Physical fitness, wellness the focus for Downers Grove North PE teacher

Downers Grove North’s Cristina Krein credits the crucial role that physical fitness and wellness plays in a person’s life along with the impact of her teachers and coaches with paving her career path.

Earning a bachelor’s degree at North Central College where she played competitive tennis, Krein went on to earn three additional degrees – a master’s in instructional design and technology, a master’s in teaching and learning and a master’s in health and physical education/fitness.

Since 2011, the physical education teacher has focused on teaching stress management classes and woman’s self-defense classes to students at Downers Grove North.

“There are so many stressors on kids between social media, academic pressures, pressures to work, college,” Krein said. “When I was in high school, I didn’t have coping strategies. I went into adulthood without having them. I really had to go on a journey myself to learn different coping strategies, how to alleviate stress.

“That was a motivating factor to bring a stress management class to this school. To give them resources and to normalize mental health struggles.”

Krein’s courses are popular among students who want to learn about fitness but are not necessarily interested in team sports.

In 2018, Krein began teaching a self-defense class.

“My drive in that course is to empower students and build their confidence,” Krein said. “Not only through self-confidence and decision-making, but also through fitness.”

The course offers students “a platform to talk about things they don’t have anywhere else to talk about,” including issues such as consent, healthy relationships, risk reduction strategies and staying safe online.

Thanks to a cooperative agreement, students who enroll in that course can earn college credit through the College of DuPage.

Krein also coaches both the boys and girls tennis teams.

Tennis, she said, is a lifetime sport.

With many of Krein’s former players coming back to help with summer camps or to volunteer coach, “it is a cool little community we have,” she said.

To make the sport accessible to more students and avoid cutting students, the school recently was able to add a junior varsity team to the program.

“Building in that other level gave another option for more kids to get involved,” Krein said. “We want to keep kids in the sport and keep kids active.”

In adulthood, Krein began competing in CrossFit and rock climbing.

A student at Downers Grove North who is a competitive rock climber asked Krein to help start a rock climbing club at the school.

Krein serves as the sponsor for the 70-member club.

Rock climbing is “something that not only builds physical strength,” she said, adding the mental part of the sport features resiliency and failure.

With a focus on “functional fitness,” Krein said her goal as a physical education teacher is to help “students in their daily lives.”

“I think we do a good job here of balancing the cognitive, mental health portion. But also showing them lifelong skills with regard to fitness,” she said.

Still, her goal is to “hook in those kids that don’t love sports, who don’t love fitness,” she said.

For those students who may have a bad association with fitness, Krein is determined to “bring them in and show that fitness can be great and look a lot of different ways.”

It is more than traditional group gym activities such as softball or lifting weights. It also features yoga, pilates and so much more, she said.