Celebrating Physical
Education in 2014
by Isobel
Kleinman, author of Too
Dangerous to Teach
Given
that we are able to watch sports all day every day, one must
still appreciate Olympians for their pursuit of perfection,
desire to better their personal best, and the dedication it
takes to get there. After the classy ceremonies, breathtaking
performances, and personal vignettes of athletes ended, I
expected thoughts about the 2014 Olympics would end too. But,
then some of the champions found their way back in the spotlight
when Dancing with the Stars returned to the air. It was an
eye-opener when they introduced the USA gold medal ice-dancers,
Davis and White, a twosome who had been a dance team since
childhood as competitors instead of partners. Then the mold
was broken altogether when Amy Purdy, a double leg amputee
snow-boarder who took the bronze medal in the Para-Olympics
was introduced too.
The entire line-up got me thinking of physical education,
where it was when I started teaching, the good things that
have changed in our field, and what we should be celebrating
today. Ann Purdy should be celebrated not only for what she
has done but for what she can teach others. She lost her legs
but not her spirit. She will probably be motived to test her
limits until the end of her days because she embodies the
philosophy of taking what you have and learning to use it
to the best of your ability. Much of her spirit is inside,
but someone had to teach her and they did.
Watching her deal with her limitations as she learned a fabulous
dance routine, watching her perform it - and she was good
- reminded me of my quandary when I started out teaching.
My school district would not allow kids with disabilities
to participate - period! Physical educators were told to have
the kids sit out. At the time - and I am not ancient - I simply
assumed that we didn't have a disabilities program because
my administrators were not up on educational law and just
didn't know better. Boy was I naïve.
Believing that no kids should be made to sit out and simply
keep score, and being a just-out-of-college idealist, I felt
for my disabled student whose twin got to play while she sat
on the sidelines dying to do the same. I also thought nothing
of going to my principal to share what I knew about the law
and asking him to create an Adapted Physical Education class
for our kids. I never imagined that neither my professional
concerns nor the law would fail to motivate my district to
do what it should, or that school administrators would consider
me a troublemaker for bringing it up. In fact, I thought they
would jump on it and satisfy the law, the student, and me.
But it didn't happen that way.
We waited a year for a class to be formed for all the kids
who were made to sit out, but it didn't happen. It seemed
my district felt that if no one knew about the law and no
one was calling them on it (other than me), they could save
money by not staffing a class for children with disabilities.
Fortunately even as a novice teacher, I wasn't the type to
see frustrated students be made more of a victim to their
own handicap than was necessary. I knew that there were things
they could do safely, so after waiting for what seemed like
an eternity to me and my student, I told her mother that her
voice would probably pull more weight than mine. It did. Now,
I look back I can see how far we have come.
What I applaud about our profession is that we have teachers
everywhere who teach kids what they can do - physically disabled
or not: teachers who find a way to start at a point where
everyone is successful; teachers who enable students to feel
good about themselves as they learn; teachers who have the
patience to build confidence in students who are afraid to
perform in front of others; and teachers who don't allow the
atmosphere to be poisoned by ridicule, bullying, or unsportsmanlike
behaviors.
We know that all children have different strengths and weaknesses
regardless of their motivation and effort. We know that there
are performance levels that most will never reach. But there
is a baseline where - if teachers can find it - kids will
be successful. Finding it is important. Once students realize
that they can do what is asked it is easier to convince them
to keep on trying. Students who are able to accomplish a task
start acquiring the physical and emotional building blocks
needed to motivate them to try to learn more and do it joyfully.
How great it is to have a whole class run to the
gym, eager to participate, involved, and feeling as if they
are in the game. It's possible, but teachers must
set the tone. That starts with ensuring that every student
is successful, that every student feels needed and understands,
as do their classmates, that they have skills that can contribute
to the success of their teams and classmates. If we as teachers
accommodate everyone in class by finding a starting point
that works for all and build from there, it's a win-win for
everyone, because once a student gains confidence, even the
most skeptical and disengaged will come around and start to
take on the "I will try attitude" of Amy Purdy. When they
do, they will learn the joy of participation.
How do we do that? Here are a few tips I've learned over
the years:
- Keep it simple! Start at short distances, low heights,
minimal speed, big targets, easy goals, and limited expectations.
- Delay introducing equipment until
students have repeated the movement pattern you want them
to use at least ten times. Why? Because once they start
worrying about where the ball goes, if they can hit it or
not or catch it or not, their focus will wander. Some students
who are not immediately successfully may get so uptight
that they will be unable to do anything but feel incompetent.
- Start by teaching the motion
and rehearsing it as a warm-up activity each day. You want
them paying attention to the motion, the footwork into the
motion, the follow-through, doing it alone at first before
adding complexity. Each day's warm-up can reinforce the
proper patterns and ensure that students are comfortable
with the movements needed for the activity.
- Introduce equipment remembering
that you want students to have plenty of repetition. After
the first day of a unit, leave the equipment out so students
can use it when entering the gym or field. The early birds
will love playing or practicing rather than sitting and
waiting for the rest. Don't worry about discipline. If the
kids are busy you will not face discipline problems. Get
as much equipment into their hands as you can, making sure
that there is no waiting time for practice. If you have
no choice and cannot do that, organize class so that everyone
has equal access to equipment.
- Start with the basics. They will
have already learned the right movement pattern via the
warm-up so you can concentrate on proper weight transfer,
follow-through and aiming at a target in future drills.
- As students achieve success increase
the distance, backswing, and speed, making sure to keep
reminding them of the weight transfer, follow-through, and
accuracy. Not all activities have specific equipment - dance,
gymnastics, fitness, swimming to name a few - but all activities
have correct movement patterns that need to be rehearsed
to learn them well, so stick to the principles of repetition
in those activities too. Break down harder skills into small,
learnable segments, and choose when to rehearse them in
sequence.
Positive thinking and early success is so important to children
when first learning something new. The challenge for teachers
is knowing how to break down the learning sequence so that
all the parts are correct and come together in a smooth and
flowing motion.
If you need assistance you can find it in my book, Complete
Physical Education Plans for Grades 5-12 where I
share teaching progressions for every unit and every level.
It is there in detail because it works.
Cheers to all of you who guide kids, regardless of ability,
to a healthier attitude, a fitter body, and more active life
style - for the fun of it.
Biography: Isobel Kleinman is a Secondary Section Editor
for pelinks4u. She graduated from the State University of
New York, College at Cortland in 1967, where she majored in
Physical Education. She then attended New York City's Queens
College where she received her MSE and professional certification
in School Psychology. Isobel taught junior high physical education
exclusively from 1967-1985, and then added senior high school
to her repertoire, teaching 7-12 until 1999.
During her teaching career she wrote curriculum, supervised
extra-curricular activities, coached junior high soccer, field
hockey, volleyball, basketball, tennis, gymnastics, archery,
track and field and softball. At the high school level, in
addition to her teaching responsibilities, she created and
ran a performing arts dance group.
As a retired teacher, Isobel became an author. She now has
seen three of her books published. Her latest is the second
and greatly expended edition of COMPLETE
PHYSICAL EDUCATION PLANS FOR GRADES 7-12. She has also
written TOO
DANGEROUS TO TEACH, a fictionalized account of a physical
educator caught in a political quagmire.
Isobel's recreational interests have focused on tennis and
platform tennis ever since she joined the West Side Tennis
Club in Forest Hills. She still enjoys theatre, dance concerts,
museums jaunts and her travels, exploring all parts of the
world.
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