Earlier this year, many members of my school community felt the impact of President Donald Trump’s controversial Executive Order to temporarily ban travel to the U.S. by refugees and immigrants from some majority-Muslim countries. My school has a significant number of students who are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.

Just after the ban was announced, one of my colleagues attempted to start a donation drive for the International Institute of St. Louis (IISTL), St. Louis’ welcoming center for new Americans. Each year, IISTL provides services, such as education, refugee resettlement, employment, training, and immigration assistance to more than 7,500 immigrants and refugees from 80 different countries. IISTL also collects charitable donations to fulfill family wish lists for “basic” items, such as kitchen gadgets, cleaning products, personal items, school supplies, linens, and furniture. My colleague contacted IISTL and surprisingly, they turned her away. “We have great news,” they said, “Our shelves are full and we can’t accept anything at this time.”

Even though I knew the IISTL wasn’t accepting donations, I checked out the New American Wish List anyway. I saw mixing bowls and mops, toothpaste and toilet paper, clean dolls and children’s books, shower curtains and…soccer balls. Soccer balls?! “Surely the IISTL doesn’t have a lot of soccer balls,” I thought. “I know just the school to help them out!” I immediately emailed IISTL to introduce myself and explained that I teach physical education at a middle school that frequently collects items and donations for various organizations. I said I was aware they weren’t collecting anything but had a feeling they didn’t have many soccer balls on hand. A representative wrote back right away, saying, “Yes, we can always use soccer balls!”

(Publisher’s Note: In the following essay, Dr. Earle Zeigler shares with PHE America readers his thoughts on the status of physical education today and what he thinks the profession should do to advance. Now aged 98, Dr. Zeigler has for many years been one of the profession’s most prolific, respected, and influential scholars (check out his Biography here). Earle tells me this will likely be one of his final professional contributions. Enjoy, reflect on Earle’s ideas, and please share with colleagues. I know that Earle would enjoy reading your own thoughts if you post them in the comments section below the essay~Steve)

What should the field of physical (activity) education promote in the 21^st Century? Knowing that unpredictable social forces will bring unanticipated change, what can we as professionals do in the years immediately ahead to ensure that our field along with educational sport is fully recognized in educational circles throughout the world? I believe that the positive steps we choose should consist of actions that will result in purposeful accomplishments by the men and women who are concerned about the future of developmental physical activity as a valuable component of human life from “womb to tomb.”

The following recommended actions are based on where I believe the profession is today and what needs to be done. We should seek worldwide consensus on these recommendations and agreement on what it’s going to take to achieve them. Then, as dedicated professional educators at all levels, we should take as rapid and strong action as we can muster working closely with our professional associations.

This multiple award-winning documentary shows the irreplaceable role classical Physical Education plays to develop smart, productive & mentally stable citizens, and the out-of-control consequences we face today with its absence in our society.

The United States made the decision to stop teaching real physical education 100 years ago. JFK tried to bring it back, but the effort ended with his shortened Presidency.

This documentary links the largest problems facing the US today to its current state of physical illiteracy, which comes as a consequence of no longer having educators, business leaders, or citizens understand how exercise (and particularly group exercise) can be used to solve our most pressing issues including how the US spends more on healthcare than any other country in the world, has the highest incidents of mental instability, the highest national debt, incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners with only 4% of the population, has the worst productivity since the 1970’s, the worst education rank since the 1970’s and amongst the worst life expectancy of the OECD countries.

A moonshot, in a technology context, is an ambitious, exploratory and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit and also, perhaps, without a full investigation of potential risks and benefits.

When I think of moonshot thinking, one name always comes to my mind, Elon Musk. He is a billionaire that continues to invest in companies that are impacting change in the world. He is the founder of Spacex, Tesla Motors, and co-founder of Solar City. He is working on developing reusable rockets for space missions, cars that don’t run on combustible fuels and working on lessening our dependence on fossil fuels.  He is always exploring groundbreaking concepts and is working to stop the development of artificial intelligence. Musk has even questioned if we are already living in a computer-generated world created by machines. His ambition keeps pushing science and technology past the current standard set by humanity.

If SHAPE America’s 50 Million Strong commitment is a moonshot idea for health and physical educators, then how will we achieve this moonshot goal? According to SHAPE America “Approximately 50 million students are currently enrolled in America’s elementary and secondary schools. SHAPE America wants to ensure that by the time today’s youngest students graduate from high school in 2029, all of America’s children are empowered to lead healthy and active lives through effective health and physical education programs.” But what is our functional tool that will measure growth? What instrument are we going to use to gather data? Is SHAPE America going to create developmental milestones for this campaign? And what happens if we don’t have success by 2029?