Student Learning in Physical Education-2nd Edition - Applying Research to Enhance Instruction
Publishers:
ISBN-10: 073604275X
ISBN-13: 9780736042758
Description: 360pp, Hardback, Copyright 2003
Authors: Stephen J. Silverman, Catherine D. Ennis

Reviewer: Ted Scheck

In 1972 a report came out by W. Marland on the status of gifted education in the United States. Interestingly, the psychomotor component from which advanced study in physical education occurs was included. I was 9 years old at the time, so even if someone had explained that all the jumping around on the trampoline and kickball and 600-yard dashes we ran had something to do with the original report, I doubtfully would have cared. My Dad and Uncle were PE teachers, and I knew, at a young age, that it was the filed I was destined to work in.

Interestingly (and sadly, in my opinion) the psychomotor component was later removed. Children in Art can be gifted and receive services that, hopefully, will meet, match, enhance, and develop their gifts and talents. Music is very similar, but Physical Education? Why is the field of movement so important to some, but not important enough to warrant specialized services to develop it?

One would argue that ‘Varsity Athletics’ is, of itself, a program for psychomotor giftedness, but I would not agree. I am in my second class out of a 4-class certification in Gifted Education at Ball State University, and I’m finding many similarities in the book I’ve reviewed and my own coursework. I appreciate how the editors, Silverman and Ennis, treat the field of Physical Education. Powerful metaphoric imagery is used on the very first page, comparing the field of physical education pedagogy as having gone from childhood, to adolescence, and finally, to adulthood. It’s a great analogy, and sets a tone for the rest of the book. And it is true: the amount of research in the field of physical education has, over the years, progressed on a level that demands that other practitioners take a closer look. P.E. is not just about kickball and dodgeball, as the media likes to paint and portray, and P.E. teachers are not all mindless military-minded buzz-cut brutes whose task is only to shame, torment, torture, and humiliate. I had three gym teachers who had a tremendous effect on my life: my father, Ed Scheck, from the old school, Mr. Ballanger, the greatest non-relative gym teacher I ever had, and his successor, a man I shall not name, who engaged in the old school, highly stereotyped version. The field has grown up since the 1970s, due to the hard work, patience, study and critical analysis of itself due to men and women dedicated to advancing it.

A Venn Diagram on the next page nicely sums up the three pillars in physical education pedagogy: curriculum, teacher education and teaching itself. This is very similar to the pillars of gifted education, causing me to wonder (nearly constantly) if a new report should be written, one that reinstates the psychomotor component into the field of gifted and talented.

Chapter Two takes us back in time to the evolution of research in physical education. The author again uses an incredibly powerful image of the ‘binoculars through which we look’ to take a healthy, critical look at our own ways of researching what is going on right in front of our noses, and far away, metaphorically, in our own field. Now history can be a bit dry for me, unless I can somehow connect the past with the ever-changing future. We are taken back to the research done in the 1940s, looking to match good teacher characteristics and highly-effective teachers with rating scales. In 1964, with physical education becoming an academic discipline, a much-needed booster-shot was given to the behind of the field and the curricular focus became more intense.

Very deep issues are covered in this book, a few of them that I will mention for your own curiosity: gender issues in physical education, students with disabilities, standards-based program designs, attitudes, cognition, and motivation, assessment, health-related PE and wellness, teaching sport within PE, and a topic I’ve always wanted to pursue, and will, with the help of this book: Interdisciplinary Curriculum in PE: Possibilities and Problems.

To go into detail of each chapter is not the goal of this reviewer. I found the entire text extremely interesting, with many examples in the bibliography to further my own curiosity. Research is key in any field, especially a field that continues to have such a negative and stereotyped reputation. Television, movies, and print media continue still to poke fun at the field of physical education. In my own experience within Indianapolis Public Schools, this perception is, in part, still accurate. Gym is where ‘kids run around’ and where children ‘throw things at each other’ and where kids, according to some classroom teachers, ‘let off steam’. Only through our dedicated efforts, both in teaching and in research, can we lift the field of Physical Education out of the logy quicksand of ill-perceived Hollywood minds and bring it, bright and shiny, to the place where it belongs. And that will happen only when P.E. teachers finally take what Mr. Marland’s reviewers did not do – elevate Physical Education to the status, or near the status, of gifted and talented education.

A thoroughly-researched text, “Student Learning in Physical Education” is a must for anyone in or pursuing a Master’s Degree, any teacher wishing to deepen their own teaching, and the curious regarding research in physical education.