Interesting Article # 8: Quality Physical Education: Why the Sport Requirement Can't Do It Alone

Author -Amanda D. (Stewart) Stanec: Eric Lay

Title-Quality Physical Education: Why the Sport Requirement Can't Do It Alone

Source- Independent School 68 no1 112-22 Fall 2008

In attempting to educate students about the importance of healthy living, many independent schools offer health and physical education (PE) programs that include age- and developmentally-appropriate physical education, drug education, human sexuality, and nutrition. The evolution in physical health education is one of the better advances in precollegiate education over the last two decades. However, most of this work is being done at the elementary school level. When students enter upper school (and, many times, middle school), quality physical education programs frequently morph into a traditional sport requirement--under the belief that the sport requirement will provide students with sufficient mental and physical health benefits. While the sport requirement certainly has its value, we believe that it's a mistake to continue to equate athletics with a quality physical education--especially considering what we know today about quality PE and health programs.
If we are serious about supporting the physical and mental well-being of all students, and if we believe it is our job to give students the tools they need to be physically active throughout their lives, we need to adjust what we're doing at the middle and upper school levels.
Issues with the Sport Requirement in Lieu of Quality Physical Education
In years past--when PE curricula were mostly sports-based--offering high school sports in lieu of PE made perfect sense. The perceived benefits of the sport requirement include: an increase in school spirit, an opportunity for students to make new friends in other grade levels, a chance to learn important lessons in time management, and, for those who excel at sports, a chance to experience the joy of competing at a high level. With effective coaching, students also learn key lessons in character development, appropriate sportsmanship, and working effectively with others.
The overarching problem with the classic sport program in lieu of PE, however, is twofold. First, sport focuses on winning, not on mastery of skills for all students. Second, it primarily benefits a small group of students while doing very little for many others. Competition is important and students learn many lessons through their experiences in sport, but we should not assume that sport magically teaches all students lessons that will be useful throughout life.
Winning vs. Mastery of Skills
The achievement goal theory postulates that there are two types of goal orientation--ego and task (Nicholls, 1989). Ego-orientation defines success as "winning" and "doing better than others" and is based on social comparison. Conversely, task-orientation defines success as "mastery" and "improvement." In sport, the motivational climate is typically ego-involved, thus promoting environments where success is clearly defined as winning. When a quality PE program is delivered effectively, the motivational climate is predominately task-involved, whereby all students can experience success. This task-orientation may also be fostered in lifetime activities such as kayaking, cycling, and yoga.
Some colleagues (typically former athletes) have questioned the idea of shifting the focus in school PE away from competitive sports toward more task-oriented physical activities, suggesting that it makes schools "too soft" and that students need to learn how to lose, too. While we agree that experiencing defeat is an important lesson for students, we believe that it should not be a higher priority than the goal of providing all students with the opportunity to experience success in the psychomotor and fitness domains. While we are certainly not suggesting the elimination of athletics, we believe that a sport program and quality PE are not synonymous. To understand this difference, all one needs to do is look at one's own community of adults. Think about a teacher in your school, for example, who is sedentary and too intimidated to adopt a physically active lifestyle. It is likely that he or she never had a chance to become physically competent enough to develop physical literacy (competency in motor skills and movement patterns). Now, he or she does not know how to assess his or her own fitness, or know what to do about improving it. Athletes, generally, grow up to be adults who feel good about their abilities in the psychomotor and fitness domains. We suggest that schools should make it a priority to help all students receive the opportunity to do the same.
Student Involvement
The relative inactivity of many students in sport programs is also an issue. Take the role of student managers on athletic teams. Student managers carry out a variety of supportive duties, such as helping with water and equipment. Having student managers may be beneficial to the team, but not necessarily to the managers themselves. Because they do not have a "playing" role on the team, they generally do not exercise before, during, or immediately after practices and games.
Some schools try to address this problem by encouraging managers to practice with their respective teams, but this often turns out to be a humiliating experience for the student managers. Most often, their primary objective in being a manager is to fulfill the sport requirement without actually doing any physical activity. It's not as much a matter of laziness as it is a lack of ability or confidence. To then ask such students to actually participate in the sport during practice time, once all their duties are completed, can be psychologically damaging--and certainly unlikely to encourage participation in physical activity in future years.
Conventional wisdom tells us that the sport requirement offers all students the chance to he physically active. But reality suggests otherwise. In order for all students to meet the sport requirement, junior varsity and varsity coaches are forced to keep large numbers of players on their teams. As a result, a significant number of team members are not able to participate in most games, meets, or matches, and, therefore, do not receive vigorous activity on game days. This effect is multiplied in the days leading up to and following big games when coaches administer "light" practices--for the benefit of the starters.
These students also suffer the emotional effects of riding the bench. During adolescence, a lack of playing time can hinder students' lives socially and academically. For example, students who play little or not at all may feel marginalized by the team since they do not contribute on the field and/or court. Additionally, even some athletic students suffer emotional stress if, for instance, they lose their starting positions. The result of such stress can affect everything from social interaction to academic performance to future engagement in athletics. One might argue that students learn from such experiences. And, to a degree, this is true. However, if we are turning them away from future physical activity, due to the stress they experience in school, we are doing them a disservice. It's also ironic that, without a quality PE program, these student managers and frustrated athletes who do not play much have no physical activity to turn to, as healthy and physically active adults do, in order to relieve the stress--and are not likely to find such outlets for themselves in the future.
In addition, students with interests outside the sport realm often only have to participate in one sport per academic year. For example, in some independent schools, thespians in their junior or senior year only have to participate in sports during one season so that they have more time to participate in the school theatre productions. While we support the arts, we think that schools can also better support these students and provide opportunities for them to be physically active during the school day; two-and-a-half months of physical activity (if the student is even competent enough to receive adequate playing time for health benefits) out of a 12-month calendar is not enough physical activity for health benefit. Indeed, it's hard to see how any school can justify this position.
With an increase in scholarships for students of lower socioeconomic status, it also becomes a social justice issue. Independent schools should offer quality PE so that all students are afforded the opportunity to become physically literate and not just those who can afford participation in out-of-school activities such as travel sports or other lifelong activities.
In recent years, we've learned how to shape quality PE programs so that they focus on a broad array of essential skills in the physical, psychomotor, cognitive, and affective domains. Within this comprehensive PE model, people of all skill and fitness levels--not just the good athletes--learn how to live healthy lives. When it comes to physical and mental health, schools should make this their primary focus.
Additional supports and resources should be afforded to those students who are not fortunate enough to participate in sport due to lack of skill level and/or interest.
So What Does a Quality Physical Education Program Look Like?
Marian Franck describes a quality PE program as one that "(a) develops for each student a level of competence that instills a sense of capability necessary to influence lifelong decisions for regular participation in physical activity; (b) provides experiences to improve significantly the health-related fitness of each student; and (c) has the necessary support resources" (Franck, 2007).
We'd also add an assessment component to the list. Quality PE programs assess student competencies in psychomotor, fitness, cognitive, and affective domains in a way that is much more effective and meaningful than the more traditional PE programs many of us participated in. For example, teachers of quality PE programs assess according to criterion-reference standards (what physiologists determine are healthy target zones) rather than the norm-referenced standards favored in years past. Moreover, in quality PE programs, students' learning is documented according to their ability to understand the importance of making healthy choices as well as their ability to self-assess their health, fitness, and skill level and their plan for how to improve or maintain in each of these areas (Stewart Stanec, 2008). Students are not taken into classrooms to be tested on these things; rather, for example, they might use the last minute of a six-minute fitness station to complete a task card about their understanding of the task. Here, as in the classroom, teachers are able to determine what their students know and understand and how their future instruction should be planned accordingly.
At the elementary school level, quality PE programs have evolved in recent years to offer a systematic approach to movement and skill development. Ideally, they provide experiences for children that are developmentally and instructionally appropriate; include genuine opportunities to learn and become physically literate; emphasize the psychomotor domain, but also focus on the cognitive and affective domains; create multiple opportunities for children to experience successes in physical activity, and; are realistic and incorporate time, space, and equipment allocations into their design (Graham, Holt-Hale, & Parker, 2001).
In other words, lower school students should partake in units that, first, help them gain competence in body control, body awareness, and posture. Then, they should advance to units that emphasize locomotor movement, rhythm skills, object control skills, and fundamental motor skills. As a result, students will have competence in the basic building blocks for both traditional sports and lifelong physical activities.
Once a quality lower school PE program is completed, students are ready for activities that combine basic manipulative and non-manipulative motor skills through lead-up games and modified sport. Quality middle school PE programs may offer units that include traditional sports. However, these units should be modified, and students should rarely, if ever, play the actual sport. In modifying these sports, students will have the ability to improve/master the skills within the sport--ideally through the Teaching Games for Understanding (Thorpe & Bunker, 1997) framework. For example, in a traditional sport such as basketball, students may be focused on the chest pass, bounce pass, and overhand pass. Thus, rather than play a five-on-five game with original rules, students would play three-on-three games with the objective to have three complete passes in a row for a point with every student touching the ball at least every other play. In doing this, students are given more opportunity to practice, and the passing concept, which was the objective of the lesson, is reinforced through the activity.
While modified traditional sport experiences should exist through the middle school years, they should do so merely as one component of the program. Additionally, non-traditional sport (e.g., ultimate Frisbee) should also be provided, as well as dance and outdoor educative pursuits. In all of these additional facets, the "playing field" among students is more often leveled. In other words, the star of the local travel soccer team may experience being a beginner in dance. This helps teach our more gifted traditional sport athletes to become comfortable in learning new things and take risks outside their comfort zone. In turn, it will only help our athletes become more skillful movers and more positive learners when they are representing our schools in athletics.
Quality Upper School Physical Education
Once students enter upper school, the unfortunate trend is to offer no physical education. While some schools provide opportunity for physical activity after school, this is an option that is available to students who do not make an athletic team--as a result, it may carry a negative stereotype along with it. Why is it that many schools have time available for PE in lower and middle school but not in upper school? Given all the research on healthy physical development, we believe it is time for upper schools to treat quality PE with the respect it deserves; it is the sole place where our students can truly learn how to live healthy and balanced lives.
Like any school curricula, careful planning must occur with scheduling in order for quality PE to become a reality. Since we both have ample independent school experience at K-12 institutions, we are fully aware of scheduling issues. However, rather than use issues as barriers, we encourage creative thought in order to provide a program that can deliver the following.
Upper school quality PE programs should shift their primary focus from sports to lifetime skills. Research has called for a change that includes formal sports; but, typically, they should be no more than one-fifth of a curriculum. In upper school PE programs, students should also learn how to monitor their own health and activity through setting personal fitness trackers such as the Fitnessgram and Activitygram program (see www.fitnessgram.net). Goals should be achieved through many areas of physical activity including jogging, hiking, kayaking, yoga, and dance, to name a few. Triathlons, road and mountain biking, and adventure racing are growing in popularity for individuals in their late 20s and 30s. By providing students with these experiences during school, we afford students opportunities to develop competence that will encourage them to join clubs in college or get involved in community-based physical activities. This is vital, since the majority of students who participate in sports during upper school do not play a sport in college. Without teaching these important healthy life skills, college students are more at risk of eating disorders to shed weight gained at college and of alcohol and drug use to handle stress.
Given that quality PE programs in the upper school are not yet standard practice, we also suggest the following steps:
* Establish a committee that can examine the school schedule and determine areas where a PE program can be offered. This committee could also contact other schools that offer nontraditional sport activities such as biking, yoga, etc. It should establish a discussion forum so that successes in overcoming scheduling conflicts and limitations could be shared.
* Survey upper school students. Since interests and resources vary greatly throughout the U.S., it's important that upper school students are surveyed to determine where their interests lie. Students should be encouraged to list as many activities as possible and also be offered examples of activities that they might not have thought of.
* Think outside the box. You don't need a gym or a playing field to teach physical education. When available, get outside and utilize nature. This can provide wonderful collaboration with environmental science educators and can help offset the many scheduling issues we often hear about. You also need to be flexible in terms of when these classes are offered and the duration and frequency of the classes.
* Start small. It is likely easier for folks to consider the idea of offering one to two modules of PE in the upper school rather than implementing an entire program.
* Revamp drivers' education. We simply do not understand why, at a time when student physical activity decreases due to teenagers receiving their driving licenses, physical educators are the ones assigned to teach drivers' education classes. A common response to this question is that parents want drivers' education taught at school. While that's fine, we're not certain that classroom teachers would be willing to give up teaching their academic subjects to teach the drivers' education curriculum. When PE teachers teach drivers' education, they are scheduled to be off campus often during the school day and their schedule has no room for PE courses. We encourage schools to find others to teach drivers' education classes so that the PE teachers can do what they are educated to do.
* Offer choice. In a coeducational independent school, activities might be offered both coeducationally, as well as single-sex. While research tells us that girls are more likely to participate in physical education when electives are offered as "girls only," this could be because girls-only programs are always nontraditional while many coeducational programs are traditional (that is, sports-based). Let's remember that not all boys enjoy traditional sports and so we need to offer a balanced curriculum to meet all students' needs. Keep in mind that sports (modified versions of both traditional and nontraditional) do belong in a quality and balanced program--they just should not be the sole focus.
* Don't think of quality upper school PE as competing with athletics. If implemented properly, quality PE will undoubtedly help athletic teams reach their potential more efficiently. For example, fitness assessments can identify where students need to set personal goals in terms of health-related physical fitness. Time during electives could be dedicated to developing an individualized plan to improve this fitness component, such as upper-body strength. Moreover, if the activity level intensity during PE classes is monitored with heart-rate monitors, the PE teacher could appropriately assign intensity levels. For example, if a group of students has a lacrosse game after school and they are in a mountain biking class earlier in the day, the teacher could assign a target at the low end of the aerobic zone in terms of the intensity of the biking. If another group of students in the class does not compete on a sports team, those students could be assigned an interval workout that puts their heart rate in a more strenuous zone. Both groups of students will be given opportunity to improve the technical skills required for mountain biking. This type of individualized instruction exists every day in a quality PE lesson.
* Be innovative. In independent schools, the word "innovative" is often tied to topics such as the construction of new buildings, technology, new athletic complexes, etc. Schools should think in innovative terms when considering PE and faculty wellness as well. Innovation in these fields could lead to better productivity as well as happier students and faculty.
Is the sport requirement mandated at your school in lieu of quality health and PE effective in terms of preparing students to be healthy citizens in years to come? Perhaps at the next alumni event, you can look around and/or survey individuals on their physical activity.
Failing to offer physical activity opportunities at moderate to vigorous levels throughout lower, middle, and upper school indirectly plants the notion in our students' minds that everything other than personal health should come first. As a result, we have millions of North Americans who do not feel they have time to exercise rather than understanding that they would be more happy and efficient once they take care of themselves first. We must realize that this is a problem and acknowledge that quality physical education can help. Through this process, we are confident that school communities will be happier and more joyful places to grow, learn, and work.