We have made great progress as a society in helping students with special needs feel included. But we can do more. We must constantly assess our culture (i.e. attitude and beliefs about students with special needs), existing policies, and procedures to make sure we are doing our very best for our students.

We must challenge ourselves to do all we can to make our students with special needs feel valuable, included and equal. We must advocate for our students with disabilities to ensure that they have the very best school experience we can provide academically, socially, emotionally, and physically. Lately, I have been reflecting on the way I give praise and to whom I praise. The other day I called a parent of a typical student. The purpose of the phone call was to let the parents know how proud I was of their child for the gentle way they guided a student with special needs into the partner yoga poses. The typical child deserved every bit of praise because of her nurturing and patient ways. However, it got me thinking. How many times do I praise the typical child for all the love, support, and help they give to my students with special needs as opposed to the number of times I praise my students with special needs for their patience, help, and encouragement of my typical students?

I grew up a three-sport athlete, but I always had a love of outdoor recreation – especially rafting, mountain biking, and snowboarding.  Unfortunately, with a limited income and the time constraints associated with being a college student, it was hard to get away for extended periods of time to do these activities.

When I first played disc golf, I was surprised to find out how inexpensive the game was. Then I was amazed at how much it was like one of my favorite games – golf.  All of my favorite aspects of golf were present in disc golf, such as frustration tolerance, scoring, physical exertion, social engagement, appreciation for nature, and etiquette.  As time passed, I became fully entranced by the game and decided to pursue a doctorate studying the elusive counter-culture of disc golf.

While disc golf may be a relatively unfamiliar sport to the general public, the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) estimates 500,000 people play annually, and as many as eight to twelve million people have played disc golf at some point in their lives (PDGA, 2018). Although research on disc golf is limited, public disc golf courses are perpetually full of recreation enthusiasts, leading me to wonder, “Why didn’t I hear about this game sooner?” and “Why wasn’t this taught in physical education classes?”

There are few sports where people can remain competitive well into old age, but disc golf is a sport where players, such as the 2016 Master’s World Champion, John E. McCray (48 years old), can compete and win against younger athletes (Latitude 64, 2020). Like golf, disc golf is a sport for people of nearly all physical and cognitive abilities and is considered a low-impact lifetime leisure activity (Tuten & Conkell, 1999) that is typically free to play, since over 90% of courses exist in public parks (Oldakowski & McEwen, 2013). Disc golf can be played by a single person for independent mastery or played as a competitive multiple participant sport where players attempt to score lower (fewer strokes) than their fellow competitors.

Do you remember Show and Tell events when you were in elementary school?  More than likely you brought a special object to school and showed your classmates how it worked or what was unique about it. Maybe you explained a bit of history about your particular item or why it was important to you.

From an educational standpoint, the purpose of Show and Tell was to help children developed their public speaking skills. The concept of Show and Tell can be also be applied to teaching and coaching when using demonstrations during a lesson or practice.  There has been a wealth of motor learning research over the years on the use and value of demonstrations (show) and verbal instructions (tell) to facilitate learning a new task (Magill and Anderson, 2017; Schmidt and Lee, 2014; SHAPE America 2014; Wulf, 2013). When embracing the Social Learning Theory framework, demonstrating a skill or task creates a mental image that students can identify with as they attempt to reproduce the movement or activity (Magill & Anderson, 2017). The concept, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” emphasizes the importance of demonstrating skill techniques and activities when teaching and coaching. Adding verbal instruction, along with a demonstration, further helps students assimilate the task being taught.

It has been my experience that teacher preparation candidates find it much easier to use verbal explanations than demonstrations during instruction. In fact, they are really good at telling. Students in teacher/coach preparation programs often have acquired a high level of content knowledge, especially in those sports or activities they have played. As such, they tend to explain everything they know when teaching a skill. The overload of information provided becomes too much for learners to effectively process and remember. Plus, excessive talking during the explanation takes up too much time within a lesson or practice and reduces the amount of time available for practice and play opportunities.