The End of Physical Education as We Know It

Got your attention? Okay, the topic sounds kinda scary but read on to get what I mean. If you’ve followed SHAPE America’s news you’ll know about the “50 Million Strong by 2029” target. To recap, our national professional society has set the goal of getting every student attending America’s preK-12 schools physically active and healthy by the time they graduate in 14 years. It’s a pretty bold and maybe in some minds crazy goal. Imagine, every student – about 50 million of them – living healthy lives that embrace regular physical activity. That’s a heck of a long way from where we are today.

Of course it’s not hard to imagine some of our students getting there. You know, the ones already pretty active, got the good genes, whose parents encourage them to play sports, who weren’t born with any kind of disability. Those ones. But what about the rest? The kids – and there are far too many of them – whose childhood is a constant struggle: Difficult living conditions, abuse, poverty, hunger, and little encouragement to take school or learning seriously. How on earth are we going to get those kids to choose to be physically active and to make healthy lifestyle choices in the daily chaotic world in which they live? Wish I knew. But what I do know is that all of us need to get together to solve this challenge because the alternative is going to be disastrous for us personally and nationally.

It’s not just a physical education challenge helping to prepare America’s youth for successful lives. But we need to do our part. And that’s why physical education as we know it has to change. It’s not that any of us haven’t been trying. We have. If anything the problem is that we have been guilty of trying to do too much. We all know that movement is a wonderful medium for learning and personal development. Math, reading, writing, art, pretty much anything can be effectively learned through movement. Play, games, dance, sports are among the most effective ways to develop social, emotional, intellectual, ethical, and physical skills. Not much argument here. But the problem is physical educators can’t do all this alone. We’ve tried and it just doesn’t work. It’s not hard to understand. We simply don’t have enough time.

Okay, so maybe the solution is more time? Think again. How has that idea worked for us? It hasn’t. The more time we get, the more we try to do. We have this sort of “Bring it on! We can do it!” attitude. It may be heroic but ultimately it’s self-defeating. By trying to do too many things we fail to do anything really well. And for the profession to move forward, indeed looking into the future to preserve the security of our jobs, this has to change. It’s time for physical educators to do just one thing exceptionally well.

Ask pretty much any physical educator what would be the best measure of their success as a teacher, how do you think they’d answer? How would you answer? Surely it would be something like “all my kids would be healthy and physically active”? Isn’t that why we chose this career? Wasn’t it a love of play, games, and sports that inspired us to teach and want to share our passion with others? Did any of us really choose to be physical educators because we wanted to improve kids’ reading, writing, or math skills? Come on. Be honest. If you answered “yes” methinks you chose the wrong career! Sadly, we’ve allowed ourselves to follow the wacky and whimsical advice of the recently departed baseball legend and street-smart philosopher Yogi Berra: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” That’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve taken every new direction for the profession and as a result completely lost our bearings.

SHAPE America’s 50 Million Strong by 2029 announcement reminds us of our core values, our purpose. It’s why the physical education profession emerged more than a century ago. Our predecessors recognized that absent good health other things in life were irrelevant. Today, in an increasingly sedentary world it’s even more important that all kids develop the skills, knowledge, and desire to be physically active and make healthy lifestyle choices. And it’s up to us to make this happen. I can’t tell youhow to do it but I’m confident that you can work it out for the good of your students. Around the country opportunities and challenges vary. There’s not going to be any single solution. But as a starting point what we need are the nation’s health and physical educators committed to a single purpose: Getting all of the students they teach to embrace physically active and healthy living. However we best can, it’s time for all of us to commit to this physical education rebirth.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Let me know by writing to jefferis@cwu.edu. I’m always happy to share, discuss, and debate alternative perspectives!

Have a great October!