Imagine, it’s 11 a.m. and you’re in middle school. You have just finished the second class of the day and are heading to the gymnasium. During the three minute walk to the gym, you stop and talk with your friends, greet the old teacher, and try and find good reasons to get out of playing softball today. You hate softball and are even more upset because you are forced to play this game by your teacher. You arrive at class with poor excuses and are forced to change for class. You go to the locker room, change classes, and walk to the gym disappointed that another day of physical education is spent doing something you don’t like.
Many Students Dislike in Physical Education
This is a thought that runs through the minds of many teenagers every day. Many students dislike what they learn in physical education and refuse to participate in something they are not interested in. Many teachers are content to let students sit or just stand during class and let it influence their grades. Is this any use? Is a teacher’s work really done? Absolutely not, the job of a teacher, especially a physical education teacher, is to teach students different healthy and active things that they can do as part of their lifelong fitness. Of course, they are they to get their “needed fitness time”, but do they really do something about their fitness when they sit and watch half the class play games they don’t like? Do teachers help combat increasing obesity rates by allowing students not to participate and allowing their class to suffer?
The Solution to Fighting Outbreaks of Students
The solution to fighting outbreaks of students who do not attend physical education is to adopt the Choice of Physical Education style. Selected Physical Education is exactly what it is, Choice. Students can choose the activities they want to participate in that particular unit. The teachers gather and give a number of different activities that students can choose to participate in during this period of time. Then on the first day of each unit, all activities are explained and students choose the activities they will participate in. Now instead of students feeling forced to participate in something they don’t like, they have choices about what they want to do, and what they will actively follow.
There are Concerns about How to Ensure Various Activities are Covered by Each Student
By ensuring they get the right exposure for various skills, athletic events, and fitness techniques. Each unit must have specific themes such as team sports, individual sports, lifelong fitness, cardiovascular fitness, relaxing activities and more. Placing multiple choices in each unit allows the teacher to maximize time on the assignment. Students will be more involved in the lesson, and the teacher will spend less time involving everyone.
The Main Emphasis must be on Allowing Students to Find Something They Like and Involve Them
This is very important when talking about lifelong fitness activities because this is where our teaching will most influence students. If every student can attend classes that they enjoy participating in and get a newfound love for lifelong fitness activities, then as Physical Education teachers we have done our work in helping to keep our population healthy and active.
Social Figures
Such as First Lady Michelle Obama, have brought it into their own hands to help fight obesity in the United States. The first woman did a fitness day where hundreds of students joined her in participating in physical activities to help fight obesity. In using Physical Education Options that this can really have an impact on combating obesity. We want each student to learn about how to stay healthy and how activities can help burn calories and keep them in a healthy physical condition. For one specific unit, each activity can focus on checking a person’s heart rate, counting calories burned per class, and measuring other health factors that are important for our physical fitness. Many students think that the only way to burn calories is to walk or run around the block. They need to be shown that when playing tennis they burn so many calories, or when they participate in expressive dance, their heart rate reaches eighty percent of their maximum heart rate. Show students that while participating in various activities can benefit their health is very important. Allowing students to choose activities is even more important because they will then have an interest in this subject area and hopefully will continue to participate in activities outside the gymnasium in their secondary schools.
Now imagine at 3 pm, you get into your mother’s car on your way home from school and she asks how your day was. You tell him about your A’s on your math test, and the project you have in history, then you tell him about how good you are in physical education. You told him that because you had to choose the activities you would do throughout the week and by doing that you learned how beneficial these activities were to your health. You tell him how you can’t wait to walk to class tomorrow at 11 a.m. and return to where you didn’t go today.
