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That
was Then…This is Now:
Celebrating PETE’s
Past While Facing The Challenges In
Its Future
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SLIDES WITH THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE,
OR JUST LISTEN!
The 2000s
[slide 30]
Since 2000 we have been all about standards,
assessment and accreditation of PETE
programs. The first set of Advanced
Standards for practicing teachers came
out that decade, as did the second edition
of our Beginning Teacher Standards.
And, the newest edition with both sets
of teaching standards was released at
this conference in Myrtle Beach.
[slide 31]
Throughout the 1990s and this current
decade, PETE professors and graduate
students have been prolific researchers.
Looking at the middle ten years of those
decades, 1995 to 2004, Pamela Kulinna
and her colleagues recently (2009) documented
the explosion of research on physical
education pedagogy in those years: over
1,800 studies published in 94 different
journals! And you know what, I bet Larry
Locke read every single one of those
while doing his Research and Retrievals
for JTPE! [slide
32] PETE researchers also
enjoyed greater acceptance in the general
research literature on teacher education
, as evidenced by [slide
33] Kim Graber’s chapter
in the 2001 4th edition of the Handbook
of Research on Teaching.
[slide 34]
Please pause your player
and take a few moments to think about
and write down your own significant
events in PETE during the most recent
decade.
[slide 35]
It is obvious that we have much to celebrate
about the PETE professoriate’s
accomplishments from the 1970s and into
this current decade. But, that was then…this
is now. While we gathered in Pittsburgh
three years ago to celebrate that impressive
history, lurking in the background there
and again in Myrtle Beach are some questions
and issues that will surely challenge
the long-term future of PETE. This is
not an effort to throw the proverbial
wet blanket on our community at a conference
that represents the best of what PETE
is about. Rather, it is to remind us
again about some things that must be
recognized publically and addressed
by all PETE professors so that we can
start to take them on for the continued
welfare of our scholarship, research,
teacher education programs, and P-12
physical education.
[slide 36]
We applauded the establishment of so
many quality PETE doctoral programs
in the 1970s and 1980s, but today we
face a crisis that has been documented
so well by Melinda Solmon, and at this
conference by Linda Rikard and Ann Boyce,
and others: Too many of the landmark
PETE doctoral programs are either gone
or have been reduced in size and stature.
While a few new programs have started,
the unavoidable reality is that we are
not producing enough new PETE professors
to take the place of those who retire
or otherwise leave active duty.
Those of you who have doctoral programs
understand this crisis by the way you
struggle to find interested and qualified
new students. Those of you who have
conducted searches for open PETE positions
understand this crisis when you look
at very small pools of fully qualified
candidates, and then have to give consideration
to candidates from other fields who
have a teaching background and can pass
as teacher educators - but not as PETE
researchers.
This crisis has another facet to it,
often mentioned to me by those who mentor
doctoral students: too many students
who complete doctoral programs at research
universities do not seek positions at
similar kinds of institutions.
[slide 37] They have little
or no interest in a career based in
research and scholarship, with the pressures
of “publish or perish.”
So, they seek and take positions with
heavy teaching loads and reduced expectations
for research. While this sounds like
a good thing for their hiring institutions,
the reality is that many of these new
PETE professors have more training as
researchers than they do as teacher
educators—further compounding
the crisis.
[slide 38]
The second issue is less of a crisis,
and more of an unresolved problem that
PETE faculty have struggled with for
decades: how to design a teacher education
program that is appropriately balanced
across scientific content, movement
content and skills, and pedagogical
content knowledge. Prior to the 1970s,
PETE programs were strongly criticized
for having far too many sport and other
movement content courses.
[slide 39] After Franklin
Henry’s 1964 seminal article in
JOPERD, too much of the content of PETE
programs was co-opted by departmental
faculty in the scientific disciplines
and a new imbalance was created by what
they thought teacher education students
needed: courses in biomechanics, exercise
science, and the like - based on models
of elite performers, not developing
children and youth.
[slide 40]
PETE professors stood by rather passively
as their disciplinary-based colleagues
(joined by some PETEs, I should add)
hoisted the Great Basic Stuff Series
Hoax on us, allowing non-teacher educators
to define and have blessed by NASPE
and AAHPERD what the knowledge base
should be for preservice teachers and
P-12 PE. As PETE faculty tried to re-balance
their programs, the most common solution
has been to reduce the amount of movement
content and skills, in order to save
or to increase time for pedagogical
training. [slide 41] Much of that is
attributable to facing a wall of resistance
(and voting blocs) put in front of them
by their discipline-based colleagues.
[slide 42]
I commonly refer to my own
experience of trying to get my department
to envision and vote for a PETE program
based on Hoffman’s idea of pedagogical
kinesiology as “Bloody Friday,”
which gives you a good idea of how it
all turned out. I’m sure many
of you have had that same experience,
and still bear the scars that came with
it.
The challenge here is to develop models
of PETE programs based on a balance
and integration of the full range of
content knowledge, performance skill
and PCK needed for teaching in schools,
not the separation of that knowledge
and skill from pedagogical applications
for it.
[slide 43]
The third major challenge we face today
is that we must find a way to stop the
national accreditation tail from wagging
the PETE program dog. PETE professors
entered the arena of standards-based
and performance-based program assessment
when NCATE changed to that model of
program review and unit accreditation
in 2001. Whether you are a supporter
of the NCATE/NASPE partnership, or a
hardened critic of the current review
process, I think it is safe to say,
and speaking only for myself now--that
this is the most important development
ever in the design, implementation and
assessment of PETE programs - and I
don’t count it as a positive one.
If you suspect that I am going to grind
my axe once again on this topic - you
are right, but let me say first that
I am a strong supporter of Standards-based,
performance-based program assessment
- we’ve been doing that in GSU
HPETE for 15 years.
[slide 44]
Everything I disagree with and have
publically criticized (even wrote a
song about!) is found in the preparation
for and conduct of the review process
- not the standards. Like many of you,
I held some hope for positive change
when NCATE announced it was looking
to redesign the unit review process
and the program reviews made by its
SPA partners.
[slide 45] However, my reading
of the new documents for those changes
leads me to one conclusion: be careful
what you wish for!
What is being proposed will make the
current review process look like a walk
in the park, with two accreditation
tracks to choose from, annual data reporting,
a high stakes mid-cycle review and the
submission of the unit’s Institutional
Report fully one year ahead of the site
visit. If this is the streamlined process
that NCATE promised to deliver then
we have been victims of a “bait
and switch” tactic by NCATE and
its SPA partners.
[slide 46]
The next challenge we will put in front
of the PETE community is one we rarely
discuss among ourselves. If we continue
to ignore it, it could very well lead
to our demise. We must recognize and
act on the realization that the survival
of PETE programs is inextricably tied
to the conduct, quality, and survival
of physical education programs in P-12
schools. It is not inconceivable that
the continued marginalization, reduction,
and outright disappearance of school
PE programs in too many states could
lead to some of our PETE programs being
placed on the chopping block. If the
first domino falls, leaving no place
for PE in schools, then the second domino
to fall will leave no PETE programs
in higher education, soon followed by
the third domino - no need for PETE
professors!
But, this is not about self-preservation;
It’s about an engaged professoriate
working to develop P-12 Physical Education
and PETE programs that can lead to effective
teaching and learning in our schools.
In 1997, Larry Locke and Daryl Siedentop
co-authored a classic JOPERD article
titled “Making a Difference
for Physical Education: What Professors
and Practitioners Must Build Together.”
The “what” in that statement
was both groups working collaboratively
and being willing to be held accountable
for turning around the quality and standing
of PE programs in schools.
For a while some PETE professors responded
by making individual commitments to
leave the comfort and security of their
campus to work part time as a teacher
in a local school. Definitely admirable,
but it fell far short of a lasting,
systemic, full-time commitment to help
teachers in those schools to provide
better programs for their students.
In the past ten years or so, some PETE
professors and programs have participated
as partners in Professional Development
School (PDS) collaborations.
Some of those partnerships have led
to great improvements in P-12 programs
AND teacher education programs, but
those success stories have been few
and far between. PDSs are very costly
in terms of time and other human resources,
so as difficult as they are to get up
and going, they are even much more difficult
to maintain long enough to show improvements
in teaching and student learning. And,
the current economic situation is working
strongly against any model of labor-intensive
teacher education.
So, we need to look for other ways
to improve P-12 programs. The first
one that comes to mind is the effort
in South Carolina that led to changes
in state policy and an initial infusion
of funds to improve school physical
education programs by making those programs
assess and be held accountable for certain
student learning outcomes. After a lot
of blood, sweat and tears on the part
of USC PETE faculty, P-12 teachers and
legislators that led to some modest
success across the state, this policy
has been placed on hold due to nothing
more than the fickle winds of state
politics.
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