Do You Teach Lessons or Organize Activities?

What is the difference, you may ask, or perhaps you replied that you do both?  So what is the difference between the two?  The purpose of a lesson is to provide direct instruction that improves the students ability in the skills being taught. The role of the teacher is to observe how well the students are performing the tasks presented, and to make suggestions for improvement.  Group, as well as individual feedback is given, as a way of providing differentiated instruction. By the end of the "lesson", the students should be performing at a higher level than when they began.  For example, the teacher might present a lesson on dribbling skills in soccer.  The students would be taught how to use the different surfaces of their feet to dribble the ball, techniques for changing direction, how to use body fakes to get past an opponent, etc.  This lesson would involve all students using their own ball and practicing individually.  By the end of the "lesson", the student's skill level should show improvement. 

An activity usually involves the student in some form of game play, in this instance, perhaps a game of 3 vs 3 "Keep Away", where the students have an opportunity to apply their skill.  Or it might be playing short sided soccer games.  The role of the teacher would be to organize fair teams, set rules, resolve disputes, and in some cases, actually referee the game. 

The problem that I see as I visit schools, is that most PE teachers engage the students in a variety of activities but never actually  teach a lesson.  In the example above, the students would be organized into teams and play the game without the lesson part.  We see this  approach in the large variety of web sites that offer lessons plans for the various grade levels.  They are all "activity" oriented and often are described as "activities" for your PE class.  The students enjoy them as they are having fun, and perhaps improving their fitness levels through the activity, but they do little to improve individual skills as they do not provide for differentiated instruction. If the activity is game oriented, the higher skilled students dominate the game with the lower skilled students being less involved. 

Question?  Do you have a "catalog" PE curriculum centered around the latest piece of equipment being promoted in the PE catalogs, and consisting of a variety of "activities" you have gotten off of "lesson plan" websites, or do you have a sequential program of instruction tailored to meet the needs if your students leading to successful participation by all in a variety of age appropriate activities?  Food for thought.       

WHO CAN DO WHAT YOU DO?

After 4 years of education at Springfield College, The Birthplace of Basketball, I entered into my first year of teaching physical education at the Florence E. Smith School in West Hartford, CT.  At that time, the primary grades had a curriculum built around games, story plays and mimetics.  Hazel Richardson Game Cards had directions for hundreds of kid's games from Run Rabbit Run, Squirrels in Trees, Duck, Duck Goose, Crows and Cranes, Dog Catcher, ad infinitum.  The classroom teacher had to observe the lesson and do a follow up lesson during the week.  The next time her class had gym, she showed me what she had done with the children during the week, and often it was better done than when I did it. Having her children all day, every day, gave her a rapport with them that was impossible for me to simulate in one half hour per week.  I also noticed that when the children gathered after school for their Brownie or Cub Scout meeting, the troop leader often played games with them as part of their meeting.  A favorite was "Steal The Bacon".  Here too, I noticed that the troop leaders ran the games as well as I did, and they did not have a four year degree in physical education. Over time, this bothered me as I did not feel "special" and felt that I really didn't need a four year degree to teach games, even though in college I had Games I, II, and III.  I was ready to move on to the high school and coaching where I would have more status.

About that time, movement education and educational gymnastics arrived on the scene and rescued me. I attended numerous workshops and conferences centered around movement education, and we purchase Whittle Apparatus from England and got heavily involved in Educational Gymnastics.  I had a library of British books on physical education where the focus was not on games, but on teaching children to manage their body and apply those skills to being able to more easily perform athletic activities.  For example, engaging in activities to improve your sense of balance, will enable you to learn to engage in activities such as skiing or skate boarding more easily and safely.  I invested myself in this approach to teaching and realized now that I had a content knowledge that the classroom teacher and troop leaders did not have, and thus could contribute to the "physical education" (with the second word being more important than the first) of my students in meaningful ways.  Apparatus activities dominated much of the program and over time, the students became functionally fit and more athletic than they would have been without this approach to teaching.  In subsequent years, physical education was scheduled twice a week and the classroom teacher no longer had to observe the class and do a follow up lesson.

So what is the intent of this blog?  It is for you to look at your primary school program, and ask yourself the question, "Do you need to be a physical education teacher with a four year college degree, to do what you do with your students?" If you find that you are basically organizing recreational activities and games, playing on the scooters or with the parachute, or refereeing the soccer or basketball games, I would challenge you to make a list of every lesson  you did in a week and ask yourself this question.  "Does someone need a four year degree in physical education to do what I did this week?"  Are you an organizer of "activities" or a teacher of "lessons" that enhance your students physical development?  What is your role as a physical education teacher? Does it go beyond organizing activities?  Food for thought.

Walking Your Child To School.

Remember the days of the neighborhood school?  Remember when all the kids in the neighborhood walked together to school in groups and picked up a new child as they passed neighborhood homes? I wonder how old you have to be to remember this?  I remember my children going off to school at age 5 and walking a mile, alone and unattended, to our neighborhood school.  Our society was different then and we never feared for our child's safety while going to and from school. A changing society, suburban sprawl and unsafe city streets have necessitated school busing programs.  

In my first teaching assignment, the students not only walked to school, but went home for lunch!!  Gone are the good old days.  Now Johnny and Sally get picked up by the school bus at their doorstep or the corner of their street. The school cafeteria provides their lunch (not always the healthiest) and recess is shorter in the name of more classroom time. Physical Education programs are often cut back when school budgets get tight, and all of this contributes to the childhood obesity crisis we are facing.

But never fear when creative parent's are near.  A group of parents who lived in a town that still had neighborhood schools, decided that they wanted their children to walk to school when they were too close for bussing, in preference to individually driving their child to school. Have you ever noticed the large number of cars entering and leaving the school entrances each morning? What a waste of fuel.  

These ingenious parents formed walking groups of parents who escorted groups of students from their neighborhood to the school.  They established walking routes and each assigned parent would walk their route and pick up all the children along the way.  Since there are more kids than parents, any individual parent only got the duty once every two weeks or less.  A bonus for the parents was that they also got some exercise which contributed to their total fitness level.  Stay at home Mom's or parents with flexible work schedules made the return walk after school.  

The down side of all this is that not all schools are within walking distance, and regional schools are situated too far away for students to walk.  However, maybe we should think "out of the box" and have the students dropped off one mile from their school, and have assigned teachers meet them there to walk the remaining distance.  We might even give the teachers that volunteer a small stipend as we do for many extra-curricular activities.  Just a thought, but with the scope of the obesity problem and the low fitness levels or our kids, and the lack of funds for daily physical education, any and all ideas are worth considering.   

Gaetano´s blog: Getting Kids To BeActiveTips…Tips…TipsOne in ...

Gaetano´s blog:


Getting Kids To BeActive
Tips…Tips…Tips
One in ...: Getting Kids To Be Active Tips…Tips…Tips One in   Three children is overweight or obese in the United States! Deterrents to...

Getting Kids To Be Active

Tips…Tips…Tips

One in  Three children is overweight or obese in the United States!

Deterrents to childhood obesity is physical activity, so as parents we need to:

 

·         Set a great example for the whole family by creating a healthy environment at home

·         Keep fruit and veggies on hand for quick snacks and make a plan for daily family activity.

·         Having fun while being active is the key! Find activities that your child enjoys and include friends and family in the action.

·         Turn off the television. Get children moving indoors or out with fun, active games.

Good Luck in your physical education classes this year!

School sports tryouts - be in shape

If you're physically fit and well rested you'll have a better chance of making the team - whether it's football, soccer, cheerleading or any other sport.  Follow these tips to achieve it:

1.  Get at least eight hours sleep the night before

2.   Make sure you've had a high-energy meal before going to practice.

3.  Make sure you take in plenty of fluids so you don't dehydrate.

4.  Work hard but if you're too hot or feeling queasy, tell your coach and take a rest.

5.  Taking a break is not going to hurt your chances as much as puking or passing out on the field will.

Teaching Your Child to Ride a Bike.
As a parent, I spent many hours teaching my 4 children to ride a bike by holding on to the back of the bicycle seat as they pedaled and I delicately balanced them so they would not fall.  Letting go of the seat gradually, they finally mastered their sense of balance and I no longer had to run a marathon with each lesson, and I could finally ride my bike along with them.  Bike riding can be fun at any age.

Then I read an article on how to teach your child to ride a bike effortlessly.  The article said to merely remove the pedals and let the child use their legs to propel the bike as they do on their 3 wheel scooter.  The children get an immediate feel for motion and balance each time they push off from the ground.  I thought it was a terrific idea and one that would have saved me many hours of running while teaching my kids to ride more quickly.

One day last year, I saw a young child riding a bike with no pedals.  The bike was well designed and it was obvious that it had been made expressly for teaching a young child how to ride a bike without support.  The child's parent said he had purchased the bike in a store that sold such bikes and I was amazed that someone had turned a simple idea into a profitable business.  Only in America. The company that made this bike was Strider Bike.  Their web page is www.mystriderbike.com.  If you are about to teach your child to ride a bike, take a look at this site.  Also, You Tube has lots of videos, some very humorous, of children learning to ride their bike in this manner.  This is not a commercial, just a blog, and I have no special interest in this company.  Just trying to prevent adult heart attacks while teaching kids ride their bike. :)