What I Learned During Recess Today

I would like to share an incident that occurred while I was teaching the other day. At the time, I found the actions of one of my students to be unconscionable. Now, as I look back, I consider the incident both comical and pivotal.

It was a beautiful fall day, 65 degrees, clear with no wind, so we decided to take our classes outdoors. While I love being outdoors, teaching outside at my school does not provide for the best learning environment. The outdoor space consists of a grassy area the size of a soccer field, a small blacktop, and a playground. Therefore, during the lunch periods we are competing with the myriad of distractions that come with seventy-five children at play.

We were working on kicking a stationary ball, so we chose to kick a football off a tee. We used dynamic football warm-ups to begin the class. These warm-ups consisted of agility courses in which the students had to jump small cones, run through hoops, and zigzag through larger cones. Between the kicking stations and the warm-up, we set up 72 cones and 40 hoops. It took nearly a half hour to precisely line up all the cones and arrange all the colorful hoops.

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Physical Literacy and Enjoyment: The Route to 50 Million Strong by 2029!

Most likely, few people would argue against the goal and necessity of 50 Million Strong by 2029. Indeed, many would view its importance as being critical to our future. However, as suggested by Steve Jefferies in his recent editorial, as a profession we have yet to make the extensive impact we’d like on the physical activity and health lifestyle choices of our students.

The Importance of Physical Literacy

We believe that the notion of developing physical literacy in students is vital to developing active, healthy lifestyles and, ultimately, the attainment of the 50 Million Strong by 2029 goal. Although definitions of physical literacy vary, it is commonly accepted that physical literacy is a holistic view of a person’s knowledge of how to move and the ability to do so with competence, their understanding of why activity is important, and the willingness and desire to be involved in physical activity on a consistent basis. If we want to be 50 Million Strong by 2029, surely this holistic view is a necessity. The 50 Million Strong by 2029 goal requires physical literacy and, similarly, physical literacy can achieve 50 Million Strong by 2029!

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Strategies to make your injury prevention program a success!

Marc Norcross from Oregon State University recently led a research team to examine how many head basketball and soccer coaches in Oregon were using an injury prevention routine within their programs (“Factors influencing high school coaches’ adoption of injury prevention programs“).

They discovered that only about one-fifth were using such a program and that only about half of these were using the program exactly as designed. Their findings, published online in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, concluded that injury prevention programs were not being widely used in these Oregon high schools. Specifically, the authors suggested that more comprehensive coach education was needed to address the shortcomings of why coaches are not embracing designed injury prevention programs (IPP).

Knowing that we have used a professionally designed injury prevention program in the Greenville South Carolina County Schools (Click here to see this program in detail) for four years, the Oregon State study fascinated me because we experienced the very same issues in getting all of our coaches to embrace our IPP. The Oregon State study found that coaches did not feel professionally-designed injury prevention programs fitted into their normal coaching practices, nor did they see how the programs were any better than what they were already doing as part of a warm-up routine. The Oregon authors reported that coaches felt these specialized injury prevention exercises were not compatible with their needs and the actual IPP routine too difficult or complex for use in their coaching environment.

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Aiming for Inspiring Teaching

Who among us would not like to be considered an inspiring teacher? What’s the secret? Phoebe Constantinou shares a slide presentation of the stages of development for becoming inspiring. A great resource for each of us to reflect upon or to share with others who would like to improve their teaching.

Click on the link below to download a PDF file. Be patient, it might take a minute or two

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The 12 Days of Physical Education

Implementation plan for the “12 Days of PE”

  1. The setting is in the gymnasium.
  2. Playground or junior basketballs are in learning team colored hula hoops. Learning teams are dismissed by color to get a ball and find a personal space and use the ball in whatever way they choose until the teacher states, “Reindeer”! Reindeer is the cue to silence ball and listen to directions.
  3. I typically “sing” the lyrics with support from the children’s classroom teacher! We use a microphone and sound system to project voices across the gymnasium.
  4. Children are already familiar with the ball-handling skills. The “superhero pose” is when a child goes down on one knee and holds their junior basketball or playground ball in their opposite hand, similar to the Statue of Liberty!
  5. We sing each verse and repeat verses just like the regular song.

Verses and Movements

On the first day of physical education my teacher said to me, “Bounce the ball as high as a tree!”

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Reimagining Professional Preparation

Having been in teacher education for almost three decades, I confess to a level of cynicism when it comes to university-based professional prep programs. Publicly, we’re challenged keep improving the quality of the next generation of teachers, yet simultaneously handicapped with expectations to meet rules and regulations almost guaranteed to ensure failure. It’s sort of a “we want you to do a better job, but you have to do it this way rather than a different way that would make more sense.”

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Not long ago, I read about a state legislator’s effort to address the growing teacher shortage by creating alternative pathways to certification. I scowled. Even assuming admirable intentions, for those of us who’ve spent years actually struggling to prepare teachers, it’s a dumb idea. Sure, we can solve the teacher shortage problem this way. What could be easier? Just lower the standards for becoming a teacher. Set the bar at perhaps graduating from high school and teaching’s going to attract those otherwise destined for minimum wage jobs. There’ll be no teacher shortage. Problem solved. What’s next? Maybe it’s time to run for Congress or become a Presidential candidate?

Just as obesity is merely a symptom of inactivity and poor lifestyle choices, the teacher shortage has a lot more to do with unattractive salaries, stressful work conditions, little support, and frustrating bureaucratic interference. There’s no shortage of people interested in teaching careers. The problem is that we lose most of them in the first few years of their careers when they discover teaching’s a lot harder than it looks, support isn’t there when it’s needed, and too frequently our professional programs haven’t done a good job preparing new teachers with the skills they need to succeed and flourish.

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Get HyPE: Can Playing Be a Formative Assessment Tool?

The purpose of the Get HyPE column is to discuss topics that will excite and inspire the physical education community. My goal is to encourage you to think about or try something new every month. The name of the column also has a secondary meaning. It includes the name my students call me, “G-H,” and the abbreviation for physical education, “PE.”

Kids Playing

I recently read a position statement published by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) titled “Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction.” The following statements are excerpts from the piece:

  • “…true formative assessment is assessment that is informing.”
  • “Teachers are very aware that…checks for understanding are what allow them to teach better and improve student achievement.”
  • “…authentic formative assessment is connected directly to the teaching and learning occurring at that moment.”
  • “…assessments provide information the teacher can use to better understand her students and to then support them in taking the next steps in their learning.”
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