Never Deny the Body
Joannie Halas, University of Manitoba
Quality physical education program, accessed on a daily basis, promotes improved
health and well-being for children and youth.
Imagine a school gymnasium without winners defeating losers, where children and
youth excitedly run through doors that open to a carefully-constructed learning
environment of tasks and challenges designed to enhance their physical, social, emotional
and cognitive development. Imagine groups of girls and boys striving to negotiate their
growing bodies through movement successes and failures; imagine that these children,
despite their diverse physical and social maturity levels, play well together, cooperate
fairly, communicate respectfully, and exit the gym with smiles on their faces, happy to
return to their classrooms and feeling rejuvenated and ready for their next academic class.
Now, imagine this never happens...
We live in an era of physical inactivity. For the first time in the history of the Western or
"developed" world, our children and youth face the possibility that they will not live as
long as their parents and grand-parents. Over the past 20 to 30 years, advances in
technology have allowed us to engineer physical activity out of our daily lives. Similarly,
the acceleration of the fast food industry and the proliferation of unhealthy, hyper-caloric
"super-sized" foods as a mainstay of our daily diet have contributed in part, to what some
might call a "perfect storm" of increased caloric input combined with decreased energy
output. The result? Rising numbers of over-weight and obese children who are
experiencing, for the first time ever, the incidence of early-onset diabetes, cardiovascular
disease, and other serious health concerns. Given these realities ... do we need to
advocate for "healthy schools"? I would suggest more than ever.
What accentuates the health crisis confronting our children is that our culture of
physical inactivity is strongly reinforced, on a daily basis, by the marginalization of
physical education in our schools. Since the late 1980's, a combination of educational
reform (i.e., the back to the basics movement of reading, writing and 'rithmatic) and
severe funding cutbacks to public school education impacted directly on the "health" of
our schools: there was no longer room in the curriculum for physical education, and other
subjects like music, art and drama. Our children's educational development suffered.
Children develop "holistically": to deny them opportunities to develop in any one of the
physical, mental, social and emotional domains is to deny the development of their full
potential as active, interactive, introspective human beings. We have been denying
children their full potential for too long and one way to stop this trend is to recognize that
their moving bodies need attention and ... education.
Healthy schools provide daily physical education, taught by a specialist teacher who
knows how to deliver developmentally appropriate and socially inclusive classes.
Healthy schools provide opportunities for students to be physically educated and
physically active. Providing opportunities to be physically active is not enough; students
cannot be denied quality instruction.
Why is K - S4 physical education so critical? The benefits of quality instruction in
physical education is that children and youth develop a movement vocabulary that
enables them to experience the world around them in ways that enrich their physical,
intellectual, social and emotional development. A quality physical education program,
experienced on a daily basis, enables children and youth to acquire the knowledge, skills
and attitudes that are necessary to lead active, healthy lives. Over the past decade, our
phys ed programs have improved to be more inclusive for students of all abilities; our
new provincial curriculum moves away from a traditional, sports-based competitive ethos
to one that promotes life long physical activity. While the quality of phys ed has
improved, the quantity hasn't.
Increasing time in the curriculum for physical education is practical and do-able. The
Fort Garry School Division (now Pembina Trails) was one of the first in Manitoba to
establish a division-wide policy of daily, quality phys ed. Their educational policy
makers recognized that a healthy school is one that provides quality instruction in
physical education on a daily basis. More recently, two inner city elementary schools,
Machray School and Sister MacNamara recognized that for their children to be successful
in school, they needed to provide daily physical education. Children's bodies do not
respond well to "sitting" all day. Like adults, children need "body breaks" that will get
them moving. To deny children the opportunity to be physically active, on a daily basis,
is to deny them the stress release breaks that allow them to be more attentive and focused
on learning in their academic classes.
Why is it that some of our most prestigious private schools, such as St. John's
Ravenscourt, St. Paul's College and Mennonite Brethren Collegiate, provide daily quality
physical education? In fact, these three schools provide over 200 minutes of Phys Ed a
cycle. These are schools that pride themselves on the quality of their academic programs
and physical education contributes to that quality. If private schools can create time in the
curriculum to improve their programs, why can't public schools? Many schools have
successfully increased phys ed time in their curriculum without any detrimental affects:
what is needed now is a political will to encourage schools to improve their programs.
As a Harvard-trained, MIT-produced mathematics professor said to me the other day:
"Never deny the body". This educator fully recognized the value of physical education:
when will we?
FAX
TO:
Organizing committee, Provincial Liberal Party Convention
FROM:
Joannie Halas
RE:
Written comments in lieu of my participation at the Health Schools
Panel Discussion
DATE:
March 13, 2004
________________________________________________________________________
NOTE: Please forward ASAP to the Organizing Committee
Attached please find a 2 page commentary regarding Healthy Schools and the need for
quality, daily physical education in Manitoba schools. I sincerely regret not being able to
participate in person, and wish you all the best for a successful meeting.
Sincerely,
Joannie Halas
Ps. Of note, the snow has recently stopped here in the Interlake, but it is now too late to
start the two hour drive to Portage ... again, my apologies for any inconvenience.