Physical Education New Year Resolutions

Usually teachers think about fresh ideas before the school year begins, but since this is New Year’s Resolution time, rethinking and re-evaluation is in order. After all, it’s always good to reflect how well you are meeting the professional goals you set for the current school year.

I always wanted to get my kids participating in heart pumping physical activity for most of their class time while doing something they might feel motivated to do on their own when not in school. I was determined to give each student a chance to participate fully, during the course of the school year – in as many physical education units that they LOVED or at the very least, that they would value for its health benefits.

Unless you’ve known your students for years this is difficult to evaluate midstream, but by this time in the school year you should be able to identify the students who are in need of something different in order to get their heart and head involved in physical education. That’s why the start of the New Year is a great time to ask yourself whether you are meeting the needs of all of your students. These include those who are:

• non-athletes
• non-competitive
• social butterflies
• highly competitive
• overweight
• kids who everyone wants to avoid
• kids who seems to always be picked on
• aesthetic movers

I am not a dreamer. Today’s physical educators face many challenges. Many kids haven’t learned to love moving, don’t love having to keep up with teammates, don’t enjoy sweating, and hate being involved in competition. And others not necessarily opposed to moving, can get so involved in texting and gaming that they could care less about actually participating in anything else, much less physical activity. Many students are more focused on their electronic devices than anything else, and this includes speaking with the people around them. For these students, PE has to offer them more joy than they can get from playing on a computer. Fortunately it can. We just need to find ways to get their attention, to say the things that speak to them, that drag them in, and will get them involved. We also have to create teaching environments that get them running into class not because they have to be there, but because they want to be there.

Doing this is especially tricky if you teach in a northern state during this time of year, when you will be facing the added challenge of WINTER. Unfortunately, the cold that winter brings has a tendency to force physical educators to downsize. They have to. Being stuck inside forces everyone into closer boundaries and can, in some cases, sideline students for part of the time because there is such a lack of space. In these situations, getting the heart joyously pumping for the entire class time can be difficult if not impossible.

Short of building a new gym, I found there are some options that, if rotated among classes that meet at the same time, can limit the sacrifices that winter brings. Let me share how I handled my school’s helplessly limited indoor space situation without it costing money. I taught in the NYC metropolitan area in a school that scheduled two (occasionally three classes) every period. I had up to 50 students in each class and 42 minutes of class time every other day. During that time, students had to dress, participate, and return to their street clothes. Our gym had one official basketball court with limited space beyond its sidelines and a bit more at either end line. It could be divided in two gyms bays. When the wall was closed, each side had a full (not regulation size) basketball court that ran perpendicular to the official court. The closed bleaches on the sideline and end lines took up floor space. In other words it was a pretty common facility. Right!?

I suspect having 50 students in a class is not all that common and was a situation that led me to head up a union action against the district, the ramifications of which motivated me to write Too Dangerous to Teach.

Space

If you want to give your students the experience that they want, having to work in limited space will frustrate both you and them. For instance, almost every student in my district just LOVED basketball! Clearly, as a teacher I wanted them to have a fun, challenging active learning and playing experience, not one that was dangerous or felt threatening. Truthfully, having to accommodate 50 kids playing basketball on each side of a dividing wall was horrendous. We either had to have students sit out, limit their court time, or have them play unsafely. What could be done? I couldn’t face it and decided it was time to think out of the box.

The first year I was able to get my kids to agree to go out in the cold. To make it more acceptable, and reduce complaints, they didn’t have to change. They were willing, so in their street clothes we went outdoors and got to use two full size basketball courts. This allowed the other class to use all the indoor space and gave them a fabulous unit of basketball. It worked. Though it was winter, it wasn’t too bad because the kids were continuously moving from start to finish.

Not long afterwards, the principal got the idea to empty a classroom close to the gym and set it aside for us to use for activities throughout the year. Given the limited classroom space we restricted ourselves to fitness activities, some creative dance and dance-aerobics. That room housed my aerobic-dance unit. Once again, it worked! Needless to say, the department learned that rotating who was in the gym teaching basketball and who was in the auxiliary room teaching fitness activities made sense. In fact, the concept worked so well that we started clearing the gym during the spring and fall so that one class had double the number of courts to use when conducting the badminton and pickleball units, making both more fun and much more meaningful.

When we had three classes during the same period, I used the stage, the only other open space available. We would do an aerobic-dance unit, dancing the whole routine from start to finish. The kids loved it and I had a great sense of satisfaction when passers-by thought that my aerobic dance class was an afterschool group meeting to rehearse for a performance.

Motivation

Do you want students running into the gym, eager to get started? I did and still do. What I suggest goes against the grain of a lot of teachers. Many think that students should come in, go to their spots, sit silently for attendance and do a warm-up exercise routine that often has nothing to do with what will be taught that day. They fear anything less structured will result in discipline problems. My experience says otherwise.

You won’t have discipline problems if students can come in, get a piece of equipment, and start practicing right away. The caveat is that there needs to be enough equipment for them to use. If you don’t have enough equipment some kids will create problems. Make sure to leave all the equipment out and let your students use whatever you have. If you include warm-up exercises, think carefully about the activities you choose. Give your students opportunities to develop their movement memory by leading them in specific movement rehearsals – exercises that help them practice important movement sequences relevant to the skills they are learning.

Free Play

Consider starting your lessons with “free play.” This is where students can come in, get equipment and practice whatever their class is working on: soccer, badminton, tennis, basketball, or the like. Free play should run longer at the beginning of a unit so kids can practice what they learned in previous classes without the pressure of being watched or performing for their team. After what you deem a sufficient time, collect the equipment and begin redirecting your class toward the skills they will be doing that day and the rest of the unit. Break it down, repeat it five to ten times and move on to something a little different. If you are not doing a sport, put on some music. Pick something that is popular with your students (with appropriate lyrics) and has a great beat for moving.

In my aerobic dance unit the first dance in the routine would usually be a long, popular one something the kids loved. If you do this, don’t be surprised when they come running out of the locker room as soon as they can eager to join in the dance. And don’t be surprised if you have no discipline problems using this system. I didn’t.

Giving students time for free play helps them feel so much better about their own performance, that even the most reluctant participants will slowly but surely become more engaged in what they are doing in class and feel part of the group. Do not be surprised if during the initial stages, new students will need to learn that they really should get equipment and begin to play right away. They have to get used to the free play idea because other teachers probably didn’t train them that way. Once they “get it” however, you will enjoy seeing them rush out of the locker room so they can play, and you their teacher will appreciate being freed up to practice with the students who need you to give them special attention without their classmates even noticing.

Curriculum

I mentioned earlier that I enjoyed teaching aerobic-dance. Don’t think I only enjoyed teaching dance. I also enjoyed teaching flag football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, golf, pickle ball, badminton, soccer, field hockey, softball, etc. Unfortunately, many physical educators are so sports-oriented that they are either unable or unwilling to teach a unit that has nothing to do with scoring. This needs to change. Why, you ask? Because so many of today’s students aren’t interested in team sports, winning, scoring, or beating out the next guy. Possibly this lack of interest is because they fear disappointing themselves and their teammates. This is something we can teach them to overcome, but we will not be nearly as successful in getting them involved in something they have no inherent interest in until we show them that the things they are interested in are things we are interested in teaching as well. Give a student a chance to shine in the areas they love and they will try harder to learn in the areas that they never wanted to be involved in.

Large group activities that don’t require equipment or lots of space, activities like folk and square dance, modern dance, ballet, ballroom dancing, floor gymnastics, aerobic activities, weight training, fitness activities can not only solve the space dilemma, but can also solve the problem of the disinterested and unmotivated student. It’s vital that 21st century physical education teachers incorporate these kinds of activities as choices into their curriculums.

In closing, I wish you all a New Year that is wonderful for you and wonderful for all of your students. That means making sure you are teaching something for everyone. If that requires a resolution that you adjust the curriculum and update your skills, so be it. But, whatever you do, have a happy and healthy 2015.