The Objectives of Physical Education

Students in my undergraduate classes always look quizzical when I tell them physical education is about much more than just health, fitness, and nutrition. When I ask for their responses to this assertion, they often say what I am hoping to hear - that teaching children to be of good character is equally important as teaching about health-related fitness.

My classes then spend time elaborating on what is meant by the word "character." A list of traits is compiled that conveys what it means to be a person of good character. Often included are: honesty, courage, discipline, compassion, kindness, determination, perseverance, commitment, introspection, analysis, empathy, knowledge.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it does convey to my future teachers the idea that they can aspire to teach a curriculum that goes beyond the basics of physical fitness, physical activity, health-behaviors, teamwork, and motor-skill development.

Teachers in physical education may have more opportunities than classroom teachers to underscore the importance of good character. In physical education, unique instances arise that can be highly emotional for a particular child: she may get badly injured; she may be subject to cruel bullying; she may become distraught and want to quit a tough physical challenge; or she may be tempted to cheat in order to win a competitive game. In any of these instances, the importance of teaching and reinforcing appropriate behaviors is apparent.

With the month of March focusing on sportsmanship and character, I hope all teachers recognize how important it is to seize those teachable moments - when emotions are high or ethics are challenged - to convey to their classes what it means to be a good and decent person.

Darren Dale
Health & Fitness Section Editor

The Institute for International Sport provides information on the 17th Annual National Sportsmanship Day (March 6th 2007). They note that over 13,500 schools from throughout the United States and across the globe will be participating.

The website for the Institute provides extensive information on a variety of topics related to good sportsmanship. This information includes how to enroll your school, the Five Principles of Honorable Competition and the two themes of National Sportsmanship Day 2007: "Don't Punch Back, Play Harder" and "Defeat Gamesmanship."

The Center for Sports Parenting at the Institute aims at providing information on how to "handle the psychological and physical challenges faced by young people participating in athletics." The Book of the Month link provides a nice list of recent written material that parents and teachers may find interesting.

The USA Today is running an essay competition to help promote Sportsmanship Day. Children from elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and colleges are invited to write essays of 500 words or less that address any aspect of ethics and sportsmanship in society, or share a personal reflection of exemplary or poor sportsmanship they have seen or experienced.

USA Today will report on the winning essays as part of National Sportsmanship Day. Deadline for receiving essays is February 27.

The Department of Kinesiology at Michigan State University features a link to their Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. The Institute's mission places a strong emphasis on putting the "youth" back into youth sports (i.e., emphasizing healthy practices as they relate to sports participation: specifically, to "engage in service or outreach that transforms the face of youth sports in ways that maximize the beneficial physical, psychological, and social effects of participation for children and youth, while minimizing detrimental effects."

Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Infection - RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is the most important respiratory infection of early childhood. The virus lives inside the cells lining the respiratory system, causing swelling of this lining coupled with the production of large amounts of excess mucus. Read more.

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory illness in young children. RSV causes infection of the lungs and breathing passages. In adults, it may only produce symptoms of a common cold, such as a stuffy or runny nose, sore throat, mild headache, cough, fever, and a general feeling of being ill. But RSV infections can lead to other more serious illnesses in premature babies and kids with diseases that affect the lungs, heart, or immune system. Read more.

The NCAA has a sportsmanship and ethical conduct webpage that is well worth a visit. A particularly useful link on the main page is the Sportsmanship Tool Kit. The Tool Kit contains separate "best practice" guidelines for all the various parties involved in sporting competitions: student-athletes, coaches, officials, administrators, athletic trainers, fans, spirit and booster groups, media, and parents.

A list of the best practices of seventeen other organizations provides extensive information from a variety of sources on efforts to promote ethics and sportsmanship.

At the high school level, the Ohio High School Athletic Association provides a solid webpage devoted to sportsmanship under the title "Respect the Game." The webpage features flash video links as well as a link to printable "fair-play codes" for athletes, coaches, and fans.

The website Character Counts introduces six core ethical values to establishing good character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship. The information is directed toward parents and teachers under the banner of a "youth-ethics" initiative. It is well worth a look.

Suicide of Ex Pro Football Player Highlights Need For Concussion Education In Youth Sports - While medical science is only beginning to understand the links between multiple concussions and increased risks for afflictions like Alzheimer's, depression, memory loss, cognitive loss and dementia, even a single concussion to a child's growing brain can impair his ability to reach his full cognitive potential, inhibiting his ability to learn and undermine his classroom performance, cause personality changes, behavioral, emotional and attention deficit disorders; and accelerate the natural process of brain degeneration that accompanies aging. Read more.

Concussion: Advice for Parents of Young Athletes - Team physicians, athletic trainers, and other personnel responsible for the medical care of athletes face no more challenging problem than the recognition and management of concussions (generally defined as injury to the brain caused by a sudden acceleration or deceleration of the head that results in any immediate, but temporary, alteration in brain functions, such as loss of consciousness, blurred vision, dizziness, amnesia or loss of memory).

Read about concussions, and also Second-Impact Syndrome: What Is It? Download this informational brossure.

UVA Neurogram: Sports Concussions and Second Impact Syndrome - Concussions in sports, which athletes may refer to as dings, knocks, having your bell rung, and seeing stars, have received increasing attention due to concerns about longer-term effects. Many concussions cause only temporary disruption of brain function and resulting problems fade within a week or two. However, fully 60% of people who sustain a concussion still encounter neurological problems one-month post- injury. Read more.

Profile of a Pedophile - Pedophiles Can Be Anyone: Pedophiles can be anyone - old or young, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, non-professional or professional, and of any race. However, pedophiles often demonstrate similar characteristics, but these are merely indicators and it should not be assumed that individuals with these characteristics are pedophiles. But knowledge of these characteristics coupled with questionable behavior can be used as an alert that someone may be a pedophile. Read more.

Protecting Your Children - The number one way to protect your children from pedophiles, from kidnappers, dangerous friends, sexual predators and even baby sitters and nannies is by trusting your intuition. Find out more.

Predator Profiles - Child abductors may randomly select their victim or they may carefully plan their evil act for weeks or months. Some are interested in just boys, others in girls. Few make any distinction as to what race or economic level their victims come from. They really don't care. Read more.

Familywatchdog.us - just type in your zip code and state to know who the registered pedophiles are in your town.

sexualpredators.us - know the sexual predators in your town.

Child Abuse - This information on child abuse is intended for people who have questions about abuse, what it is, and how it may present itself. Although some cases of child abuse are obvious, many are not. Early recognition of child abuse tendencies and intervention at the point of recognition is the only way to avoid the liability of criminal prosecution. Read more.

Character Development vs. Physiological Benefits: The Need for Balanced Emphasis

To the limited extent that sports are acknowledged to have intrinsic developmental value, we hear the familiar (if not yet understood) character building tenet: sports can provide a venue for social adjustment, character building, a sense of belonging, usefulness, psychological well-being, and ultimately a springboard to the highest values of citizenship.

But we never hear much about the physiological benefits of sports/exercise; the former are either understated or absent. Perhaps the causal connection between sports participation and health is taken for granted, or maybe the opposite condition exists: a lack of conviction that sports programs are physically demanding enough to make a difference. Read more.

Mom Tackles Key Issues Facing Youth Sports Today - In 2007, over 11 million middle and high school students will participate in some type of organized school sport activity. However, for every one child who hits the field, the ice, or the court this season, seven who would like to participate won't. The question is why? Read more.

Pulling A Child Off A Sports Team For Poor Grades Sends The Wrong Message -Coaches and parents often ask me whether a child's grades in school should impact their ability to play organized team sports. It is a difficult question to which there are no easy answers. Read this article.

Have You Heard? Most Kids Have Suffered Abuse In Sports. These statistics are not real current, but the statistics were probably not higher then than now. Also read Abuse, Harassment, And Neglect: The Pain Of Emotional Injuries.

Resist The Urge To Critique Your Child's Athletic Performance - My friend, Chloe, was dropping off her son, Jake, before a soccer game scheduled to start in forty-five minutes. Jake and my sons dashed off to practice. "I'll wait until you park, Chloe, and we can walk over to the field together," I said. She looked at me dejectedly. "I won't be staying to watch Jake's game. He told me in the car on the way over that he didn't want me to come anymore." Read the rest.

Every parent's nightmare - 'It is probably the biggest problem confronting sport today,' says Professor Celia Brackenridge, who has been researching sex abuse in sport for more than 15 years. 'Everyone talks about the perils of doping, but if there were 100 drugs cases under investigation in football, or 60 in swimming, or 40 in tennis, there would be uproar. Yet that's the scale of the problem with sex abuse today.' Read this article.

Why Abstinent Adolescents Report They Have Not Had Sex: Understanding Sexually Resilient Youth - The sample in this study consisted of 697 students from 20 schools in Missouri who indicated on a survey of sexual attitudes and behaviors that they had not had sex. The subjects completed the 18-item Reasons for Abstinence Scale and identified those items that were reasons why they had not had sex. Find out the results.

Abstinence-Only Stupidity - Each and every day, 10,000 U.S. teens contract a sexually transmitted disease, 2,400 get pregnant, and 55 contract HIV. Globally, 6,000 young people between the ages of 15 and 24 are infected with HIV. So what are the Bush administration and the far right ideologues in Congress doing about it? Pouring taxpayer dollars into abstinence-only programs that censor information about condoms and contraception and spread misinformation about HIV. Read more.

Research Shows That Abstinence-Only Programs Have Limited Effectiveness And Unintended Consequences - Research shows that one in five adolescents will have sex before the age of 15 and most who continue to be sexually active do not use condoms consistently. Although some youth acknowledge their fears about HIV/AIDS, many do not perceive themselves to be at risk and lack accurate information about what circumstances put them at risk for HIV infection. Read more.

Some Abstinence Programs Mislead Teens, Report Says - Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found. Read more.