PHYSICAL EDUCATION PEDAGOGY
Introduction
Education main objectives are to bring changes and notable developments to the people who have gone through the system. The aim of physical education in the curriculum is to ensure that the student under the programme undergoes physical development during the studies. The benefits accrued to this education approach are; improved student health- due to this approach the students engage in exercises which have health benefits to the student. The student can engage in healthy living practices and thus avoiding some lifestyle diseases caused by lack of physical exercise. Studies have asserted that exercises help reduce health hazards with practice considered to reduce health issues such as obesity. Self-responsibility, on the other hand, is developed on individuals who under the physical education training making them aware of the benefits accrued and instilling the exercise behaviour in them. The approach also enables the students to understand their skills and talent which they may not have noticed prior the exposure to the education program. Due to this, therefore, physical education can be seen to transform lives by giving students an avenue to exploit their potential in different sections of life. Physical education develops the student wholly affecting even his/her social interaction with others. The approach is used to develop the student way of thinking and perceiving issues affecting them and the overall society.
The education programme also should go hand in hand with reducing social problems suffered by the society. The curriculum designed should be solution based to ensure that the knowledge acquired helps the society solve their daily problems.
Exclusion and equity in physical education.
Exclusion in the field of physical education arises when the instructor discriminates on the poorly skilled students and prefers to train the students who appear to be more adaptive to the training to the others. The isolation, in this case, is based on physical characteristics such as body weight- under this, the students with high body weight and considered to be unfit for the training. Some training is considered to fit one gender more as compared to the other gender. For this reason, therefore, one gender is considered superior to the other gender and thus preferred to undergo the physical training to the other gender. The female gender suffers much discrimination and exclusion when it comes to engagement in physical education programs. The minority group are also times considered inferior to the other social groups due to this these groups are isolated from the rest of the social practices as well as the physical education programs. Some communities‘ posses the physical characteristics which enable them to fit in some programs effectively. These physical characteristics include a student who poses masculine bodies being considered for some games such as American football and basketball. These games require these muscles on the part of the participants and therefore, the physical education trainers may tend to exclude the students who lack these physical characteristics.
The disabled are also considered inferior to participate in the program; this is because some of these exercises are extreme and therefore may require some physical characteristics which the disabled student may not poses. Ethnicity also plays a part in facilitating exclusion from the program, due to this. Therefore, the ethnic groups with low social representation are excluded from these programs. Bullying also plays a great role in ensuring that the groups with lower social representation consider themselves unfit for the program despite the criteria for exclusion whether justified or unjustified the practice should be highly discouraged. Exclusion lowers the self-esteem of the excluded group affecting not only their physical fitness but also social interactions within the society. The disabled students for instances need to be given the chance to also grow and develop their skills. In many instances, this category of people has defiled all odds and ending up creating or achieving so much which others in the society considered to be impossible for them. Equality, therefore, should be the guiding policy for all the education stakeholders and understands that all kids have their unique abilities and thus require the avenue to showcase their abilities as well as develop those abilities.
The education program should not be used as the basis to bring social problems should instead offer solutions to the problems. The students should be given similar treatment and platform to develop themselves. By denying these students this opportunity their right to quality education is affected since they are entitled to receiving a quality education. Due to the exclusion, the physical education is seen to lose the purpose as to why it was introduced and thus scholars argue that it has failed to meet the objective of its existence in the education sector. The exclusion leads to the education sector providing the society with half backed students who have not fully benefited from the education process.
Critical pedagogy idea
The critical pedagogy idea is a concept based on critical and logical reasoning; this approach is aimed at developing the student’s skills in tackling the unrealistic beliefs and prejudice affecting the society at large. The students, in this case, are the solution to the prejudice and the ill-informed dominating beliefs within the society set up. The whole society seems to be guided by these beliefs without considering the implications of these beliefs especially to those that the odds operate against. Evans et al. (2008) consider the prejudice about obesity about physical education. Many in different avenues of this life relate obesity and heavyweight to lack of exercises on the part of the victim. When it comes to the training, this becomes the basis for exclusion for these students since they are considered unfit for these exercise by lacking the required physical characteristics.
Critical pedagogy advocates for democracy and social justice in maters education. Through this approach, the teaching approach should bring up learning experiences which awaken the learner into understanding the need for social justice for the whole society involved. Through this approach in the education sector, the learner is empowered to criticise social beliefs and create logical solutions for the society to embrace. The approach however serious induction process for the students, this is because the approach is aimed at developing and changing the mentality of the student. Through this approach, the students are considered to be the solution, and thus their subjectivity must be eliminated. The students, therefore, must stop perceiving themselves based on other people perspective but instead act as the objects for the so much desired change.
Changing the ill-informed beliefs and dominations in the sector of physical education is essential. The sector has been dominated with beliefs which have been discouraging the young youths from engaging in these programs — the problem, in this case, is not only the student’s mindset but also the teacher training these students. The teachers, for instance, exclude students which they think don’t fit to engage in certain practices. As a result, these students are denied the sole opportunity to grow and advance their careers in that sector. The society set up, for example, the paramedics as noted by Evans et al. (2008) seem to support these beliefs which end up causing social injustice to the student and affecting the effectiveness of physical education in the education sector. The exclusions make the students have negativity about their abilities and thus agree with the rest of the society that they cannot be able to deliver on the sector. Among other issues in which critical pedagogy concept should be employed is on the discrimination by certain abilities. The students should be given the avenue to decide on issues which they consider actionable and those that they consider unattainable. The teachers, therefore, should not decide for their students what they can achieve and what they cannot achieve. The goals for physical education need to be guided and based on the ideology of enhancing social justice among all the students.
The concept of critical pedagogy needs to be included to answer questions such as what is currently being done on the physical education sector and why. Understanding the why aspect of the program will act as the performance criteria in identifying whether the goal is being met or not. Through this approach, therefore, the society will be able to rethink their approach and redesign it to match the performance desires of the education stakeholders. The approach entails making the student the centre point of the entire program since its aimed at developing them but not at separating them by discrimination and exclusion.
The current focus on the performance of physical education.
Physical education has currently not met the performance expectations expected by different stakeholders. The social set up has highly affected how the teachers and other players in the program carry out their duties. Teachers or trainers on their part have been corrupted by societal beliefs on the abilities and disabilities of some students. Due to this, therefore, cases of favouritism and exclusion has been rampant in the area of physical education. These exclusions thus have affected the programs ability to meet its performance expectations of ensuring physical development and advancement of the students’ physical fitness.
The main hindrance to the achievement of the programs operational efficiency is the social injustices witnessed in the education. Lack of equal social representation and merging the current physical education curriculum with the critical pedagogy ideology has also made teachers and tutors the sole determinants of the student progress in the physical fitness aspects. When the teacher or the tutor perception towards a given student status or condition is on the negative and on the belief that the student is not fit for the task, then it becomes so, and students are denied exposure opportunities.
Physical Education for all.
The current performance may continue to be witnessed in the sector if urgent progressive reforms are not undertaken (Kirk 2010). Kirks notes that the issues suffered by the sector are all-inclusive and therefore takes the problems to belong to all. The scholar notes that the educators involved in the sector of physical education are poorly trained to achieve the required results. Therefore, these trainers need to be retained on how to undertake their duties going forward. Another sector noted by the scholar to be facilitating unfavourable results to the curriculum is the social and cultural setup of the environment on which the programs are offered. The physical culture needs to be aligned with the school physical education set up. Through this, therefore, the culture will and physical education will be supportive of each other, thus facilitating the acceptability of the idea among the locals as well as the students. In justifying the concept that physical education is for all Kirk explains the future of the concept if the stakeholders do not take up the matter seriously. Kirk notes that the study is about to face extinction from the curriculum, failure to define its existence purpose puts the curriculum at jeopardy as it may face extinction. The stakeholders, therefore, ought to redefine the purpose of the study for it to grow progressively.
Section 2
How things have been done differently.
Changes are essential in ensuring that physical education goals are met by and for all the stakeholders to benefit. Due to this, therefore, different stakeholders have started playing their part from a different approach to ensure that the required changes are enforced for the effectiveness of the PE program in the entire education sector. Policies have been enforced to ensure inclusion of all in the system and avoid instances of exclusion noted in the past. In England for instance, the national curriculum for physical education standards body enforced a law to ensure that the minority groups, as well as the disabled, were not being neglected upon during physical education training. The inclusion concept ensures that all the students have better chances to advance their physical fitness despite their status.
Redefining of the curriculum objectives also has helped all the stakeholders realise where the deviations from the expected performance were arising from. The criteria used to exclude the most important stakeholders from engaging in physical education, the students, in this case, ought to be eliminated to ensure that the performance expectations are met. Another approach which has changed the curriculum of physical education is the introduction of critical pedagogy approach in the education sector. Through this approach, the students are not the subject but rather the object for a change. The approach is designed to ensure that the students are wholly developed by first changing their perception on matters of physical education. The approach is effective since it will enable the students to have an inner motive driving them into acquiring the desired skills through physical education. Under this approach, the student becomes the dictators of the skills they want to be imparted to them by the trainer and therefore guiding the trainer in designing of the effective curriculum for the student.
Digital pedagogies
Technological advancement has impacted every aspect of live and physical fitness has not been left out. The acceptance of the technology in physical education training has eased the training for the trainer. The students can even train themselves individually through following instruction from online sources. Through online platforms, the students can be able to relate their classroom learning with training from other source enabling them to not only have more knowledge but also compare the understanding and arguments of different trainers.
The online platform also acts as a source of information for the trainer enabling them to expand their knowledge base and thus improving the effectiveness of their training sessions. Through the digital platforms, the students can follow up with their mentors and acquire more motivation. Some of the successful athletes are self-made who developed their skills through the online platform. Understanding this on the part of the students enables them to realise that they can also achieve their goals with persistent and commitment to physical education.
The future of physical education is on the ability of the coaches and trainers to incorporate the technology aspect of their training. Through this, the coaches will have given their student an avenue to interact with other successful athletes, and this will act as a motivation. The physically challenged students also require motivation from their coaches to be able to believe in themselves. Allowing them to watch the stories other successful athletes with the similar challenge will also motivate them to undertake the training with much optimism.
Discrimination on any basis should be discouraged during the training practices. Under this, therefore, the student’s self-esteem has to be developed for them to believe in their untapped potential and eventually work into actualising their life goal. Through this, therefore, the goals and objectives of the physical education curriculum will be realised.
References
Renshaw, I. and Chow, J.Y., 2018. A constraint-led approach to sport and physical education pedagogy. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, pp.1-14.
Tinning, R., 2018. Critical pedagogy in physical education as advocacy and action: A reflective account. In Critical Research in Sport, Health and Physical Education (pp. 103-115). Routledge.