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Selina S's avatar

I feel like the problem with "traditional" forms of Physical Education is that it wasn't so much "education about your body and how it moves and how you train it" as it was "sports". The two things are entirely different! Yoga or stretches, learning about the way your body feels during exertion, and how to move in it, how to improve the range of movement or the hands-eye co-ordination - these are all a different aspect of physical capability to 'sports'. And even 'sports' has different sections to it: primarily competition and pleasure, but also building up skill levels through training but not necessarily for competition purposes.

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Prairie Librarian's avatar

Oof, this was a surprisingly rough read for me -- I guess I have more unexamined wounds from my long-ago PE classes than I reckoned! So often in my K-12 education, I encountered teachers who were very happy to fall in line with the bullies, and this was especially awful (for me) in gym classes. I remember being so terrified starting grade 10, because my assigned gym teacher that year was the locally-famous high-school football coach. If female gym teachers, and gym teachers who seemed to have little more physical prowess than I did myself as a scrawny and uncoordinated kid, were horrific bullies to me -- if they supported and encouraged the kid-bullies who tormented me -- how much worse was this muscular, male coach going to be??

Plot twist: he was great! He was incredibly supportive of all kinds of different body types, all levels of athletic ability. He managed our classes in such a way that I don't think the bullies ever got a toe-hold. He brought lots of guest "experts" to teach us about different sports and body-based activities, people of all ages and from all kinds of different backgrounds and with different body types and presentations, and really emphasized that there are so many different ways to be physically engaged, and that physical movement and activity is for everybody. He actively encouraged me to see all kinds of movement (walking or taking the stairs to get around, playing a musical instrument or singing, writing or drawing by hand, etc.) as valid and worthwhile parts of my physical activity.

I wish all kids could have PE teachers like Mr. Johnson, like Sherri Spelic, who have a holistic and inclusive approach to this facet of early education.

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