My Physical Education Philosophy

            As a professional educator there are 5 main beliefs for what I do and for what I value in the field of physical education. These 5 main beliefs are respect, active participation, inclusion, lifetime activities, and healthy lifestyles.

            Respect is an important aspect of any part of life. Having respect for others is key to receiving respect from others. In physical education, respect if important because of the large amount of social interaction that takes place due to the amount of physical activity being performed. It is also important because of the wide variety of skill levels that are present in each class and the difference in personalities of each student. If students are respectful to each other on a constant basis, the chance that bullying will arise decreases dramatically and the environment that the students are participating in will be a very positive one for everyone. This is very important for student learning because if the learning environment is a positive one, then the students will focus on the learning, instead of the environment they are in.

            My next main belief that I have for physical education is participation. A lot of times, when people think of participation in physical education, it just means getting dressed to participate. When I use the term participation, it means not only to get dressed and ready for class, it also means that my students actively participate in whatever we are doing during class that day. It means working with other students, staying on task, and students doing their very best in whatever they are working on, among many other things. So it is not just participation, it is active participation.

            In order to get all of the students to participate and enjoy physical education, it is imperative that you have a way to reach all of your students and to be able to challenge them so that they can keep on succeeding and having fun. Inclusion in physical education is essential. This means being able to modify the activities that you have planned for class so that all of your students can be working on a skill that they need to practice all of the time. This is very important whenever you may have a student with a disability in your class. By being able to modify activities that your regular physical education class is doing, in most cases you will be able to include the student with a disability into that class. By being able to have something for students of all skill levels to do and work on during class, it keeps the students on task while also allowing them to succeed and progress from their current skill level. If you do not modify activities to include all students, then the students who either cannot perform a skill or are not able to be involved during class will get turned off and not want to actively participate at all.

            My last two beliefs go hand-in-hand. These beliefs are lifetime activities and healthy lifestyles. As physical education continues on with the new era of physical education, there is more of an emphasis on lifetime activities rather than just on the sports model of physical education. This is very important because now we are teaching our students skills and activities that they can use as they grow older and older and therefore they have the skills and tools necessary to live a long healthy life. Not many people play team sports such as baseball, football, and soccer for the rest of their lives because of the need for high cardiovascular conditioning or because of the high impact level of the sport. However, lifetime activities like golf, tennis, and swimming provide for low impact level activities that people of almost any age can take part in so that they can live an active lifestyle. Along with teaching students about activities for a lifetime, teaching them about the benefits of physical activity and why it is important to life a healthy lifestyle is also essential in physical education. As a physical educator, my goal is to leave a lasting impression on my students so that they will actually take the tools and skills that they have learned and put them into action for the rest of their life, instead of just participating in physical education and not expanding what they have learned into their own lives.