Building Resilience Through Basketball: Trick Shots with Mr. Noel.
“Are you ready to fail?” asks Patrick Noel, a physical education teacher at Colvin Run Elementary School, as he prepares to teach young students a basketball trick shot.
Because, he tells them, “You are going to fail a lot more than you are going to succeed.”
It may seem like a curious approach to teaching but for Noel, building resilience and determination is critical for successful young lives.
What began as a COVID-era hobby and a way to connect with students virtually, is now a regular — and popular — part of his lessons at the Vienna school.
“I remember my uncle teaching me trick shots and I've always enjoyed it,” he said. “I noticed I was learning a lot about myself and my ability to overcome failure, and I thought there has to be a way to transfer that to the kids.”
It turns out basketball trick shots are the perfect way to learn how to lean into failure and build resilience and determination because your “shot misses most of the time,” he shared. But on the flip side, when you do see success, the sense of achievement is significant.
“So many times the fear of failure holds us back from trying something that might seem hard or impossible,” Noel said.
“We have a lot of kids who struggle to overcome that fear. I work to get them to a place where they are comfortable failing. The byproduct of attempting something seemingly impossible is that you feel so good when you make it”
At the beginning and end of his lessons, he often allows time for his students to attempt a trick shot. A “‘hall of fame’” photo gallery celebrates those who succeed in his “‘perfect shot’” challenge, which involves shooting a foam ball into a drainpipe. So far this year, two students have made the shot.
The idea of teaching trick shots came in 2020 when Noel was in his 16th year of teaching but his first year at Colvin Run.
Students were learning virtually due to the pandemic and it was hard for him to get them to switch on their cameras, therefore building relationships was a struggle.
So he began heading to the school gymnasium. During his downtime, he worked on challenging shots and recorded his attempts. During the last five minutes of each class, he would play videos of two different ones and ask his students to vote on their favorite.
Noel, who played basketball throughout high school, and was a practice player in college before turning to coaching, has now mastered around 100 shots. He also gives one-on-one coaching sessions via the annual PTA school auction fundraiser.
The veteran teacher, who was a finalist for Virginia PE Teacher of the Year this year and was an FCPS CARES recipient in 2022, is a popular face on campus.
Fifth grader Olivia Gibbons, (pictured above in yellow) said, “It doesn’t matter if we fail, we keep going. Mr. Noel tells us we can do it.
“He’s great and energetic and thinks of good ideas for games to play in PE. Everybody likes him.”
His mentoring goes beyond the gymnasium for Ayaan Alamgir, also in fifth grade.
“I do Ju-jitsu outside of school and when things get hard and I don’t think I can do something, I think of Mr. Noel and it helps me to keep going and not give up,” he said.
