"Post negative practices have soiled the image and slowed the growth of a subject that has unlimited potential."

Bud & Sue Turner's new book Physical Education: Outside the Box; K-12 Curriculum Incentives for The New Physical Education, is an eclectic collection of drills, games, physical challenges, and teaching tips gleaned from years of teaching and supervising K-12 PE programs.

As the past supervisor of K-12 Health & PE programs in the Seattle School District, Bud Turner is the well known author of several practical PE texts and videos. He is also the coordinator of the annual "West's Best K-12, Success Oriented" workshops. Sue Turner, his co-author, is a former Washington State Elementary Physical Education "Teacher of the Year" whose elementary PE program has been featured in numerous news reports and magazine publications.

For teachers of K- 12 physical education this book contains almost 300 pages of the Turners' accumulated ideas. The first chapter presents 100 Two-Minute Drills. Many of these drills provide brief, novel, fast action, movement activities ideal for quick class starting warm-ups. As with many of the Turners' ideas, these drills are easy to organize and typically require minimal equipment.

Chapter Two focuses on circuit training. Once again, equipment demands are minimal; each circuit includes 10 different challenges with a variety of individual and partner variations. The text includes copy-ready score cards and photographs of each challenge.

Skill progressions are the focus of the third chapter. Twenty different progressively harder challenges are presented for skills such as running, kicking, batting, ball handling, and others. In Chapter Four, ten movement stories place emphasis on student listening and cooperating skills. Students practice word and action concepts while the teacher reads.

The Turners select ten equipment items as the focus of Chapter Five. Climbing walls, pedometers, unicycles, exercise balls and other current equipment favorites are examined. The authors describe the purpose, costs, and sample activities of each equipment item.

In Chapter Six, the Turners note that physical education has a long history with games. Unfortunately, they suggest, many past games have lacked much purpose and resulted in negative consequences for the majority of the players. In contrast, the Turner games eliminate elimination by maximizing repetitions, involving all students, and allowing all participants to be successful.

Outside The Box concludes with 25 program enhancers including ideas associated with student achievement, special events, authentic assessments, homework, fundraisers, and many other ways for teachers to promote their programs.

This book is intended for K-12 physical educators interested in program and teaching enhancements. It's not a curriculum or a teaching prescription. As with other publications by the Turners, it's a book of ideas - many their own and some gleaned from professional colleagues. What sort of impact these ideas make still depends on you, and how you choose to integrate some of these innovative activities into your curriculum. The book would be a nice addition to your teaching library, and certainly an excellent book for teachers seeking to add sparkle to their PE programs.

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