At the end of January, physical education teacher Jacques Ertel will be retiring after 31 years of teaching. During his 11 years at QSI, Ertel developed a physical education program, created and coached numerous sports teams and made exercising, playing and competing fun for thousands of students.
Students say that they’ve learned a lot from Ertel. And they think he’s pretty funny; one student, senior Denis Lila, will miss “the cringy jokes.” Many students describe him as lenient and patient and that he takes time to demonstrate sports to ensure that everyone understands and makes games and activities fun.
These qualities extended to his coaching. Varsity tennis player Emma Qu, a senior, really got to know Ertel well because he was the tennis coach. She found him to be a “chill” coach who was patient and knowledgeable and really helped her improve.
Ertel’s positive impact was also felt by staff. Athletic Director Jeff Martin, who came to QSI in 2017, sees Ertel as a mentor and will miss his guidance. Martin credits Ertel with teaching him a lot about coaching and what he needed to do to become the athletic director. After games, he would sit with Ertel in his office by the gym and just debrief and learn different things about becoming the athletic director.
And his officemate of ten years, teacher Liz McGuire, shares Martin’s sentiments. She has a lot of fun sharing an office with him because they talk after class, joke and laugh together. She describes Ertel as creative, caring and fun.
“He’s just all about what’s best for the students and getting kids to enjoy being physically active – he loves it so much and he’s so dedicated to physical education,” she said.
Ertel talked about his career path and his love of being a physical education teacher.
Q: What led you to this career?
A: So my intention was not to teach. When I went to school, my original goal in college was to be a physical therapist. So I went to Queens College, and they didn’t have a science program for physical therapy. But the professor that I met, who was the chairperson, said their program was education-based, but you take enough science classes that after you graduate with a degree for teaching, you still could go to physical therapy after. So, I became a physical education major.
Q: What are some highlights of your career?
A: I don’t know if I would say like highlights, but it would be some of the stuff that I’ve taught over the years that’s sustained over 30 years. Like I went to a convention in 1995, a phys ed convention, and I learned kimball there. I learned about cup stacking there and a few other things and I’ve been doing speed stacking or cup stacking and kimball for, you know, 30, 28 years and it’s still like the big hit for the school.
I would say one of the coolest things is, I need to be honest with you, it’s just watching students grow. Most our kids stay in the building to go to high school. So you get to see them when they’re kind of like coming from elementary school. They’re with me for three or four years, molding them into athletes. So I get them when you’re young, right? Everyone just has all that hyperactivity and they’re trying to figure out who they are and who their friends are and it’s all about having fun. But I get to see how the students kind of mature in ninth and tenth. It’s just a pretty cool process.
Q: Did you have a golden year of your career? Like the best year?
A: Yes, best year. I guess every time I started school I had an opportunity to teach, or the principal of the school gave me an opportunity. I would say that’s golden.
Here, at the time that I started, the phys ed program was a little bit off. The program was more like recess. It wasn’t structured with lessons and units. And so they gave me the opportunity to come in and do that. They didn’t have an athletic program. They weren’t part of the PSAL (Public School Athletic League) sports. I was able to bring that in. So all the sports teams, I created for them to get in the leagues. So it was like a golden opportunity to create it to something where it is right now. It’s pretty cool.
Q: It’s very cool. What’s the most difficult part of being a PE teacher?
A: I can give you a few. One is we share a building so we don’t have the gym as often as we need to. So that means we have large classes and we don’t meet often. You should be having it [physical education] five times a week. Sometimes we have it one day for a double period. So, I think that that is very difficult because it makes it difficult to run a realistic phys ed program.
Two, you know, technology has kind of killed our field because, you know, after school, or even in school, you see this, right? [Ertel imitates someone on a device] Computers, cell phones. So this might be the only time that most of our students or kids around the country get to be active – the one time they get to be active, to work on their heart and lungs.
Three, I think assessing students effectively is difficult. Because it’s not like being in a class in the twenties. When you’re in a class in the sixties, how do you really justify that when you’re doing the grades? That’s where we generalize and we just say, participate, cooperate. Because if we were more specific, we’ll take forever.
Q: Is that why you say to us, “so if you think your score is wrong, tell us?”
A: Yeah, yeah. Because honestly, that’s been the hardest thing for me over the years. I never figured out the most effective way to assess in phys ed. And a lot of it is just because my classes are too large. And I’ve looked through programs and workshops. And there’s some great stuff out there, but you can’t use it if you have a class of more than 40 students. It’s just impossible because if we meet once or twice a week and we’re doing assessment, it’s boring. It’s like, isn’t it phys ed class? Why are we doing classwork?
Q: I really wish we were in a double period. Because volleyball is so much fun, I love it so much.
A: Yeah, sometimes, well, it goes both ways. If it’s something you love, you want it more. But if it’s something you hate, you feel like it’s never over.
Q: How do you choose the elegant songs you put on while you’re in the gym?
A: When I was younger, music was a part of my neighborhood. We were in bands, played music. I grew up with music. So it’s something I’ve like always had – an appreciation for music. I’m into Broadway, I go to a lot of concerts. So it’s always there, but it’s not always like what’s hip. So I might bring some old stuff. My family is, my father is European, my mother is Middle Eastern. So there’s a lot of cultural, ethnic types of music. So you’ll hear me put a lot of like Latin stuff and the Middle Eastern stuff. It’s not always just going to be whatever’s on radio. So I have that.
And for a long time, I’ve been trying to keep track of what the kids like. So to motivate them to move, maybe we put on something they like. They’ll get more into it. And I found that, especially when they’re younger, the kids listen to music and they’re having fun, they’re dancing while they’re playing, they figure they’re actually being creative. And they’re kind of letting their guard down to do more stuff. Kids are just kind of like, “Oh, I love that song,” and they forget what they’re doing and they make sense of it. Imagine if there’s no music and all you hear is everyone screaming – you lose your mind.
Q: What are your plans after retirement?
A: First thing is to take care of my health because I don’t have time [when I’m] here. Like I come here at six in the morning, I get home at 8.30 p.m. at night. So when I get home I just sleep. So that’s been my career for 31 years, long days. So it’s really about my health – going to the gym, going to the doctors and trying to get the health straight first.
