Editor’s Note: Tracy wrote this essay back in spring 2014. We sought an opportune time to share it with pelinks4u readers. As we start out 2015 and soon many of us will come together at the national SHAPE America convention in Seattle, Tracy’s message is an inspirational reminder of a way all of us can help to move the profession forward.

—

I make a conscious effort to stay positive. This attitude, I believe, gives me the power to overcome the obstacles I face and leads to success. However, I have to admit, the last couple of months of school were more demanding this year than I can remember. The kids were a little tougher. The adults were a little grumpier. For the first time I was looking forward to summer a little more than I feel I should. I even thought about going into administration. How dreadful. What’s worse is that I can’t point to one specific cause. When I reflect on these last two months my mind moves quickly between HSPE testing, AP testing, EOC testing, finals testing, school culture, staff culture, department culture, course proposals, course offerings, scheduling, staffing, meetings, influence, lack of influence, administrative decisions, (some good, some not as good), TPEP, CCSS, NGSS and a long list of other mind numbing acronyms. It goes on and on. It has been a draining end of the year. Am I ever thankful for the summer and a chance to energize myself as an educator!

These challenges continued to dominate my thoughts as I boarded my flight to St. Louis yesterday where I have the opportunity to meet with leaders in our field over the next few days and listen in as they discuss the future of physical education. I brought with me for the flight a book by Jon Gordon called The Carpenter. The publisher bills the book as “A story about the greatest success strategies of all.” I was drawn to Gordon’s writing because the strategies I have been using over the past twenty plus years to further our field are producing diminishing returns. It’s time to progress. Time to challenge myself. This book seemed like a good starting point.

This article is the second part of a two part series. The first segment was published in the December 2014 issue of pelinks4u.

Active Classrooms

I encourage all physical educators to look for ways to add movement into the classrooms. Today, there are hundreds of brain break ideas on line. A simple Google search of “brain breaks” will get you quite a list. Depending on the level you teach, there are simple animated videos that the kids can follow along to at their desks. Or alternatively you can find ideas on brain breaks for older students, both that directly relate to a particular subject or not. Here is one great resources to get you started: Brain Breaks, Recess, & Classroom Based Activities. I’ve also linked below some ideas here from a few grade level classroom teachers in my building:

1st Grade Money Chant

Tired of hearing excuses for why quality physical education is impossible when space is limited, class sizes large, students disinterested, and other reasons, we decided to do an “experiment”. We decided that if we could transform a “roll-out-the-ball gym class” approach in a school with plenty of barriers to quality physical education, we could honestly say that, “If you can teach quality P.E. here, you can do it anywhere!”

From the outset, we knew exactly which school to choose for our experiment. We had worked with the Storefront Academy in Harlem, New York before, and we knew that the school had teaching barriers that would be tough to overcome. They included a non-certified PE “teacher,” very limited indoor space, no playground areas, no free outdoor open space, and very little equipment. We decided to document the project in a film (directed by John Mathieu Roussell), and we called it No Excuses! We hoped that a film of this type would lead to increased awareness about quality physical education by parents and administrators, and to seeking solutions that focus on what we can do now, while continuing to work on changing the “impossible.” We wanted to help raise the bar so that all of us expect nothing less than quality in PE, for the sake of our students’ health, well-being, and academic success.

In the winter of 2011 we began working with the teachers and administrators at the Storefront Academy to retire the old ways of offering physical education and to develop a quality physical education program that fit the students’ current and future needs. We successfully sought out and obtained major support from SPARK (equipment, curriculum, technology, training), and hired a qualified credentialed physical education teacher for the next school year. At the end of summer, the teachers and most of the staff participated in SPARK training. We (Cathrine Himberg and John Roussell) spent our sabbatical that autumn in New York helping to implement the new program and documenting the process in our film. In Harlem, a coordinated school wellness initiative was in the making, with quality physical education at the center. Students started learning skills, concepts, and virtues in physical education chosen to help them now and throughout their lives. We made it safer and easier for them to choose to be physically active during recess on the blocked-off street that serves as their playground. We helped the teachers facilitate physical activity in the classrooms in the form of brain breaks. We made improvements in the cafeteria and encouraged nutrition education in the classroom. And we educated the parents about the changes and the important role they could play.