On the other side of a wall made of cushiony mats, a Halloween festival was being readied. At the head of the class, Mannix explained the rules for a new game -- spider ball bocce, an indoor version of the Italian-derived lawn-bowling game using hard rubber balls injected with spidery tentacles.
Despite two classes wedged into one short half-hour time slot and the distraction of costumes and candy looming just over the wall, students quickly picked up on the game. They even switched partners with relative ease, not complaining when Mannix required them to partner up with the opposite sex for one round.
After a few rounds of bocce and a crazed version of the song "Singing in the Rain" that had the kids skipping around the room, then stopping to follow the song's directions -- thumbs up, arms out, bums up, tongues out, etc. -- the whole class was giggling.
Mannix told the group to line up and get ready to go back to class.
"Aw, is it time already?" one student complained.
Cramming a half-hour of exercise into two dozen distracted bodies looked almost effortless, but Mannix has been doing it for 20 years at Talkeetna and Trapper Creek Elementary schools.
She was honored Oct. 24 as the Physical Education Teacher of the Year by the Alaska Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in part for teaching students the importance of moving every day, but also because she has helped start activities in her community, such as cross-country skiing with the Denali Junior Nordic Ski Club and the Green Light Circus, a community-based circus group.
She's also mom to Tazlina Mannix, who is a cross-country skier on the US Ski Team and the Alaska Pacific University Elite Racing team. Karen Mannix, 56, lives with her husband, Arthur, in Talkeetna.
We caught up with Mannix on Friday to find out more about her philosophy of movement.
Below are excerpts from an interview in which she discusses how she approaches getting kids to enjoy being active and her other community activities in Talkeetna.
Q. Why did you become a PE teacher?
A. I wasn't a physical education teacher to start out with. I did my undergraduate work at the University of Utah. I majored in English literature and minored in physical education. I thought I would be an English teacher, a middle and high school English teacher.
Then I moved to Alaska and eventually to Talkeetna in 1981. The English teacher was really good. She said she wasn't leaving any time soon. So I substitute taught here for seven years.
In the meantime several PE teachers moved through. Someone said, why aren't you teaching here? I went back to school (to get certified to teach PE) and I started teaching here in 1989, eight years after I moved here. I'm a really slow bloomer, in that regard.
But I had a lot of opportunities to adventure in Alaska, in that regard.
Q. What is your philosophy of teaching PE?
A. It's my job to help them (the students) enjoy movement, and part of my job is teaching them the skills to move.
I always try to teach them something about health and something about how the body moves. I really enjoy kinesiology, so I break down a movement -- this is what happens when you move.
If the kids leave school and say, "I hated PE," then I haven't done my job. It's about enjoying being able to move well.
I also feel passionate about kids learning lifetime movement skills. Nordic skiing, having a ski club, being able to hike and appreciate what's around you. They also have a sense of place -- we name the rivers and mountains around us.
Q. You mentioned you started out as an English teacher. Do you use those skills in teaching kids to be active?
A. With the younger grades ... they look for eggs in the snow, not Easter eggs, but it's a combination of finding letters, orienteering and building poems. We build limericks and acrostics. I do target skills of association with words with the kids -- this is a ball, what letter does ball start with.
And I've done a lot of things with vocab, I use it as a warm-up for activities. The kids run and grab letters, but they have to build a word and the word is something related to whatever activity we're doing.
Q. Do you think the kids in Talkeetna are different -- more likely to be active or less likely to be inside playing video games -- than children in more urban areas?
A. Kids in Talkeetna are a really rugged group of kids. They do spend a lot of time outside in the rain and snow. We don't keep kids inside (during recess) unless it's really torrential rain. That's true of Trapper Creek too.
I really think they enjoy being outside, because it's sort of the environment we have. I don't think kids spend as much time watching television or playing computer games because a lot of them don't have those.
I really admire the teacher at the middle school and high school, Steve Harrison -- he's had to teach PE two years outside. His kids are required to be outside 90 percent of the school year. They learned they could have fun outside even if it was cold. They played broom ball, they built snowmen.
Q. Your family has been really involved in getting Talkeetna residents active. Can you talk about some of the things you have done?
A. Arthur and I started the Junior Nordic Ski Club in 1991 when Taz was 5. We didn't have a road to our house until Taz was 15. We always walked in or biked in or skied in. We saw others with their kids (out on the trails and thought an organized group would be supported).
We ran (the club) for years, until Taz moved into middle school, so I went on to coach her. Then Arthur took (the club) over. It's been a really great thing for kids and their families, skiing together. My plan, when I retire, is to jump right back into it.
I also co-founded the Green Light Circus (a community circus group) with Mary Langham -- her family was a group of jugglers. We sort of masterminded it over a glass of wine one night. They lived (nearby). Arthur and I have a gymnastics background.
Those two things really have been the big things I've done with my life here.
Find Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.
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