Is Physical Education Heading Towards Extinction or a Renaissance?

by Michael Metzler, Georgia State University

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.

Rather than spending our collective energy arguing for a "place at the table," we are now being offered a seat by many of those groups of supporters I just mentioned. Increasingly, they are speaking on our behalf, advocating for us, and partnering with us to get the message out that PE programs can make important contributions to many aspects of the lives of children and youth. While I fully understand that we still face an uphill battle on several fronts including reduced teaching schedules and unreasonable class sizes in some schools, today we are at least not fighting these battles by ourselves. Those same groups I just mentioned can be strong allies if made aware of these problems and encouraged to help us address them.

But improved public perception about the value of physical education in schools and the emerging support by advocacy groups does not come free. This support comes with expectations and accountability-two things that have rarely concerned members of our profession. The general public and advocates for PE expect that physical education programs can and will provide real and significant contributions to the education of children and youth while they are in school, and that those benefits will last well into their adult lives. The problem is that some of these expectations, and one in particular, are impossible for our profession to meet.

When the value of physical education is questioned and programs are being considered for reductions or elimination, many of our supporters cite the growing obesity crisis and argue to keep physical education as a viable subject to address this social and health problem. Many physical education professionals wave the "anti-obesity" flag high because they know it gets the attention of school policy makers and often saves programs and teachers' jobs. What we don't tell those policy makers is that there is no way physical education by itself, even quality physical education, can have any impact on rates of childhood obesity. That's right. None. Zip. Nada. The science (remember the FITT principle?) simply doesn't add up for that to happen when even the best programs have no chance of counteracting the many other variables that contribute to rising rates of childhood obesity.

Instead we need to state and try to achieve other expectations, ones that quality physical education programing can meet. Quality programs can have a positive impact on children's enjoyment of physical activity, physical activity literacy, self-efficacy, healthy food choices, academic achievement, and making active lifestyle choices when those opportunities are presented. Those are the outcomes that we should be communicating to our newfound advocates for two key reasons. First, the false anti-obesity claims for and about physical education will eventually be exposed when future national reports show that those rates have continued to climb or at best remain stable, despite additional investments in school physical education programs. Second, expectations related to improving children's levels of physical activity are more legitimate, more likely to be met, and more amenable to documentation that they have been achieved.

The idea of elevating physical activity to being the primary goal for PE programs has prompted a lot of debate and divisions into two primary camps. One camp argues that physical education should retain its traditional focus on developing skill in a variety of movement forms. Their rationale is that skill development is a prerequisite to enjoying physical activity, which then leads to increased rates of participation.

The other camp argues that programs should be designed to provide high rates of MVPA in classes (which would eliminate or force modifications to many current curriculum offerings), and to teach children the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed to make physical activity a regular part of their daily lives. This camp also supports the concepts of Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs) and the Institute of Medicine's "whole school" approach. Their rationale is that physical activity participation is a result of many interwoven personal, educational, environmental, and social factors, and that expanded PE programs must address all of those factors to have any chance of teaching children to be more physically active in and out of school.

The problem for the first camp is that after more than 100 years, they can point to essentially no evidence that skills learned in physical education lead to increased physical activity in the short- or long-term. The problem for the second camp is that CSPAPs and other expanded models have not yet been tested and have prompted questions about their feasibility. It is also too soon to know if they can be effective in increasing physical activity rates-although the answer to this question will certainly be revealed in far less than 100 years!

My message is that we must be very careful and realistic about the expectations we are willing to endorse for physical education programs. We must stand behind them with our new advocates and supporters because what happens to us will depend on meeting those expectations. At some point, both our supporters and our detractors will want to know if physical education has delivered on the promises it has made justifying its place in the school curriculum. If we choose to make claims that physical education can help to reduce childhood obesity rates, we should expect others to examine data illustrating our effectiveness related to that outcome. Based on this we would be held accountable for what I see as the only possible outcome - failure! We would then not have a leg to stand on should we choose to fly the "anti-obesity" flag in discussions about reducing or eliminating our programs.

On the other hand, if expanded physical education programs are expected to play a large role in efforts to increase rates of children's physical activity during the school years, I think those expectations are achievable and reasonable enough that our programs can be held accountable for their achievement. (I am a lot less certain that PE programs should be expected to contribute to life-long physical activity participation because there are just too many factors that we cannot control once students leave school and begin their adult lives.)

Today, there are many ways to measure and record children's physical activity in physical education classes, during the rest of the school day, and out of school. Reasonable expectations for physical activity rates can be determined (most likely the 60-minutes a day now widely suggested), and we can be held accountable for that outcome fairly. This might sound like a retreat from the grandiose goal of reducing childhood obesity, but I'm convinced it's simply a wise strategy of setting reasonable, achievable, and important expectations for physical education programs that will benefit children and youth, and for which our teachers can be held accountable fairly.

I see two possible futures for physical education programs in schools. In one future, there are no physical education programs-they have become extinct. At some point in time, policy makers will decide that physical education does not provide enough added value in the education of children and youth, and new laws will be passed to eliminate physical education entirely. This destructive tipping point will occur one state at a time. Historians looking back will explain that physical education as a school subject tried to do too much, and in the end did nothing that really mattered to students and the many other groups that have vested interests in what goes on in our schools. Physical education programs had been allowed to get away with their muddled mediocrity for too long and eventually it was time to put them out of their misery.

In the second possible future, physical education has witnessed a Renaissance, thriving as a respected and valued part of the school curriculum, and is a major contributing factor in the rising national trend of promoting physical activity in children and youth. This future was the result of physical education professionals agreeing that their programs should focus directly on teaching children how to enjoy physical activity and reaping all the benefits that comes with it. They got buy-in from classroom teachers and administrators to find more opportunities for physical activity in the school day, found ways to document that programs had achieved their stated outcomes, and leveraged support from constituent groups and the media to get the positive attention of policy makers who then legislated for more time and resources for quality physical education in our schools.

I'm convinced that physical education does not have a possible future that looks a lot like its present. By that I mean our programs won't languish in the margins for too much longer. We simply won't be allowed to keep doing what we're now doing (and not doing) forever. Today's reality is that we must convince those who scrutinize what goes on in schools and make policy and budgetary decisions that the public's investment in our programs is justifiable - or we will be eliminated. The new attention being given to physical education will soon resolve whether our programs will follow the path of the dinosaurs, or whether they are making an invaluable contribution to the lives of children and youth and must be kept in the school curriculum.

I am optimistic that our profession can create this professional Renaissance and that our school programs can thrive in the future - not just merely survive. That optimism is based on the new public support cited by Steve, and the exciting potential of CSPAPs and other "whole school" approaches that can expand our idea of what physical education programs can be, what our teachers know and can teach, and what children and youth can learn from us that makes an invaluable positive contribution to the quality of their lives.

Mike Metzler is a Professor in the Kinesiology and Health Department at Georgia State University and a Fellow in the National Academy of Kinesiology. His expertise is in teacher education, instructional models, and research on teaching. He is the Coordinator of the Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) doctoral concentration. He has authored more than 80 refereed publications in journals such as JOPERD, Quest, the Journal of Teaching in Physical Education, and Teaching and Teacher Education. He has authored or co-authored nine books.

Instructional Models for Physical Education, is in its third edition and has been adopted in over 100 universities in the United States and other countries. Mike received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English Education from Tufts University. He earned his Master of Science degree in physical education from East Stroudsburg University, and his Ph.D. in physical education teacher education from The Ohio State University. Currently he is the editor of Quest.

(back to pelinks4u homepage)