Physical Education and Curriculum

1. summary of article 2. the broader issues raised in the article 3. the implications for teaching and learning and 4. an assessment of the article in terms of its relevance to the field.

Quest, 2011,63,5-18
© 2011 The National Academy of Kinesiology
Physical Education Curriculum Priorities:
Evidence for Education and Skillfulness
Catherine D. Ennis
One question facing kinesiologists today is how to implement findings from
research into society, in this case, physical education. In this paper I examine the
role of a balanced approach to educational physical education in promoting physical
activity. I argue that limiting physical education to simple tasks that encourage
students to workout at target heart rate to expend calories is not an effective solution
to the long-term challenge of promoting physically active lifestyles. As an alternative,
I discuss research findings associated with motor skill competence, perceived
competence, and knowledge growth that can increase individuals’ options to
participate in many different types of physical activity at greater intensities and
for longer durations. I conclude by considering the role of educational physical
education in public health initiatives with the goal of influencing students’ decisions
to embrace physical activity for a lifetime.
In discussing the role of physical activity in schools and communities, often
we are caught up in debates about the purpose of school-based physical education.
Of particular interest at the 2010 National Academy of Kinesiology meeting were
issues regarding the role of physical activity in school-based physical education.
Stated simply, should the goal of physical education be focused narrowly on
increasing student heart rate and burning calories through moderate to vigorous
physical activity (MVPA)? Or should physical education programs refiect a balanced,
educational emphasis on learning skill, sport, dance, and exercise through
innovative physical activities? In this paper it is my charge to argue for the second
perspective, synthesizing research findings to make the case for a balanced approach
to physical education. As a dedicated advocate of this perspective, I will describe
briefly the concept of a balanced approach to physical education, followed by a
more in-depth discussion of educational approaches to physical education that
include enhanced motor skill competence (skillfulness), increased perceived
competence, and the role of personalized knowledge in promoting and sustaining
physical activity throughout life. I will conclude by summarizing the role of a
balanced, educational approach to physical education within public health initiatives
and issues facing the effective implementation of this approach to physical
education in public schools, today.
Ennis (NAK Fellow #381) is with the Dept. of Kinesiology at the University of North Carolina—
Greensboro.
Ennis
A Balanced Approach to Educational
I Physical Education
Educational physical education focuses first and foremost on student leaming.
The content scope of the curriculum emphasizes in-depth instruction in a range of
physical activities that students need to learn to be physically active; want to learn
because the activities lead to opportunities in competitive sports and recreation;
and enjoy leairiing because tbe activities are meaningful and relevant in their lives
today. This balanced perspective on a learning-based approach to quality physical
education is best reflected in the six Physical Education National Content Standards,
presented in Figure I. These content standards were developed and sanctioned by
thousands of professional physical educators as members of the National Association
for Sportj and Physical Education (NASPE) with the support of the American
Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (AAHPERD)
(NASPE, 20()4).
The NASPE National Content Standards emphasize learning goals promoting
motor skill competence (Standard 1) with an understanding of cognitive concepts
that impact performance quality and effectiveness (Standard 2). In addition, standards
stress the importance of physical activity (Standard 3) and personal fitness
(Standard 4)iin a well-rounded approach to physical education. Standards 5 and
6 focus on guiding students’ self and social responsibility, positive attitudes, and
meaning toward the value of physical activity in physical education and throughout
their lives. T^hus “physical activity” is highly valued and plays a central role in
Standard 1 : Demonstrates competency in motor skills and movement patterns
needed to perform a variety of physical activities.
Standard 2: Demonstrates understanding of movement concepts, principles,
strategies, and tactics as they apply to the learning and performance of
physical activities.
I
Standard 3: Participates regularly in physical activity.
I
Standard 4: Achieves and maintains a health-enhancing level of physical fitness.
!
standard 5: Exhibits responsible personal and social behavior that respects self
and others in physical activity settings.
Standard 6: Values physical activity for health, enjoyment, challenge, selfexpression,
and/or social interaction.
Figure 1 —’ National standards for physical education (NASPE, 2004).
Evidence for Education and Skiilfulness
quality approaches to physical education. Content selection is not a matter of either
physical activity or some other content; this is a false dichotomy. Physical educators
agree almost unanimously that physical activity is a very beneficial outcome
for students and should have a central role in physical education. However, where
they differ from some public health professionals is that physical activity is just
one of many valued outcomes.
The NASPE Content Standards confirm the value of a balanced approach to
physical education that has been instrumental in designing physical education programs
for almost a century (Wood & Cassidy, 1930). Further, the NASPE standards
affirm the importance of curricular goals to address the needs of the whole child:
cognitive, affective, social, emotional, and physical. The whole child perspective
is critically important today in a world where sedentary lifestyles and unhealthy
eating practices are just two of many problems that some children and adolescents
face, including mental and emotional distress, unsafe and uncaring home environments,
substance abuse, lack of food safety, and malnutrition.
Perhaps one of the most important, yet elusive, educational goals to which
many physical educators aspire is to prepare students effectively to be physically
active for a lifetime (Ennis, 2010). Physical educators, who teach the whole child,
advocate not only daily participation in moderate to vigorous physical activity
but also the skills, knowledge, and perceptions of positive physical self worth that
foster healthy, active lifestyles.
Skillfulness
One of the cornerstones of a physically active lifestyle is motor skill competence.
There is a small, but growing body of research examining the relationships between
fundamental motor skills and physical fitness. Evidence from one research study
(Stodden, Langendorfer, & Roberton, 2009), for example, examined the relationship
between competence in three ballistic fundamental motor skills, throwing,
kicking, and jumping, and six measures of health-related fitness in adults age 18 to
25. Stodden and his colleagues used scores from maximum kicking and throwing
speed and maximum jumping distance to predict the variance in “overall fitness”
measured by the 12 min run/walk, percent body fat, curl-ups, grip strength, and
maximum leg press. Multiple regression analysis indicated that product scores for
jumping (74%), kicking (58%), and throwing (58%) predicted 79% of the variance
in overall fitness. Regardless of gender, motor-skill product scores explained
a significant amount of the variance in health-related fitness associated with
upper and lower body extremity muscular strength, trunk muscular endurance,
and cardiovascular endurance. Jumping explained the most variance, leading the
researchers to argue that, “individuals who are skilled in jumping might participate
in activities that promote not only leg strength, but also other aspects of fitness”
(Stodden et al. 2009, p. 227).
Stodden and his colleagues (2009) concluded that skillful individuals are more
likely to participate in more diverse forms of physical activity, persist longer, and
engage in higher levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity. Further, they
explain that adequate levels of muscular strength and coordination are necessary
to manipulate body mass effectively in a gravity-based environment. Time spent
Ennis
in physical education increasing skill competence in ballistic fundamental motor
skills, such as kicking, throwing, and especially distance jumping, leads to greater
physical fitness and neuromotor development that may be related to voluntary
participation, in physical activity both in and outside of school (Stodden et al.,
2009, pp. 227-228).
These findings build on prior research by Wfotniak and his colleagues
(Wrotniak, Epstein, Dom, Jones, & Kondilis, 2006) that examined the relationship
between motor proficiency and physical activity in children. Wrotniak et al.
(2006) found that children and adolescents who were in the highest quartile of
motor proficiency were more active compared with children in lower quartiles
and thus more likely to participate in moderate to vigorous physical activity. Not
surprisingly; children with a higher BMI were less physically active, more sedentary,
and had poorer motor proficiency compared with children with a lower BMI.
These researchers found that motor proficiency explained 8.7% of the variance in
children’s physical activity.
Motor skill competence is critical for young school-age children. Clark (2005)
explained that around age seven, children shift from a period in which they are
learning and practicing fundamental motor skills to a new period in which they
begin to implement skills in more complex contexts, such as games. This “contextspecific”
period occurs about the same time as the qualitative shift occurs toward
higher cognitive development. This is the period in which the relation between
motor skill competence and physical activity increases. Children who have attained
fundamental motor skill proficiency and continue to become more skillful during
middle childhood and adolescence have more options to participate and be successful
in physical activities as adults. Clark hypothesized that these individuals will
demonstrate higher levels of health-related physical fitness and activity.
Certainly, most would agree with Clark (2007, p. 43) that potentially “Physical
education is the best public health delivery system our nation has.” After all,
greater than 95% of children participate in physical education with an opportunity
to learn and practice physical skills. However, everyone involved in education and
kinesiology must insist that physical educators use effective strategies for student
and time management when implementing positive environments for skill learning
essential to the goal of motor skill competence.
School districts, too, need to work harder to protect the integrity of the learning
environment in physical education so that students have opportunities to become
more skillful. Educational administrators, classroom teachers, and parents are
keenly aware that children cannot reach mathematics competencies with only 30
min of itistruction weekly. Likewise, when only 30 min each week (-18 hr/yr) are
allocated to elementary physical education, it is unlikely that children will have
time to learn and practice even the most basic skills, much less become skillful!
Almond and Harris (1998) pointed out over a decade ago that physical education
interventions that achieved positive results in increasing physical activity in
physical education required both additional instructional time and nonstandard
physical education curricula. It is clear that to promote physical skill development
and physical activity, instructional time allocated to physical education must be
increased and better used.
Evidence for Education and Skiilfuiness
What Level of Motor Skill Competence Will Foster
Lifespan Physical Activity?
What level of skillfulness is enough to prepare students to be physically activity
for a lifetime? In 1980, Seefeldt argued for the notion of a “proficiency barrier,” or
a critical threshold of motor skill competence above which children will be active
and successfully apply motor skills in sports and games. Conversely, if children’s
skillfulness does not reach this threshold, Seefeldt hypothesized that they would
ultimately drop out of physical activities, unable or unwilling to be physically active
at the intensities and for the duration needed to maintain health and well-being.
The notion of a proficiency barrier leads us to questions about the efficacy of
critical or “sensitive” periods during which children may learn motor skills more
easily (Clark, 2005). Certainly, those of us who teach adult beginners to swim, ski,
golf, or perform racquet sports, for example, understand how difficult it is to leam
new skills as we get older. Unfortunately, at this point there is little conclusive
evidence to explain this phenomenon. Clark (2005) argues persuasively, however,
for a research agenda that examines patterns of coordination and perceptual-motor
linkages between the vestibular and motor systems acquired early in life. She points
out that the deep “grammar” of movement reflected in trunk and limb coordination
and control has major implications for building motor skill competence. An example
of “deep grammar” inherent in coordinated body movements can be found in body
weight shifts when throwing, skiing, or performing other activities that require rapid
changes of direction. Weight shifts appear highly relevant to skill learning during
the context-specific skill-learning period and later in adulthood.
A Coordinated Research Agenda
A coordinated research agenda across motor behavior laboratories is greatly
needed today to create the evidence-based foundation for the motor skill-physical
activity bridge linking kinesiology to society. Although we have valuable data to
clarify and extend our understanding of neuromotor functioning related to motor
skill development, Clark (2005) points out that we lack specific research evidence
to actually join the two bridge spans connecting skill competence with increased
physical activity. A similar disconnect motivated exercise physiologists during the
early 1990s to veer momentarily from their basic research agendas to conduct the
integrative research that provided convincing evidence to connect physical inactivity
with disease, thus dramatically affecting United States public health policy
(United States Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 1996).
These findings published in the now famous Surgeon General’s Report ultimately
opened numerous funding opportunities benefiting both science and practice. This
bridge connecting kinesiology to society presaged a major societal shift toward
increased physical activity as a protective and preventative ally in the fight against
heart disease and many other life-threatening illnesses. Cognitive motor scientists
can have an equally important role in producing the integrative research that may
one day bridge the gap between motor skill competence and lifelong physical
activity and health.
10 Ennis
Perceived Competence
Clark (2007) and Stodden et al. (2009) emphasized that increased skillfulness often
leads to a positive sense of physical self-worth that psychologists describe as efficacy
or perceived competence. Sallis (2000) concurred pointing out that actual body
weight may be less important in individual’s decisions to participate in physical
activity settings than perceptions of body image and self-presentation. Motor skill
competence, perceptions of competence, and body image are key factors in students’
developing attitudes toward physical education and physical activity (Silverman,
2005). Physical education is a primary site for students’ development of positive
feelings of physical self-worth and perceived competence related to motor skills
and fitness. These can lead to a more positive attitude toward physical activity and
increase the likelihood that students who perceive themselves to be skilled and fit
will participate in more diverse activities with greater intensity.
Perceived competence theory posits that individuals who believe they are
skillful demonstrate a higher level of perceived competence and a more positive
sense of physical self-worth than those who do not (Bryan & Solmon, 2007).
These perceptions appear essential to continued participation and enjoyment in
physical activity. Further, competence motivation theory (Harter, 1978) suggests
that if individuals do not feel competent in an area, they will find an alternative
activity in which they are more likely to succeed. Described by epidemiologists
as displacement theory (Biddle, Gorely, & Stensel, 2004), competence motivation
theory emphasizes that perceived competence is nurtured when the focus is on
personal improvement and task mastery. It is associated with intrinsic motivation,
leading to feelings of being energized, intrigued, and self-assured. Perceptions of
competence contribute to a sustained commitment to participate in pleasurable
pursuits (Bryan & Solmon, 2007).
Coupled with feelings of autonomy and relatedness to others, perceived competence
can lead to confidence in oneself as a performer (Bryan & Solmon, 2007).
It facilities positive comfort levels, fostering students’ intrinsic desire to participate
in many different activities and their willingness to perform with and in front of
others. Social comparative contexts like physical education provide influential
environments for children and adolescents to judge self-competence in skill, sport,
and physical activity. Positive, efficacious beliefs about ability and competence
formed in nurturing, mastery-oriented physical education environments appear to
influence effort and decisions to select physical activity over sedentary pursuits.
These prioir experiences of both success and failure have a direct and lasting effect
on children and adolescents’ perceived competence (Bryan & Solmon, 2007). In
addition, Ntoumanis (2001) found that students who felt their physical education
teachers eniphasized self-improvement, rather than winning or out-performing
others, had higher levels of perceived competence than teachers who provided
exclusively competitive physical education lessons. Similarly, girls appeared to be
particularly sensitive to perceptions of physical self-worth and competence when
deciding whether to participate. They often preferred to sit-out or walk rather than
participate with boys in activities that required skill, strength, and power. Although
pedagogical research documents strategies to engage girls effectively in skill and
games-oriented, coeducational lessons (Ennis, 1999; Griffin, 1985), there is a growing
body of research to suggest that some girls are more willing to participate in
Evidence for Education and Skillfulness 11
skill-based, games-oriented lessons in girls-only classes (Oliver & Hamzeh, 2010;
Oliver, Hamzeh, & McCaultry, 2009). Physical education programs that contribute
to girls’ and boys’ perceived motor competence, promote individual success, and
foster positive experiences are more likely to lead to long-term commitment to
physical activity.
Research Methods to Assess Perceived Competence
Additional research is needed examining self-determination theories to support
solid connections between perceived competence and voluntary physical activity.
Methodological issues, such as overuse of self-report data collected using questionnaires
and surveys, limits the credibility and applicability of findings from this
very promising research area. Direct measures of effort, mastery, and autonomy, for
example, are needed to support student self-report data. Interventions to examine
effective motivational strategies are the next important step in spanning kinesioiogy
and society. If physical educators are to one day design lessons rich in enhancements
to foster self-determination (perceived competence, autonomy, and relatedness) and
mastery they must have more than correlational evidence with few applications to
actual physical education environments.
In addition, researchers examining achievement motivation variables need to
provide detailed analyses of the physical education curriculum, teaching strategies
and practices, and assessment practices within the class settings they examine.
Physical education is not an amorphous, generic domain. The content of most
physical education curricula include multiple activities, policies, teaching strategies,
and student skill levels. These combine to create infinite complexity that cannot be
described adequately using the descriptor, “physical education.” Instead, careful
researchers will describe the domain-specific characteristics of the physical education
programs and content areas that engage and motivate children and adolescents
to participate in physical activity.
Domain-Specific Characteristics of Physical Education
Physical education, today, in the United States is taught from at least three different
perspectives: recreational, public health, or educational (Ennis, 2010). Each
has its unique characteristics, content, opportunities, and barriers. Recreational
physical education provides opportunities for students to play sports with little
instruction. Often described as multiactivity, exposure, or do-nothing (See Newell,
this volume) physical education, units often are too short and unfocused to contribute
to student learning or physical activity by almost any standard. Unlike,
recreational programs. Public Health approaches to physical education have a
specific goal to provide children with an approved dose of physical activity. These
programs employ many types of physical activity to entice and reward students
for working-out at target heart rate, burning maximum calories through physical
activity. Conscientious researcher will examine curriculum guides when they exist,
review teachers’ lesson plans, and discuss the goals and outcomes of the lessons
with teachers and students. This information is essential to evaluate the generalizability
of the findings and to promote motivational lessons and unit designs in
these domain specific programs.
12 Ennis
Although educational approaches to physical education employ physical activity
throughout lessons, student learning, not exercise prescription, is the primary
instructional goal. Content can be highly focused, concept-based, and skill- and
fitness-oriented. Teachers must manage time and organize tasks carefully with a
focus on rrraximizing appropriate practice opportunities to increase student learning
(Silverman, 2005). Consistent with contemporary theories of student learning,
the curricular focus is placed on what, how, and how well students learn. Teaching
strategies can be creative and diverse, requiring researchers to document the
nature of the environment that resulted in their findings. Researchers examining
self-determination theories are encouraged to describe the curriculum (recreational,
public health, educational) and specific content that students are experiencing as
referents when they participate or respond to interviewer’s questions. This careful
attention to detail is essential to future efforts to form tight bonds between selfdetermination
theories and voluntary physical activity, providing a critical link
between kinesiology and society.
Cognitive Development and Understanding
I
We have strong evidence to suggest that for most people, simply presenting facts
about the benefits of health and physical activity does little to change behavior. Two
important áreas of kinesiology lend support to the argument for an emphasis on
cognition in a balanced approach to physical education. First is the neurophysiology
research linking physical activity with enhanced brain functioning that may
one day lead to credible claims for links between physical education/activity and
enhanced academic achievement. Second is the use of developmentally appropriate
concepi;ually based curricular approaches that use affective and emotionally
meaningful knowledge presentations to address students’ concerns and cultural
beliefs that|may limit or facilitate their willingness to participate in physical activity.
Neurophysiology as a Partner in Lifetime Development
The study of the neurophysiological connections between physical education/activity
and enhanced brain functioning can lead to understandings that facilitate both
healthy aging and children’s developing brains. Although strong research bonds
have not yet been forged, neurophysiologists are gradually opening windows on
these phenomena. Hatfield explains:
The physical benefits of activity and fitness have received much attention, but
the nerarocognitive benefits, which may well translate into academic achievement
given a conducive academic environment, are relatively unexplored.
There is compelling evidence that physical activity results in cognitive benefits,
particularly in the elderly who are experiencing age-related decline in executive
and memory-related processes. This ameliorative effect may be due to the neurobiolpgical
benefits observed in animal models such as neurotrophic influence,
angiogenesis, and the maintenance and up-regulation of key neurotransmitters
such as dopamine and acetylcholine. The benefits likely counter the decline of
the brain, promote cognitive reserve, and enable enhanced cognitive function
and the delay of symptoms due to pathology such as late-onset dementia of the
Evidence for Education and Skiilfulness 13
Alzheimer’s type (DAT). At the other end of the age spectrum, it may be that
physical activity and fitness enhance the plasticity of the developing brain in
children and adolescents resulting in increased thickness of the cortical gray
matter and integrity of white matter tracts, thus enhancing cortical connectivity
and networking in the brain. In addition, the alteration of key neurotransmitters
may well affect both cognitive and affective function in young people, thus
facilitating focus, concentration, emotion regulation, and working and longterm
memory. Such advantages, if documented, would enable a more efficient
transaction between the individual and the classroom environment such that
they may be able to attend to and extract information and commit it to memory
in a more efficient manner, compared with one who is less active and/or less fit.
In this manner, physical activity and the attendant changes in physical fitness
may facilitate neural processes and brain development, allowing the student
to capitalize on the classroom offerings by the instructor As such, a healthy
mind in a healthy body within a fertile educational environment is more likely
to achieve their intellectual potential relative to a less fit individual in the same
environment. (B. D. Hatfield, personal communication, October 27, 2010)
Physical education can have an important role in brain functioning when it
supplements both physical activity and cognitive elasticity that can arise from
physically active experiences that enhance challenge, fluidity, versatility, and
adaptability. Some approaches to curriculum available today, use physical activity
both as an opportunity to increase intensity and expend calories and to challenge
an integrated mind and body to solve meaningful problems associated with the
effects of exercise on the body.
Connecting Knowledge With Meaningful Physical Activity
Developmentally appropriate affective and skills-based knowledge presented
within a meaningful context can facilitate behavior change. Knowledge presented
with the direct purpose of immediate application is the first step in this process.
Physical education curricula consistent with cognitive conceptions of learning
seek to change the way the individual “thinks, reasons, believes, and processes
information, in part by expanding or altering the individual’s knowledge base”
(Alexander, 2006, p. 123).
Developmental approaches to knowledge presentation and application appear
to hold promise in physical education program designs leading to behavior change.
Similar to learning motor skills and effective game play, fitness knowledge needs
to be presented within a physical education environment sensitive to students’
current beliefs and interests. Corbin and Lindsey’s (2007) Stairway to Fitness is
a constructivist scaffold to prepare students to engage cognitively in physically
active physical education. Corbin and Lindsay’s curriculum uses a series of three
questions—1) “Why should I exercise?”, 2) “What are my exercise needs?”, and 3)
“How do I exercise to meet my needs?”—to shape a developmentally appropriate
concept-based approach to fitness education. Each question focuses the purpose of
the lesson to help students answer the “Why” question for themselves, introducing
information woven through physically active tasks. Within lessons designed to
address the “What” question, students self-assess their fitness level and set realistic
short term goals to gauge their exercise needs. As students’ knowledge, intrinsic
14 Ennis
motivation • and fitness levels increase, they are ready developmentally to answer the
“How” question as they consider different fitness principles and training practices
to create and maintain a physical activity program. Unlike traditional fitness and
conditioning programs that begin and end with a “How do I exercise…” workout,
this physical education program nurtures motivation, commitment, and goal setting,
leading to íong-term commitment to a physically active lifestyle.
I
Student |Beliefs in Physical Education
Curricula, such as cognitive developmental approaches to fitness, acknowledge the
role that inclividuals’ prior knowledge, naive theories, and misconceptions play in
constraining their willingness and receptivity to physical education, fitness, and
physical activity messages. Although for some individuals decisions to make major
lifestyle behavioral changes may involve simply adding new facts to their knowledge
base, ifor others, behavioral changes requires more than simply leaming the
physical acitivity guidelines, experiencing games that are “fun,” or walking around
the track during physical education.
These individuals may live with pervasive, negative beliefs about physical
activity and exercise that can significantly limit their willingness to be physically
active. Some middle school students, for example, define fitness as “looking good
and being thin,” (Placek, Griffin, Dodds, Raymond, Tremino, & James, 2001) while
some young children worry that “If my heart beats too fast, I will have a heart attack
and die.” Physical educators are just beginning to realize how extensive and limiting
these belief structures can be when attempting to encourage children and adolescents
to be¡ physically active. Curricula specifically planned to confront students’
naive and incorrect conceptions can target students’ concems, enhancing their
understanding, soothing their fears, and increasing the pace and depth of leaming.
Data are accumulating to support the role of educational physical education
in contributing to motor skill competence, perceived competence, and conceptual
change. Additional research is needed to understand the ontological and epistemological
beliefs that students bring to physical education that limit their willingness
to value and participate in physical activity (Ennis, 2007). Further, we require
research to link innovative curricular approaches that promote knowledge growth
with increases in physical activity. We need additional examinations of physically
active environments in which students leam to solve problems using knowledge
to influence future decisions. Finding optimal combinations of emotionally engaging,
concept guided physical activity may lead to physical education that plays an
important role in lifetime physical activity.
the Role of Physical Education in Public
Health Initiatives
Currently, physical activity guidelines stipulate that individuals need more minutes
of activity ¡than most physical education lessons, alone, can provide. It is essential
to continue to encourage legislatures to pass funded mandates to increase the
instructional minutes that students spend in physical education and physical activity
during the ^school day. However, even the most effective, well-managed physical
education programs fall short of these ambitious physical activity guidelines.
Evidence for Education and Skilifulness 15
Rather than devoting the entire class period to the goal of moving at target heart
rate, sacrificing skill development and cognitive knowledge growth, a better solution
to the time dilemma is to think of physical education as one component of an
extensive school-community partnership for physical activity.
School Wellness Programs are one mechanism to create diverse opportunities
to build improved nutrition and physical activity throughout the day for children
and adolescents. As part of the Child Nutrition and WIC Reauthorization Act of
2004, the U.S. Congress established the requirement that all school districts with
federally-funded school meals program develop and implement Wellness policies
that address nutrition and physical activity. Although the Act originally f^ocused
on school nutrition, school Wellness programs have grown to include safe paths to
walk to and from school, morning fitness programs, active recess, frequent physical
activity breaks, intramurals, and after-school sports.
In addition, socioecological frameworks (Elder, Lytle, Sallis, Rohm Young,
Steckler, Simons-Morton et al., 2007; Sallis, Cervero, Ascher, Henderson, Kraft,
& Kerr, 2006) expand this concept from a “whole-school” Wellness plan to design
school-community coalitions to promote improved opportunities for better nutrition
and increased physical activity. Within school-community partnerships, physical
education becomes one of several sites in which students participate in physical
activity. These enjoyable social environments and other community-based physical
activities sites, such as dance studios, skate-board parks, and family activity trails,
team with physical education to provide ample MVPA within each child’s day.
PE as PA
Currently, however, some school-based partnership models allocate all of the
instructional time available in physical education to public health oriented goals
associated with MVPA. In programs where physical education is limited to physical
activity, the primary goal is for students to workout, increasing heart rate and
buming calories (Castelli & Valley, 2007). PE as PA is short sighted. Students log
minutes without understanding the benefits and effects of physical activity on their
bodies and burn calories without comprehending the principle of caloric balance.
These long-term principles permit individuals to commit, control, and adapt their
physical activity to their changing lifestyles.
In some school-based partnership models, physical education teachers no
longer teach physical education. Instead, they become the school physical activity
coordinator, charged with running the school fitness program and supervising
after-school physical activities. Knowledge outcomes, formally assigned to physical
education, are allocated to health education, relegating fitness and health knowledge
to a textbook, and replacing dynamic lessons exploring the science of the human
body with simple games and exercise routines. In PE as PA, physical education
teachers are discouraged from teaching fundamental motor skills. Without motor
skill competence needed to maintain physical activity, redundant exercises, and
simple, frantic, but vigorous games lead to a mindless approach to physicality.
In addition, the sustainabiUty of the PE as PA model is threatened because noneducational
programs are incompatible with the educational goals of public schools. When
schools promote physical activity as the school mission, the organization is diverted
away from its primary educational mission to one of public health. Organizational
16 Ennis
resources tnust be transferred from educational to public health initiatives. Although
schools will temporarily modify schedules to accommodate PA initiatives when
intervention funding makes if feasible and cost-effective, most philosophically incompatible
innovations, such as PE as PA, are not sustained after funding is terminated.
Educational physical education that promotes motor skill competence and
knowledge growth can be sustained, however, when it integrates knowledge with
physical activity and contributes to the educational mission of schools. Educational
physical education that provides a balanced approach to educating the whole child
is consistent with the school’s educational mission. There are other barriers, bowever,
that limit opportunity for quality physical education programs to contribute
to lifelong physical activity. Of particular concem is the diversion of resources
away froni physical education to “tested” subjects. Instructional time, facilities,
equipment’, and staffing deficits limit both the curriculum offerings and the value
that others hold for physical education and physical activity. Teachers’ pride in
the quality of their work and tbeir students’ achievements diminishes if no one
seems to notice their hard work and dedicated efforts. State legislatures need to
hold schools districts and principals accountable for the quality of tbeir physical
education programs just as they do for mathematics and reading test scores.
Without legislative policies to hold school districts’ accountable for educational
goals, principals will continue to permit the physical education classroom
to be compromised. Principals and parents will permit students to “opt-out” of
physical education to participate in band and athletics. They will allow them to be
“pulled-oiit” of physical education to complete classroom tests or assignments. Not
surprisingly, in school districts that chose to build five new classrooms instead of
an elementary gymnasium, physical education is still conducted in crowded classrooms
during the winter months where students perform 1 min of jumping jacks
behind their desks before being told to sit down again. Schools with gymnasia also
have tales to tell when physical education is “thrown-out” of this facility because
of picture days, science fairs, pep rallies, and student government speeches. In
many schools, we are a long way f’rom making physical education a viable site for
leaming and physical activity.
The lcjng-term aim of promoting lifetime physical activity requires a far-sighted
plan in which schools and communities work in partnership to provide adequate
facilities, staffing, and equipment to teach students fundamental and complex motor
skills within diverse MVPA-friendly environments. Short sighted approaches to
physical education in which we forsake a balanced perspective in favor of tallying
MVPA minutes and calories, will not lead to more physically active adults. Quality
physical education teaching is not rocket science; it’s much harder! Designing
and conducting research to provide evidence for sound pedagogical practices,
link skillfulness, motivation, and cognition with physically active lifestyles, and
engage students in a quest for knowledge about the effects of exercise on their
bodies requires coordinated efforts by scientists and practitioners to build from
kinesioiogy to society.
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