Physical Education Futures

It has been a long while since my last post. As someone that is intimately involved in the profession of physical education it is important that I understand and present information which gets people thinking, talking and discussing the issues that I present.

As part of my final seminar in my methods class at university, I presented a seminar titled "Physical Education Futures" (The slideshare of it is below). There was some interesting debate related to the topics of sport, health and academic content and its implications for the practice of this fantastic subject. Some of the students in the class were genuinely concerned about the physical education future. However can I say that while they worried, I was surprised by the number of them that had convictions for the educative component about what we do. They seemed to acknowledge that the instrumental purposes for our survival (health, fitness and physical activity) actually contributed to a weakening of our position in the curriculum - not strenghtening it. Given that shortly a shaping paper for the direction of this subject in our country will be released, I think it is all too important to understand what some of the likely consequences will be if we try and "back the wrong horse". Before we know where we are going in the future, we really need to understand we have come from.

I must highlight that I am simply disseminating this information. The work of Professor David Kirk (University of Bedfordshire) and Professor Ken Green (University of Chester) is where to content for my seminar has come from.

My position is that all teachers should understand that if we as physical educators, give even a small component away to the sectors of sport or health, if we continue to argue that sitting exams in senior PE is more important than experiencing movement then we are unfortunately on that slippery slope that Kirk calls extinction.

As individuals and a profession we must continue to argue strongly on the educative importance of our subject, and not get stuck in the logic of medicine, science or health promotion for our survival. Remember we are physical EDUCATION!

Enjoy the afternoon. Talk soon. Trent.

4423 mod7 futures_presentation_2011

View more presentations from trent_d_brown