By Dale Martin
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Redwood City teacher Sheila Young Ochowicz uses her Olympian spirit to motivate middle schoolers to exercise even though it may not be second nature to them. |
Sheila Young Ochowicz has had a number of challenges — and successes — in her life.
A former Olympian, she took gold, silver and bronze medals in speed skating at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria — the first American athlete to win three medals in one Winter Olympics. That was only part of her athletic career. She was also world sprint champion in cycling three times.
Now she faces a challenge of a different sort as she tries to convince middle school students that physical fitness is not only important, but fun. Since many of her students at McKinley Middle School in Redwood City never showed much interest in physical education in earlier grades, Ochowicz has to summon her own Olympian spirit to figure out ways to motivate them.
“The focus is definitely on physical fitness in class. We want these kids to appreciate and figure out for themselves what’s healthy, and what they want to achieve,” she says, while circulating among some three dozen students “spinning” on stationary bicycles.
The roomful of bikes and weight training equipment came as a result of a federal Carol M. White physical education program (PEP) grant application Ochowicz wrote, as well as donations from local businesses. Typically, the daily 45-minute class includes three miles of bicycling to music as part of the warm-ups followed by circuit training with the equipment, and then back to the bikes.
“We can do a class of just bicycling if we want. We play upbeat music, the kids talk — it’s guaranteed they’ll at least pedal,” she says. “Unlike running, they’re exercising together, and I think they’re having a pretty good time.”
Ochowicz and three of her colleagues, all members of the Redwood City Teachers Association, were inspired by their experience at an Illinois training program sponsored by PE4Life, a not-forprofit organization that promotes physical fitness in schools. While the wealthy Chicago suburb of Naperville is known for its commitment to fitness in its schools, the challenges may be a little greater in Redwood City, where many students have not grown up knowing about the advantages of physical fitness.
“We’re trying to incorporate some basic ideas from our Naperville experience,” Ochowicz says. “We want to, one, keep kids moving; two, make it fun; and, three, give them some variety.”
As they build the program, Ochowicz would like to incorporate a few other innovative ideas, such as beginning each day with a schoolwide exercise routine — something that has been proven to increase brain power.
With the new equipment, students can track their heart rate and find out how many calories they burned during their workouts. In addition, the students are being evaluated over a two year period to see whether they have made improvements. Test results will allow Ochowicz to make comparisons between the fall and spring to see if students have made progress. In 
keeping with the state standards in physical education, Ochowicz’s students also write reflective papers and develop their own fitness plans.
“It’s hard for them,” she acknowledges. “Without much PE in elementary school, it’s like learning a foreign language for them. This becomes a critical time. If these kids are not moving by ages 10 or 11, they probably aren’t going to be movers. We’re trying to change that.”
