PELINKS4U - Promoting Active & Healthy Lifestyles

From the Publisher…

PE TODAY AND TOMORROW: PE 2020

Build a Shared Vision for Physical Education in the Year 2020 and Beyond

While I refuse to take responsibility, I confess that my career in physical education has coincided with three decades of tripling childhood obesity. But self-defense doesn’t explain why I’ve argued that obesity concerns are a poor basis for justifying the school physical education. The data is clear: Physical educators and what we’ve been doing in K-12 physical education for the past 30 years failed to prevent the rise in obesity. Proposing ourselves as tomorrow’s solution seems to me a perilous course. Failure will simply fuel those who would like to see school physical education eliminated.

The problem of obesity is too complex to be solved by physical educators alone. Everyone knows that today’s youth are eating too much and doing too little. Somehow, as a society we have to improve kids’ eating habits and get them to be more physically active. But the fact that most of America’s 50-million children spend most of their time in our public schools makes it inevitable that solving obesity will require school-based solutions. And for many youngsters, physical education classes are their only regular physical activity.

"Physical education must have an aim as broad as education itself and as noble and inspiring as human life. The great thought in physical education…is to make the physical contribute its full share to the life of the individual."
~ Thomas Wood, 1893

But physical education ought to be more than an opening act. The skills learned in physical education prepare us for life. Movement stimulates our physical and mental development. It’s a means of expression and communication. Through movement we learn about the world and ourselves. We learn how to play nice and the need to respect other people. We learn how to cooperate and compete, and the differences between success and failure. We learn what is fair and unfair, ethical and dishonest. What is learned through participating in quality physical education brings joy to our existence. Without it, how dreary the school day would be.

School PE deserves to be the main act not a bit part. Justifying physical education as a way to solve today’s obesity woes is an insult to its true value.

But of course, like everything, physical education has to change with the times. What we do today owes much to the wave of immigration that transformed America in the late 1800s and early 20th century. Two world wars, the birth of organized sports, and alarm that American children were less physically fit than their European counterparts sharpened our professional focus. We questioned whether physical education should be “education through the physical,” or “education of the physical.” Today, the physical education profession faces issues that threaten our public school existence. Dissatisfaction with academic performance is fueling calls for educational reform. Some would like to devote greater attention and time to supposedly “core” academic subjects. School physical education classes have become convenient targets for reductions in staff and time.

So what’s to be done? Whatever it is, there’s urgency for all of us who care about physical education’s future to reflect on what’s needed in these changing times. While we might all agree on the general goal of promoting healthy and active lifestyles, how to achieve this goal is much less clear. This is where YOU come in.

Last year I had the opportunity to participate in the creation of a project entitled PE2020. Sponsored by the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), PE2020 wants you to share your thoughts about our professional future. From the outset, it was agreed that we needed to invite as broad a range of opinions as possible. We wanted to know not just what physical educators thought about their work, but what students, teachers, administrators, board members, parents...in fact what anyone with an opinion thought about physical education.

Our vision is to solicit hundreds, maybe thousands, of statements that imagine what physical education should look like in the future. Inspired by a similar project entitled, “This I Believe”, NASPE has created a web site that will showcase everyone’s ideas. Check it out and read the ideas already posted. You can view some video interviews, and PE2020 will soon feature some of our contributors reading their ideas.

Our immediate goal is to create a database of visions that can be used to help shape our professional thinking. The NASPE Board thinks PE2020 visions will assist in its future strategic planning. We hope they will inspire discussion and debate online, in print, and in person. And we’re excited to announce a one-day symposium on Tuesday, March 29th 2011 at the San Diego national AAHPERD convention for everyone interested in discussing physical education’s future (plan to attend and contribute!).

But this project will NOT work without YOU. It’s vital that you immediately set aside some time to write your own vision. We’re looking for 500-word statements - about two double-spaced pages. You’ll discover that’s not much space and a challenge to be concise. Fortunately, you can submit several statements if you wish under different themes and categories. My main request today however is that you submit something!

This is a great opportunity for all of us to share, learn from each other, and plan our professional future. We all need to participate and then recruit others too. In addition to colleagues and friends, please involve any students you teach in public school or university settings.

PE2020 encourages you to think about physical education in new ways. For example:

How can physical education better serve the needs of students and society in our rapidly changing world?
What should we be teaching in physical education?
How can teachers structure class experiences in a different and more effective format?
What changes need to be made in our schools and in our professional preparation programs?
What new challenges might we face in 2020 and in the remainder of the 21st century?

Those of us who participated in creating PE2020 saw it as a call to action for our profession. With all the changes going on in our lives, PE2020 gives us a chance to reexamine the relevance of physical education and more effectively communicate what it should look like in tomorrow’s schools. I invite you to step back from your habitual ways of “doing business” and imagine your professional future!

Visit www.pe2020.org today for writing and posting guidelines, to read what others have written, and for free teaching tools that can be used in your PETE and P-12 classes. Through participating in PE2020, we can collectively take the physical education profession forward to remain relevant in today’s world and in the lives of the students we serve. I hope you’ll join us.

Steve Jefferies, publisher
pelinks4u

COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROGRAMS

LIFETIME LEARNING FOR PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH

A MULTICULTURAL APPROACH TO CULTURAL AWARENESS IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION

NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL PE TEACHER OF THE YEAR - Lisa Summers

HONORING A VISIONARY AND REFOCUSING OUR EFFORTS: Visionary Phil Lawler

"THE STUDENTS ARE NOISY AND MOVING AROUND"

EXERCISE EFFECTS ON DIABETES MELLITUS AND ADAPTED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY STRATEGIES


	COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL PHYSICAL ACTIVITY PROGRAMS Learn more about ways in which some schools are modifying the traditional role of the physical educator to increase children’s physical activity. This month, authors Aaron Beighle, Heather Erwin, Michael Beets, and Charles Morgan explain different ways that children’s school-based physical activity can be increased. The fact that American children spend most of the day in school settings for about 13 years makes the school an obvious place to get kids more active. This first article introduces the concept of “comprehensive school physical activity programs” then provides separate articles on the following topics: Afterschool programs (Michael Beets) Classroom-based physical activity (Heather Erwin) Quality physical education (Charles Morgan) Recess physical activity (Aaron Beighle)
	LIFETIME LEARNING FOR PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH A traditional perception of physical education is that it is mostly “kids stuff.” But in reality, evidence suggests that physical education activities can enhance physical and mental health across our entire lifespan. It seems to be a question of regularly challenging the body and mind to adapt. Devoid of this stimulation we lose the ability to adjust to changing circumstances. Challenging students to learn the skills necessary to be able to adapt has curriculum implications. In this article, authors Phillip Conatser and Eric James discuss content choices and teaching strategies designed to help students become more adaptable.
	A MULTICULTURAL APPROACH TO CULTURAL AWARENESS IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION Author, Phoebe Constantinou writes that "as educators, we should act as 'agents of change' and teach about social justice and eliminating oppression, and against prejudice and discrimination." Learning to do this demands skills that many physical educators lack and yet the unrestricted environments in which we teach provide ideal settings for multicultural education. This article combines information on theories of multicultural education with an example of a practical way this approach might look in a physical education setting.
	NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL PE TEACHER OF THE YEAR - Lisa Summers What does it take to be recognized nationally as an exemplary physical education teacher? pelinks4u editorial assistant, Kalin Daquilla sought to answer this question through interviewing 2009 National High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year, Lisa Summers. Read more about Lisa’s physical education program and her personal commitment to our profession.
	HONORING A VISIONARY AND REFOCUSING OUR EFFORTS: Visionary Phil Lawler As you read in May, the PE world was deeply saddened by the recent passing of Phil Lawler. Phil was a well-known Illinois physical education teacher whose middle school program was lauded as a model of “new” physical education (and featured on the Super Size Me DVD). Author Jon Poole, celebrates Phil’s life and wonders aloud who will fill the void he has left. Jon provides examples of other change advocates and concludes by suggesting that all who work in PE teacher preparation should think carefully about how best to prepare the next generation of physical educators.
	"THE STUDENTS ARE NOISY AND MOVING AROUND" If you teach K-12 you’re used to being observed and evaluated by your school principal. What sort of experience was it? One of the first times 2006 National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year Krista Winn received feedback, her principal was concerned about the noise in her gym. Sadly, many school administrators’ have no idea of what “good” physical education looks like. Fortunately, NASPE has created a teacher evaluation tool that addresses effective physical education teaching criteria. Learn more about this useful teaching tool.
	EXERCISE EFFECTS ON DIABETES MELLITUS AND ADAPTED PHYSICAL ACTIVITY STRATEGIES One of the well-publicized consequences of worsening obesity has been an increase in diabetes. In this article Eli Goodman explains differences between type I and type II forms of diabetes. She explains that provided certain precautionary guidelines are followed, exercise is one of the most effective treatments for type II diabetes. Eli writes “if everyone were to exercise more, type II diabetes would not be an epidemic with 23.6 million people currently diagnosed in the USA.”


		June/July 2010 Vol. 12 No. 6