What is the first thing a physical education teacher should do at the beginning of the year?
Talk to your classroom teachers.
“Why? I am a physical education teacher and I have my own classroom, whether it be the gym or outside.”
While it is true that you have your own classroom, what is also true is that physical education is a co-curricular.
““Co-curricular refers to activities, programs, and learning experiences that complement, in some way, what students are learning in school—i.e., experiences that are connected to or mirror the academic curriculum.” ”
This means that while we have our own classroom, we should not act as an independent entity from the academic classroom. We have our own goals and objectives, such as teaching gross and fine motor movement and Social and Emotional skills. However, a co-curricular complements and connects to the academic curriculum. In most cases, physical education is taught as an extracurricular.
““An extracurricular activity may be offered or coordinated by a school, but may not explicitly connected to academic learning.””
Physical Education is a co-curricular
Physical Education is a non-negotiable integral part of the school curriculum because it supports the main curriculum by providing experiences the classroom cannot. Classrooms are typically much smaller than gym settings, indoor or outdoor. Having more space than a classroom is conducive to movement, and students learn better when they move.
““Physical movement supports long-term memory and recall because it has been associated in the human brain with survival. This has been supported by brain imaging studies.””
Kinesthetic learners may learn better in a gym than in a traditional classroom. Games and simulations provide rich learning environments that require critical thinking. Integrated games provide vocabulary and concept repetition; when the experience is fun, less repetition is needed for internalization. Sport provides a unique lens into society by reflecting its values, but only when that motive is intentional by the teacher. All these benefits are only valid if physical Education acts as a co-curricular by integrating with the classroom curriculum.
Why PE Should not be treated as an extracurricular
When our PE program does not integrate with the classroom curriculum in some way, we have made our PE program an extracurricular. This may be one of the reasons schools use when they must cut programs for budgetary reasons. Extracurriculars are always on the chopping block when money is tight. As a physical education teacher, you know PE is not expendable. However, if your PE program looks utterly different from the main classroom curriculum in the eyes of the administration or school boards, the differences may outweigh the benefits. Suppose the administration observes a PE class where all they see are kids playing silly games. In that case, they will focus on something other than the fun the students are having, the exercise kids are getting, or the gross motor movement learning. They will only see that PE looks like recess, and the kids already have recess. However, suppose they see PE acting as co-curricular by supporting the main curriculum through integrating topics from the classroom. That will prove that the PE classroom is integral to the overall academic curriculum. When the students learn a concept like photosynthesis in PE through a game and retain the information as good or better than reading about it in a classroom, the importance of PE as a co-curricular is undeniable.
Bibliography:
Glossary of Education Reform - https://www.edglossary.org/co-curricular/
Movement in Learning -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_in_learning#:~:text=Physical%20movement%20stimulates%20long%2Dterm,supported%20by%20brain%20imaging%20studies.