| Technology
in Physical Education: Help or Handicap?
I write this, reflecting upon my experience
at this year's national AAHPERD convention in Baltimore. Conventions
and workshops always refuel my motivation. Being around, listening
to, and chatting with physical education advocates helps to sustain
my energy when I return back to my teaching responsibilities. In
Baltimore, there were presentations to suit every interest, awards
recognizing the professional service of individuals from around
the country, hundreds of exhibits, and many new products with promising,
but uncertain futures. What especially intrigued me though, were
conflicting thoughts about the role of technology in our profession.
In our technologically dominated society,
getting people to move is becoming more and more challenging. Interestingly,
many emerging solutions are focusing on transferring our addiction
to technology from passive to active participation. How effective
is it? Will getting kids to play variations of video games that
demand physical exercise really impact their long-term activity
habits? Won't the withdrawal or unavailability of "exer-tainment"
simply return them to their sedentary state?
Sport psychologists warn us that when
athletes become dependent on extrinsic rewards their motivation
to participate changes. Take away the rewards and they lose the
desire to play. I fear that luring young people into becoming active
for reasons other than the joy of moving surely risks the same results.
We need to wonder what young people
will do in the absence of activity props. Are we going too far in
transforming our school gyms into health clubs, or are we effectively
preparing them for future active lifestyles? The sterile and artificial
moves performed on machines must not be allowed to replace the joy
experienced in the natural forms of movement these machines seek
to mimic. It's a reasonable fear that kids conditioned to believe
that the local gym or health club is the best or only place to exercise
will not embrace alternative health-promoting movement forms.
The very attraction of school-based
health clubs - especially the fact that all students can successfully
participate at their own ability level - makes us less inclined
to take on the more challenging task of developing specific sport
and leisure skills. But is this truly preparing our students for
healthy and active future lifestyles? Not all or even the majority
of our graduates will have convenient or affordable access to private
gyms and clubs. Where is the evidence to show that students in school
programs focused on physical fitness stay active and physically
fit as adults in the absence of machines and exercise leaders? Isn't
it likely that young people lacking skill competency won't want
to expose their inadequacies as participants in skill-based leisure
activities?
The relatively recent availability of
PEP grants risks seducing us toward the flash, rather than the substance
of physical education. In fact, even the structure of the PEP grant
application process, requiring equipment to be identified before
programs have had the opportunity to develop a clear vision of their
goals, forces us to make premature choices. PEP grant funding has
awakened an interest in physical education beyond an audience simply
focused on doing what's best for kids. Today, PEP grant winners
face business pressures that were absent when a typical annual school
PE budget was a few hundred dollars or less.
Is spending grant money on technology
and exercise equipment the best way physical educators can serve
the nation's youth? Is it really an effective solution to our rampant
gluttony and laziness to move? What's going to happen when the tools
break down or need repairing? If we expect school district budgets
to support our technologically dependent programs we're certainly
going to have to do a better job of showing what students are learning
in our programs, and how physical education supports the school's
academic goals. And teaching our students to become habitual movers
and healthy eaters is surely more complex than buying stuff that
simply enables us to better facilitate conditioning exercises?
I'm not opposed to technology or novel
play equipment, but maybe we need to keep the focus on how to effectively
use new forms of technology to succeed in our central mission. That
mission is not to entertain kids, or simply keep them physically
active while in our classes. Our mission is to promote and sustain
healthy habits. Let's remember that it's not what students do when
they are with us that's important, but rather what they do when
they aren't with us.
When they leave our schools we need
all students to have a personal interest in eating well, and looking
for ways to include physical activity into their daily lives. This
feeling of well-being shouldn't be hard for physical educators to
recognize. We know how it feels to go a day without physical activity
or the consequences of unhealthy eating. It affects us mentally
and physically. Habitual healthy eating and daily physical activity
has to become the focus of our mission working with students whose
lives continue to become more and more sedentary. And succeeding
with that mission is going to take more than new technology.
Steve
Jefferies, pelinks4u publisher
What do you think? Is technology helping
or hurting the physical education profession? Comment here.
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