Advocating for Our Profession: Presenting to Your School Board (Part 2)

Advocacy is preventive medicine and in this second in a series of three articles on advocating for your profession it’s worth reviewing the first of the three rules of advocacy that I laid out in Part 1. The First rule of advocacy is Do Some – It Works.

For advocacy to truly be preventive you must do some and one of the best places to advocate is with your school board. School board meetings are public venues where a wide range of decision makers and policy influencers are present. It’s a perfect setting in which to direct and influence the discussion and understanding of health, physical activity, and the role a quality physical education program plays in the development of our children. When and what you present to the School Board will be crucial in determining how effective your advocacy is and whether it is truly preventive medicine.

In my previous article, I pointed out the parallels between martial arts and job protection and made the case for an offensive-defense strategy. In martial arts you want to make your opponent think twice before even attempting to hit you. In physical education, offensive-defense is what you do when times are good to ensure that your district will not even consider attacking your program during tough economic times. The time to advocate with your school board is not when there is trouble but when things are going well and you have a positive story to tell.

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This is Why I Teach!

Physical educators love their jobs. There isn’t anything that we would rather be doing. You’ll have to excuse my Buffalo Bills’ reference here, but as Marv Levy has said, “Where else would you rather be than right here, right now?” Of course there are always days when things don’t all go accordingly to plan, or someone or something gets in the way of you excelling at your job. But for the most part, physical educators have the best job in the world! We have a chance every day to shape young minds and bodies toward a healthy life.

 

As someone who has taught for more than 30 years, there have been a few “aha” moments that have made me say, “that’s why I teach!” I’d like to share some with you. I’m hoping that reading my list will help you through those tough times when a person or thing gets in your way and remind you why you chose this great profession. After reading through my list, I’m certain that you could easily come up with a unique list for yourself. Enjoy!

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Is Physical Education Heading Towards Extinction or a Renaissance?

I appreciate Steve Jefferies’ invitation to respond to his editorial in the October 2013 issue of pelinks4u. What follows is less of a direct reply to his editorial than a set of thoughts about the current state of P-12 physical education and some possibilities for its future. Steve started his editorial by noting several positive developments taken from the 2012 Shape of the Nation Report and other stories about encouraging policy changes in a growing number of states. These included a 10% increase in the percentage of school districts requiring elementary school physical education over the past 12 years, a near doubling of the percentage of states providing lesson plans and tools for evaluating students’ progress in middle schools, and a 20% increase in districts adopting policies requiring schools to follow national, state, or district standards.

Other evidence of the increased attention given to the importance of physical education in schools can be found in almost every type of media: newspapers, magazines, web sites, blogs, social media, local television, and even network television programs that are seen by millions of viewers. The 2013 report by the Institute of Medicine strongly supported a “whole school” approach to physical activity learning in schools, and has been read widely by state policy makers, school boards, school administrators, and many advocacy groups. Never before in its more than one hundred years of inclusion as a school subject has physical education been more widely viewed in a positive light by so many different groups -parents, policy makers, health professionals, school administrators, students, classroom teachers, private foundations, and public agencies.

While Steve suggests that this newfound attention might not be a good thing, personally I welcome this improved public perception of the value of our programs in schools and think that our profession can accomplish much more from being in the limelight than we can from being in the margins: A place we’ve been in for too many years. Everyone likes the underdog, but when it comes to our profession, I’d much rather see us in the role of “favorite” because that gives us more opportunities to serve children and youth, and to make a real difference in the quality of their lives.

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A Profession in Transition

I love my kids. I’m talking about my own kids. My children. I think about them every day and I realize I don’t tell them often enough that I love them. They are good kids!

This probably strikes you as an odd way to begin an article about our profession and about the future of our professional association but let me explain. Both my son and my daughter are now adults and finding their niche in life. They have families of their own and they face many of the same challenges most of us did as we worked through the early years of our adult lives.

Significantly, my daughter changed her name! She gave up her maiden name, the only name she had ever known, and took a new name. This marked the next chapter in her personal evolution toward self-actualization, self-fulfillment, and creating her lasting personal legacy. Even before she changed her name she was an exceptional person- caring, loving, fun, dedicated and professional.

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How to Stay Healthy this Holiday Season

The holidays are a great time for families to get together around the dinner table to share memories and enjoy each other’s company. Only later, while slouching on the couch to decompress do the negative health consequences of our increased holiday food consumption begin nagging us. And during these moments of reflection we start to think about physical activity strategies to help us work off these extra food and drink calories. Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. Instead of waiting for these guilty feelings why not plan ahead and help others along the way?

The first step is to make a plan and then stick to it. That sounds easy but it’s going to take some navigation and guidance to proceed in the proper direction. Fortunately, help is on the way from today’s ubiquitous electronic devices and apps that are both useful and fun to use. Physical educators can be a great source of advice for teaching colleagues, families, and students in helping them to engage in appropriate health promoting activities.

To accomplish this task, it’s wise to create a plan that involves others such as family members or friends who will act as coaches and motivators to help us stay on the right path. These ideas can be posted in a blog, or shared as reminders, fitness calendars and online information web site links. Potential topics of advice could include a combination of health, exercise, nutrition, first aid and injury prevention information. As a physical education teacher, I found it to be an effective strategy to make a calendar or bulletin board to help others track their activities and healthy food choices. During the school break for the holidays, health and P.E. teachers can be a viable asset for carrying over health-promoting information into the holidays. It could be homework or simply advice. Fortunately, today there are some excellent online resources you might like to personally check out and then consider sharing.

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Psychological Skills Training: Mental Rehearsal, Phase I

For athletes to improve their “game,” they have to replace old, ineffective habits with new, effective ones. Continuing my Psychological Skills Training series in pelinks4u, today’s article is the first in a two-part series on Mental Rehearsal (2nd part March 2014). Today’s article combines previously learned skills that you can review from articles in the pelinks4u archives (Dec. 2011, Feb. 2013 & June/July 2013). A coaches’ script and a handout for athletes to use when practicing at home are provided.

Psychological Skills Training: Mental Rehearsal, Phase I

written by Dr. Christine Lottes, Kutztown University, Pennsylvania

Psychological Skills Training series: previous issues

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The Incognito Incident: A Character Lesson for Coaches

This past month we’ve been swamped by the media storm surrounding the behavior of Miami Dolphin football player Richie Incognito. In short, Jonathan Martin an NFL football player for the Miami Dolphins left the team and checked into a hospital for emotional distress, claiming harassment from teammate Richie Incognito. Martin felt threatened by Incognito’s approach to “toughening him up” (Schefter, 2013). If true, the incident illustrates harassment in the workplace and a lack of leadership by the Miami Dolphin organization. In addition, it speaks to the important responsibility of coaches in creating a positive environment (i.e. team culture) in which athletes can grow and develop while striving for success (Brown, 2003).

Obviously, the main purpose of sport at the professional level is to win and make money. However, winning and profit-seeking does not eliminate the ethical responsibility of the organization and coach to provide a safe environment, where players and coaches treat each other with respect (Simon, 2013). When someone inflicts physical or psychological harm on another person they are demonstrating a lack of respect for the individual (Lumpkin, Stoll, & Beller, 2011). Intimidating someone or bullying them is a form of emotional and psychological coercion or hazing (Tilindiene & Gailiuniene, 2013). Regardless of your view on the severity of Richie Incognito’s actions towards Jonathan Martin, it’s tough to argue the behavior of Incognito was anything less than hazing.

Hazing in sports is defined as, “…any potentially humiliating, degrading, abusive, or dangerous activity which does not contribute to the positive development of the athlete…” (Crow & MacIntosh, 2009, p. 449). The Incognito incident demonstrated all the common signs of hazing in sports. Incognito held seniority status over Martin, Martin exhibited signs of emotional distress, and the language (i.e. racial slurs) Incognito verbalized via voicemail to Martin demonstrated a lack of respect.

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