Archery starts in Brownstown physical education classes

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BROWNSTOWN

Keatyn Hallett’s reaction to seeing the arrow hit nearly dead center on the multicolored target was priceless.

The Brownstown Elementary School fifth-grader and his classmates had spent the previous week learning all about archery from physical education teacher Jennifer Schneider, and he was glad to get a chance to continue to perfect his skills.

“It was impressive,” Hallett said, smiling about the arrow landing in the 10-point yellow zone. “I sort of just grabbed (the bow) and didn’t even aim and just got it.”

His other two arrows landed in the scoring realm, and that motivated him to keep practicing.

“It was pretty easy, but I need to work on my aiming,” Hallett said.

The sport is new to Brownstown Central Community School Corp. after receiving a National Archery in the Schools Program grant for equipment, including bows, aluminum arrows, targets, an arrow curtain, a bow rack, a repair kit and quivers. Training for 12 staff members also was included.

The grant goes for five years, and then a school corporation can apply for funding again.

NASP is an in-school program aimed at improving educational performance among students in grades 4 through 12, and through it, students learn focus, self-control, discipline, patience and the life lessons required to be successful in the classroom and in life, according to naspschools.org.

One of the grant requirements is for schools to teach archery a minimum of 10 days in a school year.

Kasey Proehl and Dave Benter led that in physical education classes at Brownstown Central High School earlier this year, while Schneider recently organized it at BES, and Jane Weisman introduced it at Brownstown Central Middle School.

Proehl said she and Benter taught the archery unit right after their training in February, and they plan to do another unit in May.

The February training was when the school was on a hybrid schedule.

“For online learning days, they watched the NASP videos online and answered questions about them,” Proehl said. “In person, we practiced with the bows, arrows and targets and had friendly competitions where we kept score.”

Proehl is excited to introduce archery to more students next month.

“The students seemed to really enjoy archery, especially competing and keeping score,” she said.

Schneider just finished teaching archery to fourth- and fifth-graders.

“Even though I bow hunt as a hobby, I was a little apprehensive about having it in the elementary school setting, to be honest,” she said. “Then after the proper training I received from Indiana NASP, I felt more confident and excited about bringing this program into the schools.”

While teaching the students, Schneider said safety is the No. 1 priority.

“Then we start with determining the archer’s eye dominance,” she said. “We continue to enforce and review safety with each step and procedure. Then we just get them to shoot. We want them to get a feel for the bow hand set and the draw. We get into more specific steps based on each individual’s needs.”

For Schneider, watching the kids try archery was fun.

“I really have enjoyed teaching it, and I believe the students are enjoying it just as much as I am,” she said. “They are staying focused and taking it seriously. That focus will help them not only with hitting a perfect bullseye or executing a great shot, but it will help them build self-esteem in many aspects of life.”

She sees several benefits of archery.

“It helps physical development. It teaches growth mindset. It improves mental toughness. It boosts self-confidence. It gives a sense of accomplishment. It teaches goal setting. It is a social sport,” she said.

BES Assistant Principal Marty Young agreed to lead the corporation’s archery program, and he found teachers and staff members interested in taking the basic archery instructor training so they could assist.

He, too, was nervous at first about elementary students doing archery but was eased after he received training.

“It has been fun to be involved in the PE lessons,” Young said. “At first, you see that most students are nervous, and then once they try it, they become comfortable and confident. Archery gives the students another option for an extracurricular to participate in. Many families already hunt, and this is a great way to show their skills through archery.”

Hallett and classmate Zoie Gray both said they saw improvement in themselves from the first week to the second week.

“You’re helping your accuracy and your strength of your arm,” Hallett said.

“It was easy to start to do it, and then once I kept on doing it, it got easier and easier,” Gray said.

BCMS is in its second week of the archery unit.

Weisman said when she first started talking about the sport, some students were a little hesitant, but others were ready to try it.

“Most of them were enthusiastic, and they were telling me stories about what they hunt with,” she said.

Once they picked up a bow and shot a few arrows, the students gained interest.

“You’re exposing kids to a new lifetime skill that they could pick up, and if they find even just a little bit of success shooting from that distance, it’s another feather in their cap, positive reinforcement, ‘I’m good at this,'” Weisman said. “Anything to get them up and doing something, it’s just building that confidence that ‘I can do it.'”

The plan is to start an after-school archery club for grades 4 to 12 in the fall.

“I am appreciative that several people have stepped up to help with the archery program,” Young said. “We have several people from the school helping and several people from outside the school waiting to receive training to start working with our students. I look forward to getting the archery club going and having students compete.”

Hallett and Gray both said they are interested in the club and continuing with archery, and they hope other students are, too.

“If I don’t play any other sports, like fall softball or something like that, then I’ll probably do archery to get better,” Gray said. “If you’ve never done it before, then you can just try and see if you’re good at it, and if you are, you can keep going.”

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