My Philosophy of Physical Education
I believe that a quality education offers every student in America – no matter their
background or stage in life – windows of opportunity to become contributing members of society
in their communities and beyond. Education is the “evening out of the playing field”, so that all
people, not just the privileged few, as in some countries, can contribute and even thrive in their
chosen fields. I also believe that physical education in general should provide an education first
and foremost of the physical element in life, as that is our unique contribution to education.
Cognitive thinking is also very important to me within the field of physical education. I see
affective goals within the hidden curriculum within my physical education program in
elementary and high school, whereas at the Middle School these goals are explicit – front and
center to the curriculum. Some of these learning goals include, but are not limited to respecting
self, equipment and others – working together to achieve a goal, and most importantly getting
along with all types of people whether they are like us or different from us in looks, feelings, or
beliefs.
I believe that all students can learn through quality instruction and lots of practice time.
Because there is not a lot of practice time in physical education classes it will be very important
to provide quality focused instruction on clear learning goals sequenced through the years. I also
believe it is very important to accept each and every child at their own personal developmental
level whether highly skilled or developmentally delayed. I see my role as helping students learn
and work to progress in their skill development.
My guiding philosophy of physical education is to motivate students to become skillful
movers and thinkers in today’s diverse and global society. In order to motivate students, it will
be important for them to experience high rates of success in a warm and nurturing environment.
High rates of success will be achieved by offering developmentally appropriate leaning
experiences that include individualized instruction and maximum participation. Individualized
instruction means that students will be challenged to compete against their own personal best
achievements versus competing against others. Maximum participation means that students will
be working with their own equipment as much as possible to improve their skill performance
versus participating in large group games where an individual student receives little practice time
and the less skilled are often eliminated.
What is a skillful mover? In order to want to participate in physical activity a person
needs to know that they are improving and can achieve some success. If I am good at something
I like it and want to do it – whatever “it” – is. So in my program, I want students to have
opportunities to learn basic skills and have practice time to see improvement. Thus, in a properly
progressed program students will have opportunity to become skillful movers in some areas of
physical activity or if not skillful become better through time.
I also want students to be thinkers. I want them to be able to use their knowledge and
skills in new situations. Using knowledge and skills in new situations is the definition of
understanding - which implies higher order thinking. In my program, students will have
opportunities to create sequences in motor skills, rhythmic and gymnastics content areas. They
will also be able to create small group games that use the skills they learn. Students will also
learn to judge and evaluate student created sequences based on criteria set forth in the learning
experience. Judging and evaluating is also considered higher order thinking according to
Bloom’s Taxonomy. Thus, in the ways I have described in this paragraph students will apply
higher level thinking in my physical education program so as to have opportunities to become
thinkers.
My specific curriculum will be different at each school level (elementary, middle school
and high school). At the elementary school level, students will learn from Laban’s Movement
Framework chart in a movement education program and George Graham’s Skill Theme
Approach because movement education and the skill theme approach focus on the fundamental
movement forms for all physical activity.
In the Middle School program the focus will be on the personal and social responsibility
model using cooperation strategies and outdoor experiential education type activities which
match perfectly to this philosophy of personal and social responsibility. Cooperation activities
are important for youngsters this age as belonging to a group is very important. Experiential
education focuses on individual and group problem solving activities that require thinking and
working together to achieve a goal a clear match of the philosophy. Students will also learn
health and wellness principles that affect their daily living so as to learn how to take personal
responsibility for their own lives through decisions and choices they make.
The High School physical education curriculum will focus primarily on individual and
lifetime activities. Students will have to think and make decisions in their physical education
elective choices to study deeply a skill or activity they are personally interested in. Students will
learn to set personal goals and learn to measure and evaluate themselves individually against the
set goal. They will learn to make realistic goals, make adjustments to goals, and learn the value
of discipline to meet a goal. Creating thinkers and skillful movers can be achieved through each
of these curriculum models and is consistent with my beliefs and what I have learned about
human development, learning theory and the importance of thinking in this complex and global
world that we live in.