PHYSICAL EDUCATION: AN ENVIRONMENT UNLIKE ANY OTHER

written by John Strong, Niagara County Community College

Summer is past and fall has fallen upon us once again. With the first couple of months under our collective belts, many of us have settled back into our comfortable routines and have set ourselves up to ride out the year confidently.

I remember when I started at my current vocation at Niagara County Community College. I was home reading for a minimum of an hour a night, sometimes two or three, in order to stay a couple steps ahead of my new classes; not to mention the long hours at the office when I wasn't teaching. I had to learn the ropes of the inner-workings of the institution, keep up with grading, and of course put out the numerous fires that await all of us in the multi-faceted world of academia.

I was scrambling, stressing, and basically working my behind off to try to be everything to everybody and still cover all my content in a fashion that would engage my new students enough to pass their assessments. As if that weren't enough I came home every night to the task of parenting my two sons, both under the age of four. I don't relish those days, and if you had a similar experience starting out then you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm amazed at how much I've grown in the five short years I've been at NCCC. I still run around like a chicken with it's head cut off, but now I actually feel like I'm gaining ground instead of just keeping up. This article is about doing more in your position than just keeping up, in an effort to become the teacher, or perhaps the leader, you may have initially imagined yourself to be.

Possibly you envisioned yourself helping kids swing better. Perhaps you saw yourself inspiring kids to lose weight. Or maybe you just thought you would be a better teacher than the individual who could have inspired you and didn't. Whichever it is, this article will hopefully draw your attention to a subject we can all do a little bit more about, bullying.

I live in West Seneca, New York, a couple of towns over from Williamsville where tragedy struck last month. Jamey Rodemeyer, a freshman at Williamsville North High School, committed suicide after 12 unrelenting months of cyber-bullying targeting his sexuality. Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Headlines over the past year have held the names of tormented youngsters like Justin Aaberg, Phoebe Prince, and Tyler Clementi after they all gave way to the mislead harassment of bullies.

In fact, data collected from 2008-09 by the National Center for Educational Statistics states that 28% of students aged 12 – 18 reported that they were bullied in school. That's more than a quarter of our kids! And no, not all of them are pushed over the edge, but I consider any pointless unnecessary death of one of our children to be one too many. Additional numbers from this study point to the fact that bullying does get 'better with age' with a high mark of 39 percent of all sixth graders being bullied, down almost half to 20 percent of high school seniors.

We in physical education have an intimate connection with these bullying statistics. Historically, nay-sayers of our discipline site physical education as a haven for embarrassing memories of the past; getting picked last, picked on, and picked out for poor performance. So what can we do in the face of this troubling call to action? Look to our peers, look to the leaders in our field.

The latest NASPE position paper titled "Physical Education Is Critical to Educating the Whole Child" details many important ways today's physical educator can make a difference in the lives of our youth. Not the least of those can be found in the second sub-section titled "High-Quality Physical Education (top of page two)." In this section, under the heading, "Appropriate Instructional Practice" you will find specifically several items that physical education teachers can focus on. They include, but are not limited to:

• Teaching students' self-discipline.
• Teaching students to improved their own judgment.
• Teaching students how to manage and reduce stress.
• Teaching students how to strengthen peer relations.
• Teaching students about self-confidence and self-esteem.

Bullies feast on the apathy of peer observers. When our students are bullied, they are many times near, or even surrounded by, a group of children who do nothing to defend them, a sad fact that has already cost too many lives. In a 1992 study conducted by Boulton and Underwood, middle schoolers were interviewed and asked the question, "What do you do when you see a child of your age being bullied?" Their answers broke down like this:

• 49 percent said they tried to help in some way.
• 29 percent said they did nothing, but thought that they should try to help.
• 22 percent said they would not help because it was none of their business.

These statistics point to the fact that just under half of these youngsters have learned from someone that bullying is not okay. Further, that same population states they have "tried"to thwart these advances in some way. And that's really what I would like to focus on, the idea of taking action in the face of wrong doing.

Teaching students to have self-confidence and self-esteem gives them enough of a positive self-image to believe that they may be able to help in the face of injustice. If we keep allowing students to believe that heroes only exist on television we will be eliminating the pillars of tomorrows society. Find teachable moments in class to bring to light when a student positively displays self-confidence (when she's willing to take the last shot, change teams to make them more even, or let his work be shown to others so that they may learn, etc.). Consistently praising these types of acts, and explaining what makes them desirable, may make them more common place in your classroom community. Perhaps with more self-confidence bystanders will be apt to act when they see something they identify as wrong transpiring.

Modeling for students how to effectively manage stress and display self-discipline is actually easier than it sounds. I know many of you out there have perfect classes who never skirt the lines of control or decorum; however, I also know that there are plenty of you for whom this is not true! So the next time your students get unruly, try to relax, gain perspective, and appreciate it for the teachable moment that it is.

On more than one occasion I've said to my students, "Now this is the time where I feel like I could lose my cool. Because look at you all right now… you're being pretty rude and disrespectful, wouldn't you agree?" And invariably they do; and they stop, and they learn. And hopefully one of the lessons they learn is that situations are not unmanageable and neither are their feelings.

When it comes to self-control the gymnasium is riddled with fine examples. Students who allow another player to score rather than wildly fouling or even harming him display self-control and should be praised. Students who restrain outbursts in the face of errors or missed opportunities also give themselves an opportunity to see what's next after that play.

The teaching point in that situation sometimes speaks for itself when that same individual is still focused enough to make the follow-up play right after, or remain clear-headed enough to make the play the next opportunity they get. "Way to go," I’ve often said, "way to keep your head in the play." Bullies lack empathy, they lack self-esteem, and they lack self-control. If we teach our students to appreciate these things they will see them more clearly when they are not present as well as when they are, and perhaps feel more motivated to act.

I feel that teaching students how to improve their peer relationships is really important early on in their educational careers. Elementary teachers know how early the switch can happen where one month everybody seems fine with everybody else, and then the next thing you know an individual is left out in the cold! Don’t turn a blind eye to this and pretend it's not happening or that the classroom teacher will solve the problem. We are gifted with opportunity after opportunity in our setting that allows us access to real situations where these feelings come to the forefront. It is at these moments that they should be dealt with regardless of whether or not you're in the waning seconds of a competition.

Recently two opposing teams were bitterly contesting in a match of capture the flag, derogatory remarks of 'cheater' and 'loser' were flying rampantly. The student instructor did little to draw attention to the fact that the animosity was transpiring at all. Instead, he tried to plow forward with the game and get through the lesson, which I can hardly fault him for since it was his first time at the helm.

At the end of his lesson I gathered the disgruntled mob and explained that their behavior was unacceptable, and as aspiring teachers they should expect more from each other and themselves. Essentially, I drew their attention to their actions and afterward I followed up by giving them alternative actions. Our Adventure Education class is built on the Full Value Norms of Be Here, Be Honest, Be Safe, Set Goals, and Let Go and Move On,* and this episode fractured many of these. I instructed the students to remember these tenets and to shake hands with their opponents in the spirit of sportsmanship, to give their opponents the benefit of the doubt, and to let go of moments of indiscretion and chalk them up to externalities rather than internalities.

Getting by in physical education class does not meet our expectations as teachers for our students, nor does it meet our expectations for one another. "Happy, Busy, and Good" was dispelled years ago as an acceptable goal structure in our classrooms, and as such cannot be the guiding determinant of whether or not an episode was successful. Did the students learn? Did they become better movers? Did the students deepen their understanding of key concepts? Did they grow as people?

If these are the guiding questions that we ask ourselves each day, then the importance of teachable moments that allow these lessons to transpire will be the endpoints we strive for. Bullying cannot stand when everybody is watching with clear eyes and steel spines. It cannot in person because bystanders will step in to the aid of the bullied party. It cannot online because peers will support the bullied person so that it is the bully rather than the bullied that is ostracized. And when self-confidence and self-esteem abound, even the threat of bullying will become a stress that our strong students can manage in their everyday lives.

My advice in this article is to make these items of paramount importance in your classroom. Never let a glaring incident ride when it so obviously doesn't belong within this environment with which we are entrusted, that is unlike any other.

*adopted from Adventure Curriculum for Physical Education, Middle School; Panicucci. Project Adventure, Inc.

(back to pelinks4u homepage)