This category includes essays and articles on a wide range of topics. Read what’s good and what the challenges are about current teaching and coaching practices, and what physical and health education must do to thrive in the future. It’s a place to share, discuss, and debate ideas. Read and join the conversation.
With our students focused on making the varsity squad, getting into their dream college, and which TikTok video just went viral; they are losing sight that their lifestyle choices can have a dramatic lifelong impact on their breast health. The mammary gland in young men and women undergoes significant structural changes during puberty. As a result, chemical and environmental exposures during the teen years can heavily influence breast tissue (Terry et al., 2019).
According to the National Cancer Institute (2020), one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and male breast cancer is on the rise. It’s imperative to highlight prevention techniques in high school. These are the top tips to share with your students to lower their risk:
Whitehead (2013, p.29) defines physical literacy as “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activity throughout the life course.” As a concept, physical literacy underpins the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE America) National Standards and Grade level outcomes for K-12 Physical Education (2021). SHAPE America, as an organization, offers support, networking, and educational resources for health and physical educators throughout the United States. At present, the concept of physical literacy offers an opportunity for physical educators to embrace a practical and actionable platform that will advocate for quality physical education in the school setting and opportunities for all-age physical activity throughout the community. The following are three actionable strategies physical educators at all grade levels can adopt to establish and maintain a physically literate community.
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a professional runner and qualify for the Olympics. I viewed professional athletes’ lifestyles as the quintessential life on repeat: running, eating, running some more, and sleeping; I mean how could one not want to solely focus on the sport they loved? Since I began my post-collegiate running journey, I have always been juggling chaos. From teaching a philosophy of human movement class, helping coach a collegiate cross country and track team, working on my doctorate, sometimes working at a café, and running; life is busy. In the past, my friends and family have asked if I should consider solely focusing on running. Logically, if I had more time to recover, sleep, and reduce the stress in my life, my running might improve. I seriously considered moving back to my hometown in Colorado because living with the Rocky Mountains as my playground would allow me to truly focus on running. I would find a part-time job and run. However, as many people experienced, the COVID-19 pandemic provided the time for reflection to determine what was meaningful in my life.
The pandemic forced many aspects of society to shut down, which meant collegiate sports were not happening and the café I worked at closed temporarily. Due to the situation, I was finally living the professional athlete life I had always envisioned. From March through August of 2020 I was focused solely on running. I was just running, eating, and sleeping on repeat. Initially, I was excited for the extra time to focus on myself and improve some of the areas of my training that are neglected due to the normal chaos of life. My stress was nonexistent, and I was consistently sleeping more than I ever had, even taking naps during the day, which were benefitting my training. I drove to the local mountain weekly and sought out soft surfaces daily, which I was unable to do pre-COVID-19 due to time constraints. I used to solely run from my apartment for easy runs and workouts. I was only able to drive to soft surfaces on the weekends when I had more time.
If one were to visit a city park today, compared to thirty years ago, they may not find many similarities. At least not as many similarities as differences. Children exploring their imaginations and allowing themselves to play freely has become a thing of the past. Instead, children may be located in a spot where the parents pay a registration fee in order for their children to participate or sitting in their homes not allowed to leave, or maybe a few playing at the local city park. In today’s age, there are so many extrinsically motivating factors that catch the eyes of parents who think it puts their children at an advantage in an ever so competitive environment. This motivates parents to get their children involved, if they have the financial resources, in all the activities they can to make their child the “best.” This begs the question, is it really the best thing for them?
The Numbers According to Sabo et al. (2008), in 2008, 69% of girls and 75% of boys aged 6-9 reported participating in an organized sport over the course of one year. Recent reports indicate that 67% of boys and 47% of girls are on a team by age six (Meredith, 2018). This may seem to be a high percentage, but one has to wonder what the percentages would look like if parents/society were not so forceful in getting kids involved with youth sports too young. The most recent information indicates that the average length of years in participation of children ages 3-18 is less than three years and that 80% of young athletes have quit sports after age fifteen (The Aspen Institute, 2017).
As I’ve visited with many administrators and teachers across the country this past year, it has been fascinating to hear the stories of the many ways our profession has changed since the beginning of the COVID 19 Pandemic. It’s been transformative to see the ways we, as educators, have changed. Among the narratives that have made headlines in education around the past year, one continues to rise to the top as the way we will forever remember this transformation: We must teach children from the inside-out.
In the sporting landscape, there are at least two current paradoxes that are of interest to athletes, coaches, and key stakeholders. First, particularly in the United States, there has been great diversity in the degree to which sport has been affected by the SARS-COVID-19 pandemic. Some sports and states have endured seasons cancelled and venues closed while others have moved forward with more modest adjustments. A second noteworthy paradox is that while more people have been homebound during 2020 and 2021, they have been clamoring for information on how best to proceed whenever sport does return, yet finding quality information can be elusive. This presents a confound in that researchers simply haven’t had the time yet to produce high-quality scholarly work on the effects of SARS-COVID-19 on the sporting landscape though that in no way lessens the need. Therefore traditional academic outlets of books, textbooks, and peer-reviewed journal articles are not yet caught up to the realities athletes and coaches are currently facing. Many academic conferences, typically a quicker route to quality information dissemination, have been cancelled or reduced due to the pandemic, too.
Ultimately, parents of athletes, coaches, and the athletes themselves are collectively in a similar situation: Where to find quality information on how to return to sport after a season was canceled or how to cope with significant modifications to their sport experience. There is no shortage of questions that could be addressed and due to the breadth of the Internet, no shortage of possible sources for information. This all culminates into the community need for quality information to be available, free of charge, and for that information to be from true experts in the sport field. PHE America serves as a conduit for quality information dissemination and one organization that has created a breadth of quality information throughout the SARS-COVID-19 pandemic is Sanford Health based in Sioux Falls, SD. Within Sanford Health is the Sanford Sports Science Institute and Sanford POWER Performance Lab both of which focus on improving athlete performance.
Networking is crucial to professionals in teaching and coaching. COVID-19 has forced everyone to adapt and adjust in many areas personally and professionally. These effects have also transcended to networking communication. Before the pandemic, many people utilized virtual networking avenues frequently due to time, distance, and comfortability. Now, virtual networking has become the primary type of almost all communication.
