Circle of Life

I write this month’s editorial with a mixture of excitement and great sadness. By the time you read this, if all goes well I will be the proud grandparent of a newly born healthy little girl. This will be my second grandchild. If you are a grandparent or a parent you’ll know how exciting this is. It’s a time of new beginnings, of wonderment and joy, and a reminder of how life goes on despite seemingly never ending stories of tragedies, set backs, and sadness. Simultaneously, just 25 miles from my home, rescuers continue to desperately search for survivors of the horrific landslide that in seconds swept away homes and ended lives alongside the picturesque Stillaguamish River in the tiny town of Oso, Washington.

Both personally and professionally, there seems no escaping a life destined to be a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, thrills and spills, joys and sadness. Last month, I reported a few professional successes and disappointments. A threat to empower ROTC instructors to teach physical education was rejected in California, but a similar proposal loomed in New Mexico. In Ohio, legislators supported a house bill not allowing PE and health to count as electives for graduation, together with a bill counting band, cheerleading, and athletics as physical education. And in my own state of Washington, Highline school district administrators now insist that newly hired elementary PE specialists must also be certified to teach in the classroom if they want permanent teaching contracts.

Brilliant! Let’s plan on using PE specialists to fill in for classroom teachers. That will surely boost test scores, never mind the quality of the PE instruction we can anticipate when classroom teachers take over our gyms. Did these educational leaders take early advantage of WA State’s recent change in the marijuana laws? Certainly, ensuring a quality education for Highline school kids wasn’t foremost on their minds.

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Ten (Somewhat) Easy Steps to Lower Off-Task Behavior in Physical Education

Over the years, educational researchers have worked hard to create effective teaching strategies to help teachers solve problems of off-task behavior in their classrooms. Despite these efforts, classroom management issues and discipline problems remain a major concern for most teachers. Numerous daily discipline problems and reports may reflect a classroom atmosphere disruptive enough to significantly impair student learning (Vogler & Bishop, 1990).

 

Though dealing with these issues is often difficult, newer classroom management strategies are showing success when educators depart from trying to control behavior and instead focus on creating supportive classroom learning environments. Clearly, a big part of the solution is preventing problems before they start. In this article we’ll revisit proven strategies and I’ll share newer ideas to help physical educators reduce off-task behaviors in our classrooms.

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A Quick Toolkit for Enhancing Academic Language in Physical Education

The language we use when teaching physical education skills and knowledge is more formal, complex and sophisticated than in informal out-of-class conversation. Authors Phoebe Constantinou and Deborah Wuest have created an informative and downloadable handout that defines academic language in physical education, explains its importance, and gives tips for implementation.

Toolkit for Enhancing Academic Language in Physical Education

 

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What are we Learning in PE today?

“What are we playing in gym today?” is in all likelihood the first question asked every day by every class in every gymnasium across the country and possibly the entire world. It may be an overly simplistic answer to the lack of respect for our content area, but conditioning students to ask, “What are we learning in PE today?” instead of “What are we playing in gym today?” would mark a small step toward educating the next generation about the merits of physical education.

However, it then becomes incumbent upon us to be able to provide an answer to this new and improved question, each and every time a student enters our classroom. Our classroom, the gymnasium, while different in size and equipment, needs to look, feel, and operate like a learning environment. Allowing the educational hierarchy to view us as different, and more often than not as less important, guarantees that we will continue to remain educationally second-class despite the rising need for PE.

So what would it look like if we operated like a typical academic classroom, yet still stayed true to the physicality of our domain?

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Five Things You Should Know about the Presidential Youth Fitness Program

The new Presidential Youth Fitness Program promotes healthy lifestyles, empowers students and parents, and supports quality physical education. Here are five things physical educators should know about the program:

It’s a model: The Presidential Youth Fitness Program (PYFP) provides the tools, resources, and a checklist of criteria the partners believe should be part of a quality fitness education process in a quality physical education program. It’s up to you how you want to incorporate them into your curriculum.

Kids Playing

 

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2013 Dr. Bob Frederick Sport Leadership Lecture Series, Part 1

This past October (2013), the Dr. Bob Frederick Sport Leadership Lecture Series took place on the campus of Lewis-Clark State College (ID). Featured presenters included sport leaders from intercollegiate athletic administration, sport governance, sport business, education, coaching, and recreation. Sponsored by the Lewis-Clark State College Sport Administration Program, the purpose of the lecture series was to provide students, faculty, staff, and community members an opportunity to learn about careers and leadership in sport from established professionals.

Dr. Bob Frederick

Over the next three months, pelinks4u will feature a series of selected presentations. This month’s three presenters include Lewis-Clark State College (ID) Cross Country coach, Mike Collins; Washington State University Swimming coach, Tom Jager; and University of North Carolina Director of Basketball Operations, Brad Frederick.

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Sportsmanship, Character Building, & PE

Sportsmanship for me is when a guy walks off the court and you really can’t tell whether he won or lost, when he carries himself with pride either way. – Jim Courier

When I first thought about the theme for this month’s article, it struck me how much sports have changed. I wondered, “Is this change occurring in the right direction?” Simultaneously, I thought about the hodge-podge of events and activities that have transformed the direction PE has taken. I concluded that both sports and PE are at a crossroads awaiting choices we must make about our professional future.

Today, there is a host of negativity, especially in professional and college sports, towards sportsmanship. What character is really being addressed, taught, and built in sports? All too common are taunts, verbal abuse of officials, bending of the rules, individual showmanship that goes far beyond the “look at me,” pounding of chests, throat slashes, and the abrasive interviews following big games.

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