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Apr 25

Focus, fitness, fun: Lynnewood teacher among crop of Delco instructors to be honored at banquet – The Delaware County Daily Times

Fitness Comments Off on Focus, fitness, fun: Lynnewood teacher among crop of Delco instructors to be honored at banquet – The Delaware County Daily Times

Lynnwood Elementary School's John Fulton will be recognized on Thursday along with 19 other instructors with the Excellence in Teaching award at the Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union Foundation Celebration. (PETE BANNAN-DAILY TIMES)

HAVERFORD TOWNSHIP As students, staff and faculty at Lynnewood Elementary helped break ground on a new school building in June 2019, a few miles south across Route 1, John Fulton was wrapping up the final gym classes of a 15-year run at Drexel Hill Middle School.

Fulton had an eye on his own groundbreaking, preparing to make the jump from the Upper Darby School District, where he spent his own middle school and high school years, to a new district and new age range at Lynnewood.

While the change of venue and grade levels were in Fultons lesson plans for the 2019-20 academic year, adapting to pandemic lockdown learning was a surprise addition to his itinerary.

Comparing his teaching adaptation to martial artist Bruce Lees mantra of be like water, Fulton guided his students through home learning into their new elementary school, applying his own mantra of focus, fitness, fun in whatever setting was presented throughout his career.

Fulton is one of 20 local educators who will be bestowed with the 2023 Excellence in Teaching award.

This years class will be recognized Thursday at the Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union Foundation Celebration, formerly the Partners in Education Celebration, alongside the 2023 All-Delco Hi-Q Team and other honorees in the education field.

Fulton suspects the new fishbowl gymnasium, with windows peering into the lower level facility from the schools main hallway, may have had a hand in his nomination by Lynnewood Principal Jillian McGilvery.

I guess people are liking what they see: the kids smiling, having a good time, being organized, including everybody, following directions and being enthusiastic, he said. From my perspective, Im just in the action like every other teacher in their classroom. I have an advantage because Im in that fishbowl but other teachers are doing miraculous things, too.

Grades 1-5 visit Fultons fishbowl once a week, while kindergarteners attend monthly.

Students absorb his focus, fitness, fun approach to physical education through health discussions, physical challenges and games. Laminated numbers, shapes, exercise names, repetition goals and motivational phrases adorn the walls to guide students through class, often hiding cross-curricular lessons.

We have activities where I have them sit at a shape pentagon, parallelogram, decagon and then find a number, so theyre finding coordinates. The basic idea is (the board game) Battleship, he said. I try to put things in place where you dont see the layers. Then they go back to their classroom and they see the cross-circulars, oh, we did coordinates in Mr. Fultons class; oh, we did shapes in Mr. Fultons class.

The gym features a series of stations promoting Fultons second trifecta, caring, connecting, contributing, including reading material and exercises for students to work out frustrations and reset mentally for class.

This is the social-emotional piece that a lot of people forget that phys ed is really about. Its about the whole person, he said.

Seeing the caring, connecting, contributing philosophy in a series of athletic mentors led Fulton to tell a phys-ed teacher Im going to do your job in his senior year.

Growing up with fitness enthusiast parents, his first athletic experience was intramural soccer and baseball in his hometown of Yeadon, under the coaching of his father.

When you think about it, its probably just my Pop, Fulton said of his life course.

Fultons father, who currently competes in an age 70-plus bodybuilding division, parlayed his job as Lansdowne YMCA building supervisor into teaching fitness classes there, later starting his own personal training business.

Fultons mother also maintained a regular workout regimen. Her death from a brain aneurysm rupture in 1998 would prompt Fulton to do annual fundraisers for the American Heart Association throughout his teaching career, bringing in nearly $16,000 this year at Lynnewood and netting the school equipment through the fundraiser incentive program.

Fulton arrived in Upper Darby Township to start sixth grade at Beverly Hills Middle School.

In seventh grade, the first day of school, my social studies teacher Mr. Smith said, Hey, are you playing football? Yeah, youre playing football, said Fulton. He invited you in and before you know it, youre in it, he said, later adding wrestling and baseball under Smiths tutelage. He was another big influence on me loving coaching. Caring, connecting, contributing: Its from my Pop, Mr. Smith and other teachers at middle school who pushed me.

A chance run in at the Lansdowne YMCA during middle school with an Upper Darby High School student laid the groundwork for another mentor.

He was already all ripped and cut up. I asked him howd you do that and he said: the physical fitness team, Fulton said.

Arriving at UDHS, Fulton approached team coach Duke Snyder and landed a spot through 12th grade.

Upon graduation in 1999, Fulton headed to West Chester University to study kinesiology and earn his K-12 health and fitness certification, completing his student teaching at Drexel Hill Middle School.

He earned a masters in education at Gratz College, principal certification at Holy Family University, and continuing education credits at various schools.

Fulton supplemented his undergraduate studies with coaching sports camps at the Main Line YMCA his first work with elementary age students and serving in a mentoring program at Christ Lutheran Church in Upper Darby.

Starting his first job at Grover Washington Jr. Middle School in Philadelphia, he soon learned of an opening at Drexel Hill Middle School and was hired for the 2004-05 school year.

At that time they started adventure-based learning. It was perfect timing. That was stuff we were working on in school and I had an opportunity to write the curriculum, he said, referring to a learning model based on group challenges and cooperation.

After picking various coaching roles at Drexel Hill, Fulton spent this last seven years as athletic director and as lead teacher, mediating student issues for the assistant principal, on top of his teaching duties.

With his two sons entering elementary school, Fulton saw a need for change.

I wanted to be home more to help my boys. I was at Drexel Hill from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and I did that for 15 years, he said. The thing that kept me at Drexel Hill was that its home. When you go home its nice, but sometimes youve got to leave home to grow. That was the case for me.

Heading to Lynnewood, Fulton first found himself applying the be like water mindset to the new environment of working with elementary-age students, then suddenly to pandemic lockdowns in March.

Now Im teaching in front of a camera, but for me it was it was a different avenue to get the result that you wanted, he said, noting positive feedback from parents who participated in the makeshift at-home exercises and the ability to connect with students younger siblings before having them as students.

With his sons entering middle school and high school and time freeing for work hours, Fulton has identified administration as the next step in his career path, looking to apply the cooperative learning methods of PE and his caring, connecting, contributing philosophy into school-wide systems.

The greatest sense of achievement, however, remains in the impact on his students.

Theres nothing more rewarding than knowing that you helped impact somebodys life in a positive way, he said. You dont get paid a ton of money, but those are the things that are priceless.

Tickets for the banquet on April 27 are $55 to $750 and are still on sale at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2023-fmfcu-foundation-celebration-tickets-558036160177.

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Focus, fitness, fun: Lynnewood teacher among crop of Delco instructors to be honored at banquet - The Delaware County Daily Times

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