FITNESS FOR LIFE: ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (individual grades)
media review written by Ted Scheck

You are not reading the review of a book, but a review of a multimedia package consisting of 9 volumes.

Looking at this assortment brings to mind the word omnibus, which I first heard while reading through Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. I 'weighted' this collection and compared it to another massive tome, that old dusty Webster's Dictionary that you sometimes see on its own pedestal in high school libraries; the grand patriarch of books that are too big to be simply defined as books; they are the Jupiter of books; a literary loaded Cadillac with all the bells and whistles; heavy and weighty and cumbersome, and to be treated with the kind of respect that is the difference between literature and regular fiction - whatever it is has passed the test of time.

You need to know what you are getting before you shell out the big price of $599. Nine books and 32 lessons are included in this package, which at first caused me to ask, "Is that all?"

You are expected to either have a Wellness Policy in place, or to be on your way implementing one. You are expected to be working hand-in-hand with the lunch ladies in the cafeteria, and the PTO/PTA moms who bring in healthy snacks for the kids in the afternoon. We are expected to do roughly 3-4 times the amount of work we used to do when we basically just taught kids the positive benefits of moving, and to involve them in sports, games, individualized activities, locomotor movements, and Field Days.

I'm rather dismayed that we actually need a comprehensive, in-depth, easy-to-use program package at all (complete with its own website). The website is almost as amazing as the 9 printed volumes, offering free updates on changes in the P.E. field, interesting weblinks to explore, and links to the other two sets in the series. Dr. Charles Corbin has been the P.E. educator at Arizona State University, and basically at the top of the P.E. mountain for decades, authoring hundreds of articles and 4 score of books, and the other two editions of this collection (Fitness for Life Middle School and High School) have won awards and have been adopted by many school districts around the country.

The other three authors will eventually take Dr. Corbin's place in the future, unless the unimaginable occurs - the very reason why these nine separate volumes even exist - children stop moving, or movement done by children in elementary school is reduced even more because Physical Education programs cease to exist.

I'm glad this multimedia package is available. I'm fortunate to have been able to review this package.

Fitness for Life is important because our society has changed so much, and we've become so inactive and electronically sedentary. I'm almost 48, and my parents and most everyone I see in the old black and white pictures were almost all universally fit. Overweight and obese people were rare, and not common-place and seldom seen. My older sisters, from 4 to 12 years older than me, were also slim. When did this epidemic of childhood and adulthood obesity begin to happen? When did the first trickles appear?

When I was a kid my K-5 elementary school offered year-round intramural sports. I had no business playing organized basketball in the 5th grade, but I was on every team, of every sport, that came around each season. Most kids did the same. We now text while driving, sipping a huge drink with hundreds of empty calories, eating something that sounds like a 'sci-fi' creation, all while piloting a vehicle that could easily kill us in an accident.

We need to stop multi-tasking so much, because it's effecting our children's cognitive skills whose attention spans are increasingly diminishing. I try talking to my students, I have them for a few seconds, and then randomly - they start talking. They appear to be texting with their lips and tongues. Everything is instant this and instant that and the ability to pause, stop, reflect, gauge, pre-assess, assess, problem-solve, formulate…is rare.

Adults have SmartPhones affixed to their bodies, and I won't be surprised when we medically find a way to affix something to our ear and corpus callosum that allows our brains to instantly communicate with another person, wirelessly, with unlimited thought-texting for an affordable $499.95 a month.

Physical Educators need all nine volumes of Fitness for Life: Elementary School. This program is a necessity, or the lite program which sells for half this price, and might be more affordable for one teacher who teaches all grades in one K-6 or K-5 school. The books can also be ordered separately so that a teacher can pick and choose. This is one very thorough, solid program, and the DVDs have movies and activities for classroom teachers to assist Gym Teachers in changing the entire school environment from unhealthy, to eventually healthy. In my opinion, all school district Wellness Supervisors, Athletic Directors, and Heads-of-the-P.E. department need this multimedia package or something similar, because with the explosion of technology and the implosion of activity and PE programs, our children need health and fitness changes made in their lives.

Gym! It's my job, what I do, and who I am. My job is much different than my Dad's was, who taught at Sterling Newman Catholic High School when James Dean was at the end of his reign, and Superman was in black and white. Our society has changed so much it's frightening, but even scarier is the technology that divides our focus and attention (and kid's ability to concentrate) into fractions, and has brought the world to our fingertips and threatens to engineer movement right out of our lives.

Buy the amazing Fitness for Life Elementary, or Middle School, or High School collection by Dr. Corbin et al. Children as a whole do not eat healthy or nutritiously enough. Children don't get the amount of exercise I did in the 1970s, or my Dad did in the 1930s. Today's children just don't move enough.

P.E. teachers, help get our generation back to the time when our lives provided the means to be and stay healthy, strong, fit, and sound.

Ted Scheck graduated from St. Ambrose College, located in Davenport, Iowa, in 1985 with a BA in Physical Education, and from 1985-89 he taught three years at Davenport Schools. He moved to Indianapolis with his wife, Pam, in 1989 and taught his first year at Indianapolis Public Schools. From 1990-2002 Ted worked as Director of Motion Analysis Laboratory at Riley Hospital for Children. When the funding ran out for that job he got back into teaching, and has been at various schools in IPS since 2003. Sidener Academy for High Ability Students opened in 2008 and Ted was chosen as the PE/Wellness teacher. Teaching has been a long, and extremely interesting road for him, and at the midpoint of his career he feels that the next 12 or 13 years should be the best of his career. He's looking forward to it!