“Making Money on the Sidelines” * - Teaching Entreprenuers in the Fitness World
In my last entry, I explored the importance of the arts in education – both as a way to develop cognitive skills, and as a real ‘value add’ to our lives and the lives of students in general.
In this post, I wanted to address another ‘non-traditional’ arena in education – Physical Fitness. And since WeAreTeachers is ALL about promoting teachers as entrepreneurs, I’ve taken the liberty of ‘borrowing’ a book title from one of our partners, Mariah Burton Nelson.
Mariah is an amazing author, public speaker, and the Executive Director of the American Association for Physical Activity and Recreation (AAPAR) . Her newest book, * “Making Money on the Sidelines” provides a step-by-step guide for those fitness professionals (including TEACHERS!) who want to continue to promote physical fitness, and at the same time earn extra revenue.
Mariah and I met through a mutual friend – Diana Everett, who is the Executive Director of the Texas Association of Health, PE, Recreation and Dance (TAHPERD) — another great leader in this arena.
And in the spirit of the ever viral world of connections — Mariah has asked us to sponsor the keynote speaker at the upcoming AAPHERD and AAPARD national conference in Fort Worth. The speaker is the amazing Ryan Lee – a wonderful leader in the world of physical fitness and entrepreurism. Ryan is an avid blogger, and author (“The Million Dollar Workout.” ) His keynote address is designed to help Mariah and the AAPAR folks launch this new ‘Sidelines’ program – to help physical fitness professional learn more about how to leverage their important skills to financial, as well as professional, rewards.
What intrigues me about this energy with these outstanding educators is this: In the arenas of both physical fitness and the arts, I’m finding a growing sense of entrepreneur-ship. That is, these teachers have long done private lessons, run fund-raising programs, and offered summer camps. Many teach in our public schools because they love kids and love the work. But more and more of these leading edge professionals are also learning that they do NOT have to sign a vow of poverty to practice their craft. More and more of them are finding innovative ways to create content and sell it, utilize technology to manage their private teaching or training business, and many are also finding ways to utilize the Web 2.0 tools available to super-charge their reach, and their impact.
So hats off to these teaching entrepreneurs. We welcome and embrace you at WeAreTeachers. But most important, we hope these great leaders will inform and instruct us as we go on this journey together.
Tags: entrepreneurism, fitness, physical education, sports