After being tagged to view yet another “viral” Physical Education
video, which I do enjoy, I can’t help but to be reminded of the perception
gap between what the public thinks Physical Educators do, and what Physical
Educators actually do (Well, the good educators anyway).This gap is what public allows school districts to get away with
reducing and eliminating Physical Education, or allowing Physical Education
to be taught by unqualified personnel.In my opinion, there are a few reasons for the perception gap.
A portion of the perception gap, in my opinion, comes from the general
public.Many of the parents,
and grandparents came through a Physical Education program that failed to
connect the purpose of Physical Education, through the activities they
provided.They may have had a
program that focused on “fun” games, but had little to no value, or maybe
physical educators that “rolled out the ball”, taking little to no interest
in the true goals of Physical Education.It is also possible that they had a Physical Educator that did have a
good program, but failed to make a connection, with the students, to the
skills they were learning in each activity.They may have, as in my case, grew up in a program where Physical
Education was just another recess.Whatever the case, it is up to us a Physical Educators to connect
with the public, in such a way, that they can see that we are skills (gross
motor, fine motor, balance, etc) oriented, not “fun” oriented.That is not to say Physical Education is not to be fun; quite the
opposite.The SKILL in being a
quality Physical Educator comes from being able to introduce, develop and
master these skills, through a variety of fun and creative activities. A
large part of responsibility for the perception gap, lies with the Physical
Educators.Too many Physical
Educators run programs that focus on “fun” activities, but have little or no
value to physical skills that should be taught.The reason for my creating the MrGym.com website, was this exact
problem.There were only 1 or 2
large PE sites at the time I created MrGym.I won’t name the sites, but they are large and loaded with tons of
games and activities.But the
problem is, these activities are sent in my other Physical Education
teachers, and then published, regardless of their value.I got sick of looking at games that should NOT be played in in a
quality physical education program.So, when one of these weak games gets published, other teachers pick
it up, which perpetuates an activity that has little to no value.When these activities are added to a PE curriculum, we demonstrate to
the public and administration that we just focus on “fun” games. When
parents and administrators fail to see our program for invaluable asset that
it is, it makes it easy to reduce or eliminate our programs. Closing the
Physical Education perception gap is not going to be an easy task.Closing this gap will require educating PE teachers on what
constitutes quality Physical Education activity, creating, acquiring and
adapting quality Physical Education activities, and showing parents and
administrators that our quality program is an invaluable part of education.I will address “Closing the Physical Education Perception Gap”, in my
next article.
