BY GINNY RAUE
It’s not your father’s gym class. “Drop and give me 20” has been replaced by a focus on whole body health – physical, mental and social. And health and physical education teacher Jason Benz couldn’t be more into the modern concept.
Benz, 32, has been teaching in West Milford’s Marshall Hill Elementary School since 2005. Speaking with him, you come to understand his commitment to the welfare of the students he has under his tutelage.
Born in Englewood and raised in Vernon, Benz and his wife of eight years, Kelly, currently reside in Jefferson. They have two children, Mikayla, 3, and Tyler, eight months. Between his career and the little ones, Benz is always on the move.
Benz was an active child, playing baseball, basketball, football and hockey. He always thought he’d like to teach one day and, inspired by several high school physical education teachers, he pursued his dream at Kean University. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in health and physical education in 2005 and a master’s degree in exercise science in 2010.
Being involved in sports, eating smart and working out, it seemed inevitable that he would one day share his dedication to a healthy life style with the younger generation.
“Physical education was up that alley,” he said.
Before working in West Milford, he coached high school baseball in Vernon and was a health and physical education teacher in Franklin. For the past 10 years, he’s also worked a second job as a personal trainer. You start to wonder if he ever sits down.
While a game of volleyball may still be enjoyed at the elementary level, more attention is paid to skill work, especially in the earliest grades where the concentration is on gross motor skills like skipping, running, and galloping.
“That’s the base for everything that follows,” Benz said.
The children undergo testing to get a baseline of their physical fitness as a yardstick by which to measure their improvement. The ultimate objective is for the students to understand that whether they are sports-minded or not, keeping fit can be fun. Helping them to find an activity they will enjoy for life is the optimum.
Using a program called “Project Adventure,” the students take on challenges that involve physical activities but also requires them to work together. Such challenges require both physical and mental skills and may reveal strengths and weaknesses in the individual students.
“The goal is that we start to see we are not all the same, but we all have great qualities,” Benz said.
In Benz’s health class, the man focus is on the “health triangle:" physical, mental and social health.
“Everything comes back to that triangle,” he said.
Benz finds it simple to get the kids moving. After sitting most of the day, they are anxious to run and have fun.
While he doesn’t debate the purported childhood “obesity epidemic” and the fact that technology has something to do with it, he has some additional thoughts on the subject.
“The problem I have is that the Body Mass Index doesn’t take into account the body composition of the child. If a child is muscular, they could have above normal weight because muscle weighs more than fat. A lot of times young kids may be slightly overweight according to the charts but then they have a growth spurt and their bodies thin out. And it could be the opposite; they are too skinny but they hit puberty and start putting on muscle. I think they grow into their bodies.”
His theory of helping a child become a life-long proponent of fitness is to open their eyes to all the possibilities.
“It doesn’t have to be a competitive sport; it could be rowing a boat or hiking. If you can be outside, you can be more fit,” he said.
You’d think that after a week as a physical education teacher and personal trainer Benz would be happy to veg out in front of a TV. That’s just not the case. On his time off you can find him mountain biking, lifting weights, trail running and participating in obstacle races.
His most sedate pastime is photography and one would believe that he has ample photo ops as he hikes through the Catskills, Mt. Washington, Bear Mountain and West Point, most often with his brother, his “best friend and hiking partner.”
One place you’ll seldom find Benz is in the kitchen.
“I wouldn’t say I make the best things,” he admitted. But he sent in a tempting recipe, one that may call for those old fashioned pushups to even the scorecard.