free donuts from one of the kids brothers on the way home!)

3 new websites

2008-01-09T23:29:00.000-08:00

I made three new websites over the break:

http://mclanepolo.googlepages.com (for all information regarding McLane Water Polo)

http://paltriathlon.googlepages.com (for the Fresno PAL Triathlon Team - the regular Fresno PAL website is out of commission currently)

http://dormanmath.googlepages.com (I'm proud of this one! It will be an actual website for my students! Not perfect - the images on the practice quiz don't work, for example - but it really can send me their results as they test themselves throughout the unit! And they for sure have internet access this semester because we're out @ Fresno State!)

Today I spent an hour or so working on documents for BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assistance or something like that. just like being an intern but without classes).

First day

2008-01-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

Ahh, the first day of the semester at Fresno State! Always a good time... watching the kids get used to being on the big bad campus and all that.

Seriously, I was reflecting that last year I saw teaching as an adventure - each time I had to do something new, like give a District test, the State Graduation test, fill out a CPS report, etc. was new and kind of exciting. Not so much anymore! I want to regain that sense of wonder this semester.

Snow Trip

2008-01-02T20:45:00.000-08:00

Today I took some triathlon kids (7) to the snow and we had a good time. Tiring though too! It's only 8:45 and I may go to bed soon... actually no, I'll probably go to the gym for a bit! Might as well... doing a duathlon this weekend I'm not ready for!

Extra trips like this are the core of what I do. It's all about building community for the kids and letting them know there is a group of people they can and should share experiences with. Regardless of whether or not I end up helping create a successful aquatics program at my school, these are the kinds of trips and memories that high school is created for.

Also got a chance while dropping kids off to talk with parents - including a new one of a kid that hadn't been on a triathlon trip before and he seemed to have a great time today which was gratifying. He's also one of my students.

School starts next Monday; tomorrow I guess I'll be doing some prep time and going to school too for room cleanup and getting ready for some new projects we'll be kicking off in January. fun stuff...

a fresh start for '08

2007-12-27T00:09:00.000-08:00

I have internet once again in the apartment. and it'll stay that way cuz my roommate is moving out @ the end of january and i'll be alone in a one bedroom; which i'm looking forward to in some ways although it's been great to have a built-in friend for the past two years.

Anyway, for next year I want to actually make my blog about teaching and coaching. About the dynamics of having my athletes in my classes. When they make me proud, when they make me cringe, when they make me... confused! And also throw in some actual coaching technique stuff as well as math teaching technique. I'll also be working on the water polo team webpage here:
http://mclanepolo.googlepages.com/

Right now it's just a mock-up; i wanted to get it approved before i actually made it live. Tomorrow I'm working at a group home i worked at before I became a teacher. Should be fun to see the staff again (and I still know some of the kids because I've been helping out for the past few months doing some triathlon team stuff.) But it's from 7am-11pm! And i'ts 12:15am right now... hmm. i got a girlfriend tonight. well, we've been talking for a couple of months, so it was great hanging out with her tonight. i even treated her to Taco Bell before taking her grocery shopping at WinCo (kinda like FoodsCo/FoodMax if you have those) for her zoo class she teaches. i drive a hard bargain.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I was in Hawaii for a week then beautiful southern cali, where it was like in the high 60's or at least warm enough i could sit outside in shorts and a t-shirt... but after wearing a speedo for years i don't get cold that easily. i really gotta stop typing now...

absence

2007-11-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

No internet at my apartment due to a roommate's errors in calculation... now that water polo season is over and i actually have some free time, i plan to fix that situation next week. no full time coaching until around February! Hallelujah in a way, although I'll miss the kids. Tomorrow night is a Water Polo team party at a pizza place which should be fun. i got a ball for my assistant coach for the kids to sign and a big picture for them to sign for the scorekeeper. i think it looks nice.

will have to report more later but i'm tired.

one month!

2007-09-16T17:03:00.001-07:00

a month in an not a whole lot to report! Some challenges for some kids to be sure, including some of my athletes. but the support is there! Still only a few problems in classes which is so refreshing! Gave a test on Friday and will need to grade/record those soon... not looking forward to that so much but not bad either.

my new assistant coach for water polo is awesome. we are really making the kids work hard and it's showing. they're having a lot of fun too, and so am i because at least with another adult on deck it's not me at 22 (mostly new) swimmers/water polo players! We have our first two official games this coming week.

The Shaver Lake Triathlon is next weekend, and we're excited. Except it's gonna rain Saturday when we're planning on going camping :-( I don't know how I'm gonna fit everything in this week... but I'll try! Gonna go to the gym tonight and then eat dinner so i won't be hungry when i go grocery shopping.

After this triathlon I'll take a bit of a break then just will be training for a half marathon in november. if it's too much I'll just stop. It might be too much. I need to devote more time to the Algebra 10 class (algebra I rehashed for the kids who failed it.) I want to move to a problem-solving approach.

first week almost done!

2007-08-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

well it was a busy first week! Almost 20 kids are out for water polo (well... about 12 showing up but 8 more that will be getting their physicals soon enough/this weekend). So that's cool. Triathlon practice Saturday (a brick workout at Woodward Park to get back into the swing of things... probably 4 miles running, 10 miles biking and some endurance workouts like lunges over the hills, carrying your partner, and sprints).

the kids are AWESOME so far! Algebra I is a bit rougher but because of their skill level... we spent almost all week on negative numbers and such and they had a rough time with it... but they're optimistic still! So that's cool. 39 kids in first period but they'll fix that soon. average of 32 in the tohers so not that bad. TPA rocks it! highlanders never quit!

mathnerd hope your first week is going well too! I think you're the only person who reads this other than cateacher guy and stuff. did he get a job after all? i'll have to check soon.

Sponsorships and a break and Volunteers

2007-08-18T21:11:00.000-07:00

The past month has seen only one event happen (a one mile run race where six students participated) but a lot of other things! Xterra wetsuits donated 5 brand new wetsuits to the Tri Team, which will greatly enhance our water capabilities at the Shaver Lake Triathlon in September. We will be begin training for that next week.

Saturday the 18th I took four students (Victor, Angel, Albert, and water polo convert Marvin) to Fresno Pacific University to hunt for more volunteers for the Triathlon Team. It was a bit odd for me to go back and speak before people who were basically my peers... big bad Mr./Coach Dorman now. (the oldest students there were freshmen in college when I was a senior). But it went well, although at first the kids were immature and then when I asked them to say something cool about the triathlon team they uttered one-word responses. But the students loved them and a lot of students wanted to volunteer. So we'll see how that goes!

School starts on Monday! I'm scared but excited to teach algebra I from start to finish as well as get another crack at Geometry this year. I have quite a few students from sports who will be in my classes, which is a challenge but something I'm really looking forward to as well.

oh and on a personal note i have a girlfriend now so may be making frequent trips to UCLA this semester...

Catching up - I'm going on vacation next week!!!

2007-07-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

This past weekend the Fresno PAL Triathlon team traveled to Rancho
Seco Park to participate in the Tri for Fun and Tri for Real
Triathlons sponsored by TBF Racing. The Tri for Fun was a sprint
distance tri (.5 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 3 mile run), and the Tri for
Real was an Olympic distance event (.9 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2
mile run). 7 students participated in both events combined, with only
Albert, Carlos and myself completing the Olympic Distance event.
First the results! Edna (triathlon convert from water polo!) and
Elizabeth (founding member) placed FIRST in their division in the Tri
for Fun event! Edna did the swimming and running and Elizabeth did
the running. Angel and Gabriel successfully completed their first
full triathlon in great time. Victor hadn't been practicing with us
for a while, but completed the duathlon race that day in fine shape.
Albert, Carlos and I handed out water to people and had fun doing
that.
Sunday, on the Olympic Distance Event, Albert finished first in our
group (yes, before me...) with a time of 2 hours and 55 minutes! I
finished with a time of about 3 hours 2 minutes. Carlos finished
under three hours but had a spectacular sprint finish.
TBF was amazing – giving us free leftover pasta after Saturday's
event (which we combined with chicken and rolls for dinner that
night!) and being extremely accommodating of our group as always! All
of our donated racing bikes worked flawlessly (no flats!) and the kids
ran in their donated shoes and Fresno PAL shirts. Well, except me who
ran shirtless (See the photo gallery for explanation.)
Finally, the best part of the trip was Saturday night. While I
always try to find ways to positively affirm my student/athletes, I
have usually found that such comments hit home better when given in
private for the population I serve. However, over the campfire, I
went around to each student and spent about a minute praising them in
every way I could think of – glossing over the, "problems," and
frustrations I sometimes feel with them. In turn, I invited the rest
of the students to find something positive to say. I was amazed at
the honesty around that campfire. They all either took it seriously
or kept quiet if they couldn't say something worthwhile. Even some of
the guys got kind of emotional. The end was particularly touching.
As I dismissed them to leave, Gabriel piped up that what they'd been
talking about was to say something nice about me. So all seven kids
said something nice about me. I've realized the impact the Triathlon
was having on them in terms of grade increases, ditching decreases,
and events competed in. Yet perhaps I failed to really think about
how when it comes down to it, any kind of coaching situation is
ultimately between the athlete and the race, and the coach and the
athlete - imparting knowledge and care in a uniquely human endeavor.
Note that this was just after they'd lovingly cut my hair...
Thank you, individual donors and partners. Thank you, friends and
supporters. And of course, thank you Sargent Doyle and Fresno PAL,
whose leadership has made this program more effective and made the
past six months happen. We're taking a two week break (because I'm
going on vacation!), then will start training again in mid/late August
for the Shaver Lake and Merced Triathlons in September and October.
Last week we also received word that we were selected for a sizable
donation by a private party, securing our finances and allowing us to
buy better equipment for the students, transportation costs etc. and
in short further validate the Triathlon Experience these students are
having!
I have never more proud my students (from McLane High School!) this
weekend as they competed (and won!), volunteered, and conducted
themselves. You may view some pictures from the weekend at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/hightri/triforreal
and the official TBF Results/pictures will be up soon at
http://www.tbfracing.com

* These past two weeks I was at a math conference on teaching ELL Students better and it was amazing! I learned all about foldables for vocabulary, better notetaking, projects, and just hanging out with other math teachers! 3 days of it were at the beach too!

when worlds collide

2007-07-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Things have been really busy lately!

June 22nd: Millerton Trip! We swam, we ran, we ate Wendy's, we had fun! Combination water polo/triathlon practice.
June 23rd - the Valley Teen Ranch/PAL Fun Run!: Talk about my worlds colliding! I worked for Valley Teen Ranch (a group home for teenage felony offenders) from '05-'06, after college and while student teaching. I've stayed involved every so often being able to substitute, and tried to get them involved in the Triathlon Team, but it was too much work logistically. Anyway, so they were running there with a team of 7 kids that I brought too, and it was pretty cool to hear them all call me, "Mr. D______," and my students calling me a mix of Mr. and Coach. And the VTR staff that I knew calling me Brandon. It was really cool, I was happy with my 4 mile time of 29 minutes. (so a bit over a 7 minute mile). Afterward we all also got free wienerschnitzel meal vouchers so pigged out on chili dogs and drank mountain dew.

June 25th: Had a meeting with a local development group that might want to give us $! We'll get word in 2 weeks.

-------------------
The teaching and coaching part! : Several students in summer school are also now on my triathlon or water polo teams. One, we'll call him "Jose", really turned himself around since joining the triathlon team in February. I have worked on this kid for probably hundreds of hours - either praying for him, doing stuff behind the scenes for him/talking to teachers, and the actual helping him with his sports and schoolwork. I was so proud of him just last wekeend, when he realized he was failing hte summer school class, he called me to check his answers. normally i'd think that was odd, but I thought it was great that he would do that and he even was getting most of the answers correct!

But his behavior in class was not good. Last Tuesday he and a friend were messing around, and Jose's cell phone rang. I took it away. It rang again and I answered it, as I threaten to do andn oftne will answer student cell phones in class. A deep voice said, "this is Angel's mom," and a group of guys not more than six feet away from me started laughing. It was, "Allen," another new triathlon recruit of the past month (I had his brother in class last year though.) Well of course I couldn't stand for that, so sent them both to the summer school principal's office. The idea in SS is that you get one office visit, then gone. Jose was upset when he came back, but stayed after school with some other students just to do their homework in the classroom. I was impressed.

But two days later, he was making inappropriate comments about sexual functions (not the math kind of functions... wow so sad that i even notice that!), so I sent him outside and told him to watch it, that I really would kick him out at this point for inappropriate behavior. Well, about 2 hours later (summer school is a LONG 5 hours) he said something racist in front of the class. So I quietly called the office and informed him he was dropped. The other athlete kids in the class were shocked and told me things like, "oh, he's never gonna talk to you again!" and even though I knew I was being fair, kinda got to worrying too! After all, I really do care about this kid! This was the kid that I'd even grounded(took away cell phone, didn't let him compete in a race) before, after about a half hour consultation with his mom and stuff in April. He gave a speech in his english class about how the triathlon was the best thing he'd ever done. He has told me the triathlon has changed his life perspective much for the better, and has remarked when we see gang bangers/members on the streets, "that would be me without triathlon," - and I got him enrolled in the Mayors Gang Prevention Initiative, which provides family counseling and extra services when he needs them next year. I didn't want to lose that either.

But, sure enough after school he came back and asked if he could still be on the triathlon and water polo teams. I said yes, and started to say something like(note: I did not say or mean 'sorry'), "kicking you out wasn't personal, I did what I had to do," and he responded that I didn't have to explain, that he knew why he got kicked out. That definitely shoes maturity I honestly don't think he had six months ago. Part of it is he's turning 15 in a few months (2 days before my birthday, he is fond of pointing out.) and I noticed when looking at pictures recently has really matured physically recently. He's bigger and getting bulkier (working out will do that to you too!). So this truly was a success story so far still... although I feel more than ever the weight of responsibility and the opportunity for his school life. He recently told me after I mentioned how cool graduation was that he wanted me to hand him the diploma at graduation (some of the other triathlete/water polo kids I've got strong bonds with agreed). I told him that if he keeps working and maturing like he has the past few months, I'll find a way to make it work.

Another needy kid in my summer school class started practicing with us in the past week or two. His "mom" (we'll leave it at that) is very protective and he struggles with anger (gets picked on), immaturity (talks a lot about nothing sometimes... just happy to have people to listen to him I think!) and is smart but doesn't always do homework. I called him every day for 3 days in a row to make sure he does it and now hasn't missed an assignment in two weeks. I give at least 30 minutes to an hour of homework every day, including weekend. So it's starting to work... his mom called me this morning to let me know he's run away for a bit - got mad at her and left. Came back about an hour ago, but now he can't go on the camping trip we've been planning for weeks this coming weekend and he was really looking forward to. Bummer. But I'll do my best to keep him involved in stuff with the appropriate consequences.

Wow, how's that for a post about teaching and coaching?
- we'll be competing in the TBF Racing Tri for Fun and Tri for Real Triathlons next weekend. Should have about 6 kids and two adult leaders going up. Good stuff. our first triathlon since April 31st.

Graduation

2007-06-07T22:57:00.000-07:00

Went to McLane's graduation tonight. Wow, it was so encouraging! To see quite a few students I know from coaching was great; I can't wait until two years from now when my first group of TPA students will be graduating!

Today was an incredibly good day of getting some real work done, hanging out with the kids, and then graduation. I also got the Triathlon and Water Polo Team Suburban oil changed and tuned up.

What a privilege it is to live and teach in Fresno, at McLane.

eating healthy

2007-06-03T21:12:00.001-07:00

this week i'm going to start eating healthy. and just trying to be healthier. for as much as i work out, i shouldn't be getting more body fat. but i definitely am.

today at the grocery store i got some salad, yogurt, fruit (banana's and strawberries), lean chicken and cheese, and orange juice. oh and low fat granola bars. we'll see how it works this week. should be cheaper than always buying taco bell too!

less than two weeks left

2007-05-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

That's right. 2 weeks from now we'll all be done. crazy stuff. i'm feeling more energetic and optimistic about the students' learning and less like a general charging into battle (even in the 12pm class).

but i'm going to bed early for a nice run tomorrow morning at 6am and then Stairs after school! (i'm still gonna try for that Olympic Distance Triathlon in less than two weeks! I'll have to do a lot of training I guess tomorrow, Friday there's no time, Saturday night, Sunday, then all next week!)

- grading tests is not fun :-) almost all but one class done though!

energy

2007-05-22T21:29:00.001-07:00

the energy it's wearing thin!

taking the city bus

2007-05-21T18:08:00.001-07:00

Two cool things today:

1) No sports practice of any kind (Although i will probably go running tonight by myself).
2) I dropped off my car at Midas to get its brakes fixed (been meaning to do that for months...) and then took the city bus home! It took about an hour, but was filled with great conversation and knowing that I did the right thing... great to connect with the city and live as my students live!

- tomorrow is a Jeopardy-style review game, which I'll need to prep tonight, but other than that I don't even need to bring anything tomorrow except markers... so I may just ride my bike! If I leave early enough it won't be that warm! Craziness... I'm all serious now about getting in shape! For sure gonna do the June 10th Olympic Distance Triathlon even though I don't think I'll be fully ready for that yet... just to see how it feels and get back up there.

the beauty of pre-season

2007-05-19T22:12:00.001-07:00

Water Polo pre-season started this week! It was fantastic. 14 kids on Monday (3 new!), more on Wednesday and Friday. Even 10 today (saturday) at 5:30pm! I was impressed. The best part is at least 4 of the newcomers are totally loving the sport. One guy already went and bought jammers and stuff. Pretty cool. It's been so encouraging for me and also to see that most of the triathlon team will be transitioning to water polo...

i'm not sure how I'm gonna manage water polo and triathlon and summer school though. at least a lot of the kids will be "cross-over" kids - doing both water polo and triathlon (and for a few, in my summer school class too!) that's too much Dorman for even me to handle...!). but it'll be fun.

last night and today all day was lifeguard training. not bad; there are quite a few cool people there and it's fun to be the "coach" to several of them (kids who did winter water polo) and yet talk with them normally about water polo and the like. i even let them call me Brandon with a stern warning to call me Coach Dorman when they see me in my regular role. good stuff. but... 8 more hours tomorrow! Then since i didn't do any planning/prepping tonight, i get to do all the recording and stuff tomorrow!

should be a good week

2007-05-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

This week will be the first week since starting the school year that I am not an official student at Fresno Pacific University, or an official coach of a sports team. Wow.

- I'm looking forward to using feedback from the letters into my classroom lessons this week. Tomorrow going to make volume flipbooks and do a few problems with some homework. i'll have to think of a cool project we can do for TPA Day/Symposium in two weeks. The other teachers have been working for weeks on them. Hmm.

- Coaching-wise, should be a fun week. I'm actually looking forward to getting some working out in myself - swimming M and W maybe, and water polo Tuesday night. I need to get back in shape if I'm gonna do that Olympic Distance Tri in June. WATER POLO starts tomorrow after school and I can't wait to see who is there and get started on that!

- The biggest thing I will do to change my practice in the classroom is collect homework and provide feedback on it every day. If nothing else that will help change the tone they say they've noticed in the class. My bad for not being better at handing back work, etc.

Again, I'm optimistic about this week!

Triathlon Practice and the week

2007-05-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

This morning was a great triathlon practice. Six of us went to Millerton and did some running (3 miles), biking (12 miles) and swimming!( 1/4 mile). It was a great time augmented by McDonalds afterward! Especially when one of my water polo+triathlon athletes said, "thanks dad!" and the old couple across from us looked at me funny.

Overall it was a great week as well. Good lessons on Thursday and Friday - constructing pyramids, cylinders, etc. with construction paper. only lost 2 rulers. Not very stressful except still for the 12pm class, although Friday was better with them.

Had a great conversation with a kid on Thursday night at jr high group at church.

gotta do one more paper and then i just gotta put together my portfolio for Fresno Pacific and then on Thursday's the meeting and then I can... be done with credentialing!

- swim season ended on Friday. it was great but thank goodness... now i'm only coaching one sport for the next two weeks (triathlon) then comes Water Polo!!!!

- questions i had for myself for this weekend:
1) Am I too involved in my students social lives? Getting called on a Friday night by one of my triathlon students because he/she was upset about breaking up with a fellow triathlete and didn't want to go to practice... a bit too much drama for me. it all worked out, sure, but still...
2) I need to have more personal time. although tonight has been nice... relaxing! Tomorrow will be church and spiderman+lesson planning! This week is gonna be too busy, so I need to make sure to try and make it to water polo Tuesday night... However, being 3 months late on my car registration and "needing" new brakes for teh past month and a half are signs that I haven't been great at my priorities.