Tribute to Roberta (Robbie) Park: Exemplary Physical Educator and Sport Historian

Roberta J. Park, or Robbie as she was known by her close friends and colleagues, was a lifelong proponent of physical education. In addition to being a renowned physical educator she was a passionate scholar in the field of sport history with a specialty in the history of health, exercise, and physical education in the 18th and 19th centuries. She edited a number of seminal books and monographs as well as many chapters in books and monographs. She published more than one hundred articles in virtually all of the important journals in the field of physical education and kinesiology.

Roberta Park, 07/15/1931 – 12/05/18

Robberta delivered lectures and research presentations in all parts of the world, often as keynote speaker or in an honor address. Her research output is truly outstanding and her extensive work on embodiment, sport, health and physical practices in historical context is widely admired. One of her most important contributions to the field was a substantive review article entitled “A Decade of the Body: Researching and Writing about the History of Health, Fitness, Exercise and Sport, 1983-1993” published in the Journal of Sport History in 1994.

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Snow Valley: A Learning Environment for Coaches – Part II

(This four-part article describes the legacy of the Snow Valley Basketball School on coach development and the game of basketball)

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If the Coach is Learning the Athletes are Improving
Charlie Sands fled to a corner of the gym, trapped as the pressure of over 300 young athletes pushed against him.  The hall of fame coach from West Los Angeles College had ignited the group during a final warm-up session.  His spirited approach was creating a frenzied atmosphere.  A fitness fanatic, Coach Sands became a legend at Snow Valley for his ability to motivate and inspire young people to come together as a group. This particular warm-up session was an accumulation of all the activities he’d led during the past week.

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Using “Escape Rooms” in PE

Escape Rooms are becoming more and more popular among today’s youth and are a great way to get students’ adrenaline pumping.They consist of adventure type games in which players solve a series of puzzles, mazes, and riddles using clues, hints, and strategy to achieve specified goals. If you’ve tried one you may have thought, wow, my students would LOVE this! I know I did. But how can we integrate this concept to benefit our students in Physical Education and Health?

I absolutely LOVE creating Physical Education games, activities, and assessments that integrate health, fitness, wellness, and nutrition concepts. I want my students to break into not just a physical sweat but a mental sweat as well. As a PE teacher, it is a constant challenge to fit everything I want the students to learn into a 40-minute class that meets twice a week. I need to make every PE second count. That being said, Escape Room/ Break out games in PE are the perfect tool.

You walk into the gym and see Buff Bobby Bones in pieces.  He has been playing a lot of Fort Night, has not been exercising or eating a balanced diet, and his bones became too weak and fell apart. We have to help put Buff Bobby Bones back together again and figure out the antidote to make sure his bones stay together and strong in the future. Hurry, or else Buff Bobby Bones will never be strong again…

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Snow Valley: A Learning Environment for Coaches – Part I

(This four-part article describes the legacy of the Snow Valley Basketball School on coach development and the game of basketball)

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A Passion for Teaching Fundamentals
Herb Livsey still operates in the shadows of basketball legends, canvassing the globe for basketball talent.  For 21 years, Livsey has served as a scout in the National Basketball Association (NBA), a role often filled by the keenest of basketball lifers and hidden from the fast-paced, social media driven limelight of NBA culture.  But, out of the public eye the 83-year old basketball savant has been shining a fatherly glow on the game of basketball and basketball coaches for more than 60 years.

As director of the famed Snow Valley Basketball School in California from 1961 to 2001, Coach Livsey advanced the basketball skills of thousands of young people in the United States and overseas.  He connected with and nurtured the talents of hundreds of basketball coaches.  Livsey’s contributions changed how the game of basketball is taught, perhaps making him the greatest developer of coaches in the history of the sport.

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Adventure Education Class Creates Path Toward 50 Million Strong Success

SHAPE America’s 50 Million Strong by 2029 commitment has a very clear vision: To get all of America’s school-aged youth physically active and healthy by the year 2029. Less clear, is how America’s physical and health educators can successfully accomplish such a challenging mission. But what many teachers have recognized is that a workable approach is to accept that “it starts with me.” While individual teachers don’t control what happens outside of their school, they do control what they choose to do and choose not to do with their own students. What follows is a description of how one teacher is attempting to change the way that his students think about and approach physical activity.

Not long ago, Peter Toutenhoofd – Mr. T. as he is known to his students – a physical educator from South High, Sheboygan, WI received a PEP Grant. He asked himself, “How might my students best benefit from this funding?” Mr. T decided to take a non-traditional approach and to create an Adventure Education program. Here’s what he did:

Students were first given a formal definition of Adventure Education and then asked to rewrite it into their own words. This process allowed Mr. T to check for understanding and ensure teacher and students were thinking similarly. Next a “Full Value Contract” (FVC) involving PEEP (physical, emotional, environment, and personal elements) was explained and students were challenged to design one they could all agree to for the class. Once this FVC was written and modified, all participants were required to sign it. Some of the key elements in the contract included the following:

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50 Million Strong by 2029: Tracking Progress Toward Achieving Our Goal (2018 Update)

What was described in my previous post was step one of the assessment plan presented at the 50 Million Strong Forum at the SHAPE America Convention in Boston 2017.  Step one involved the use of nationally available high school and middle school level data to track our 50 Million Strong progress and guide our actions. In addition to the discussed behaviors addressed in YRBS and policies addressed by SHHPS and SHAPE of the Nation, teachers must be able to assess the national health and physical education content standards.   Students must learn the skills, knowledge, competence and desire to be physically active and make healthy choices and so we need to track program success in the national standards.  To this end there is a need for additional assessments teachers can use that showcase student mastery of key knowledge, and skills.  These are being developed by additional task forces. A brief overview is given below.

Assessment Rationale for use Examples
NATIONAL SURVEILLANCE MEASURES

National surveillance measures of health behaviors (mostly self report), state and national policy (selected items from YRBS, SHAPE of the Nation, SHHPS)

 

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50 Million Strong by 2029: Tracking Progress Toward Achieving Our Goal

(Publisher’s Note: This article is based on a presentation made by the author as part of the 50 Million Strong by 2029 Forum held at the 2017 SHAPE America National Convention.)

 In 2016, SHAPE America made a commitment to ensure that by 2029 all of America’s youth will be “empowered to live healthy and active lives through effective health and physical education programs” (SHAPE America 2016).  Since then, many people have asked how will we ensure that we are making progress toward this goal, or how and when will we know if we have achieved it? To this end, SHAPE America President Steve Jefferies appointed a Measurement Advisory Panel tasked with wrestling with these issues and identifying how we should begin to measure progress.

The Advisory Panel included the following professionals:

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