Creating a More Desirable Physical Education Future      
by Hal A. Lawson *

With luck, we have ten years to design, implement, evaluate (to demonstrate that we have achieved important outcomes), scale-up, promote, and market new physical education program prototypes. Unfortunately, to meet the needs of these changing times, current events may conspire to shorten our planning time. If events take hold as I think they will, physical education likely has less than five years before it finds itself in a perilous position, one akin to a ship awash in a perfect storm.

Today’s economic crisis has already provoked budgetary reductions. Simultaneously, we face a childhood obesity epidemic, multiple health disparities in so-called “high poverty school communities”, growing competition for sport, exercise, fitness and lifestyle instruction during a time when districts increasingly rely on out-sourcing and sub-contracting to save money, and unprecedented demands placed on schools for massive structural changes. These changes will require new kinds of American schools: Schools that improve academic achievement, foster healthy development, facilitate completion of postsecondary education, and ensure proficiency and even mastery of the 21st Century Knowledge, Skills and Abilities needed to meet the challenges of today’s global economy and society. Last, but not least, results-oriented accountability systems are fast becoming the norm in every policy sector. The upshot is that funding and support for future educational policy hinges on demonstrable, important results.

These accountability systems have gained traction at a time when physical educators have been unable or unwilling to demonstrate that they and their programs systematically and uniquely achieve important results - where “importance” is a public policy determination and not merely a self-interested claim. (As a reminder: Our own research on school physical education programs, teachers’ priorities and practices, and program outcomes and results paints a rather dismal picture. Research reveals a glaring disparity. There is clearly a difference between the important benefits of physical activity and the extent to which school physical education programs actually yield these benefits-as-outcomes. Where public policy is concerned, this distinction jeopardizes the future of today’s physical education.)

Although all such events and the circumstances they create need to be taken seriously, they are not cause for doom and gloom. Together they provide timely, unique opportunities for gifted and talented teachers and other professional leaders to act strategically. Professional self-interest and societal benefits both will be served by timely strategic action.

Physical Education programs have to change. In contrast to program designs of the past, the work that lies ahead is not just about the kids. This new design work must prioritize the recruitment, efficacy, job satisfaction and morale, retention, and overall well-being of skilled teachers. Even a superficial examination of the teacher turnover data indicates the importance of this priority. Quality physical education programs are the result of motivated and dedicated teachers. Thus, better outcomes for young people and better outcomes for teachers go hand-in-hand. Together they provide a key design specification for tomorrow’s program prototypes (also commonly referred to as “models”).

Note the plural “program prototypes.” Also note the construct “design specification.” Both are important and inseparable in my thinking, and I offer them as potential contributions to the work ahead. Together they signal the importance of multiple program prototypes, not a one best program or a “cookie cutter” model. They also signal the need for teachers and other local school-community leaders to configure program prototypes in accordance with the kind of school in which they will be implemented, the characteristics of the young people whom they will serve, and in response to local family and community resources and opportunities, especially those already prioritized in existing school-community partnerships. The need for special configurations and tailoring of identifiable models (e.g., sport education; health and fitness education) guide “design specifications” or “design principles.”

A first design principle to be followed flies in the face of how so many of us have been prepared and behaved. Many of us entered the field with a preferred prototype in mind and, after completing our degree and gaining certification, we dedicated ourselves to implementing it or another preferred program prototype we learned about or inherited. Subsequently, we dedicated ourselves to perfecting that prototype, hoping (against reality in some cases) that over time and with new resources and supports, we would get the conditions right for the program; and then good outcomes would follow. Meanwhile, our colleagues (including teachers in the same school) coveted their own program prototypes.

One result unfortunately, has been competing versions of physical education in the same school and certainly in the same district. A confusing development under any circumstances, this persistent acceptance of “pet” programs and the ensuing intra-school and intra-district silent competition is not the best way to plan, implement, evaluate, market and promote programs that depend on public policy support. It imperils outcomes-oriented evaluations of programs because competing versions of physical education typically cancel each other out.

A new design principle offers a different pathway to program prototypes: We must start with the desired important outcomes physical education programs can uniquely and systematically achieve in the local school, district, and community context. (To reiterate: Teacher outcomes need to be considered alongside outcomes for young people.) We must then engage in a collective, backward mapping process. This process requires teachers and other leaders to figure out how to get from “here” (the current state of affairs) to “there” (a more ideal state of affairs characterized by desirable outcomes).

In policy circles, this approach is called “a theory of change approach.” It is driven by intervention logic, i.e., by careful, systematic, and research-supported planning that starts with the problem to be solved - what’s wrong that needs fixing and what’s good that needs to be maintained. Interventions then are tailored to the problem and matched with desired outcomes. Embedded evaluations yield vital information for continuous quality improvement.

Because schools and districts differ and neighborhood-community contexts are always unique, this design-oriented approach will yield multiple program prototypes. Notwithstanding important commonalties - especially where public policy-designated outcomes are concerned, programs will bear the unique signatures of teachers and other local leaders who designed them. Programs also will reflect the special priorities of the sponsoring school and district, and other special features will be developed in response to the needs of the young people being served. Thus, design principles and specifications focused on unique, important outcomes will yield multiple program prototypes. And multiple prototypes are a good thing in the 21st Century context.

A second design principle also promotes desirable future change. This principle has five components: (1) Customize physical education experiences for each student, (2) Utilize technologies for “anytime, anywhere, self-directed learning”, (3) Provide autonomy-supportive environments in which students learn how to set and achieve goals, (4) Connect physical education (via exercise and sport science knowledge and skills) to academic subject matter, and (5) Prepare students for future learning. These five components fit with emergent conceptions of 21st Century Skills (see http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/). At the same time, design principles like this one, position physical educators to join systems change initiatives undertaken by entire schools and districts, including the growing number of them which are involved in P-16 (preschool through the undergraduate degree) initiatives.

These new systems-change initiatives, by whatever name (e.g., birth to career or workforce development), will produce the new American school and the new American education system. The industrial age school will quickly become a relic of the past. Expect a steady erosion of support and resources for age-graded classrooms, lock step curricula, an exclusive reliance on the teacher as the seat of all expertise, the equation of seat time with learning time, walled-in school improvement planning, and a persistent pattern of ignoring and neglecting learning and healthy development during out of school time. In short, something more than the usual school reform is underway. Institutional change already is evident and it promises to accelerate.

Physical education as we know it, at least the dominant version, was developed to fit industrial age schools. It’s my belief that physical education, no less than other school subject, can no longer operate with industrial age logic, program structures, and operational procedures. Like other subjects, including new integrative configurations with some of them, physical education needs a significant transformation to achieve a more desirable future for young people, teachers, and other physical education leaders.

My journey toward these conclusions and accompanying bold claims has not been easy or without controversy and conflict. In the process, I have had to directly confront my own preferences, biases, and needs. I especially have had to face an unpleasant reality; my initial career goals depended on my advocacy for particular kinds of physical education and teacher education programs. This essay, along with several recent publications, marks a rethinking and sets the stage for my six concluding recommendations.

1. Design, implement, evaluate (to demonstrate good outcomes), scale-up, promote and market quality physical education programs.
2. Develop multiple program prototypes in accordance with solid design principles and criteria, ensuring that every such program systematically and uniquely achieves important outcomes for young people and their teachers.
3. Relieve programs and teachers from industrial age policies and practices, many of which get in the way of genuine play, meaningful engagement, and powerful learning.
4. Take advantage of family and community resources for learning and healthy development, and support new opportunities for physical education during out of school time.
5. Design teaching and learning experiences in accordance with 21st Century Knowledge, Skills and Abilities.
6. Take the lead in creating new century institutions that stop the impersonal sorting, labeling, and people processing. Replace these industrial age relics with positive youth development principles and practices, small learning communities, and communities of practice involving teachers and other adults committed to helping young people succeed.

These recommendations and others they implicate will enable physical education’s gifted and talented teachers and other professional leaders to create more desirable futures for themselves and the young people they serve.

* Dr. Hal Lawson currently holds a joint appointment in the School of Social Welfare and serves as Special Assistant to the Provost at the University of Albany, NY. With a career spanning almost 40-years, Hal has been one of our profession’s preeminent thinkers about the value and future of physical education. Hal has written extensively on this topic and is the recipient of numerous awards. In this invited editorial for pelinks4u, Hal anticipates some of the likely challenges our profession will face in the next decade.

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