Teachers have long had to adapt and change practice often due to the environment or student morale. COVID-19 has presented a unique obstacle forcing teachers to work tirelessly to maintain curriculum rigor while upholding prevention protocols.

Wearing a mask is a preventative measure that directly impacts both the student and teacher experience on a minute-by-minute basis. While over time this practice has become the “norm,” in many respects wearing a mask during physical activity poses challenges. When engaged in high-intensity exercise while wearing a mask, some may experience hypoxia or a lack of oxygen. As can be ascertained, a lack of oxygen does bode well for workout completion.

As an instructor of Exercise Science courses at all college levels, one of my favorite courses to teach is called Strength Development.  Historically, this course has been a hands-on evaluation and analysis of mechanical movement strategies employed during strength training exercises such as the back squat, front squat, power clean, and push-jerk. Students work in partner groups of similar strength levels, share an Olympic bar, plate weights, and other equipment. They learn how to break each exercise into phases in order to identify inefficient movement strategies, understand how the body works as a kinetic chain, and offer direct coaching cues.  As a course that calls for students to be physically active, I knew teaching it in the indoor setting could pose a whole new set of challenges for some students, perhaps more so those who weren’t physically fit.

PHE America Repeats
10 previously published articles in 10 days that we think you will enjoy

Reprint 4 of 10
(Originally published – May 1, 2014)

I have been coached and I have coached. And the difference between these two experiences is a tale to be told.

(5 Minute Read)

Advocacy for health and physical education is crucial, now more than ever. During this global pandemic, we need to shout from the mountaintops how important health and physical education is for our student’s physical, social, and emotional health. The more we speak out and advocate for our profession, the more people will listen, inspiring change. Until physical education is no longer a marginalized subject and a critical component of every school’s curriculum, we need to come together and rally for our profession.

One positive outcome from teaching during a pandemic is that parents and guardians see first-hand the value of movement and fitness and how it enhances focus, attention, drive, and provides stress relief. Some physical education teachers have used this platform of teaching during the pandemic to showcase quality physical education lessons that include amazing ways of teaching physical literacy and connecting with our students. Parents are seeing physical literacy in action and are taking notice of all the changes in health and physical education from when they were children and how it has evolved.

With the quarantine, I have definitely had a lot of time to think and reflect. It is 2:42 am as I write this article because sleep has been evading me lately. My mind races and it has been difficult to focus my thoughts. So here I am, trying to focus on the positives and contemplate things that I have learned during the quarantine.

Our Health/PE Community is Amazing
The way the Health and PE community has come together to share ideas and help our students has been spectacular. I am so proud of our profession and the way we all came together to help each other during this pandemic. Our amazing professionals have been sharing lesson ideas, files, handouts, virtual field days, and virtual field trips across the internet. Normal lessons or activities that would be sold on a web site like Teachers pay Teachers or on their individual sites have been offered to our community for free. Our amazing professionals have shared with us editable files that we can adapt to meet the individual needs of our students. We have helped each other start our Google Classrooms, figure out Google Meets and Zoom, create virtual bitmoji classrooms, share documents and interactive videos, or just by offering words of support or encouragement. It has been such a joy interacting with other PE professionals. We are certainly in this together and it has been comforting knowing we are there for each other. Some of the amazing communities I am a part of are: