SHAPE America Starts New Era

It’s official! The American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD) is now SHAPE America. New name, new logo, new website. All of the national associations (NASPE, NDA, AAHE, NAGWS, and AAPAR) have been combined into one entity. It wasn’t easy but let’s hope the new society can refocus on what’s important to public school health and physical educators, and try to capture the support of the many thousands of should-be-but-aren’t-members.

Why aren’t they? That’s the Society’s challenge going forward: Giving people a reason to join and then continue as member-supporters. All of us are sometimes guilty of letting others do the heavy lifting for us when we should get involved. It can’t continue. Has anyone not noticed the threats to cut health and physical education programs and positions? In honesty, we probably deserve what we get if we don’t support our national and state professional associations.

But being a member-supporter has a cost. It’s not much, but SHAPE America needs to come up with a membership reason-we-can’t-refuse. It’s a challenge that’s just become more personal. At the recent national convention in St. Louis, voters selected me as SHAPE America’s President Elect. My son’s response? “Remember Dad, with great power comes great responsibility!” Impressive huh? Well it was until he confessed it came from an old Spiderman movie.

I’m not sure being president-elect comes with great power, but I confess to feeling a huge personal responsibility. SHAPE America has a 129-year history. Few other organizations of any kind can boast the same. Created in 1885, just 20 years after the end of the American Civil War, four years after Wyatt Earp’s shootout at the O.K Corral, and long before the invention of airplanes, 60 individuals ended a day’s discussion by agreeing to form a physical education association. Fast-forward to today and now we have close to 20,000 members.

Sounds good until you realize there are probably 10 times that number actually teaching public school health and physical education. Imagine how much more persuasive we would be if everyone supported the group that represents us nationally. There’s a reason that AARP (37 million) and the NRA (4 million) wield political clout. Size makes a difference and presently we are woeful underperformers.

Anyway, I anticipate pelinks4u will be doing more to try to persuade those of you reluctant to join SHAPE America to take the plunge soon. Not unexpectedly, I do have a few thoughts about where I think we should be going professionally in the future. I shared them at the convention but after receiving numerous requests (well my kids asked me!) I’ve included my ideas in this issue of pelinks4u.