When I was a kid, I thought the point of PE was having fun. That was until it was time for the Presidential Fitness Test. Then it was the week of doom. Nothing brought shame quite like a week-long test that evaluated speed, strength, and flexibility. They say comparison is the thief of joy, and I was never happy comparing my speed or hanging strength to others. Funny enough, these tests were designed to evaluate students for “military preparedness” more than evaluating fitness. While the Presidential Fitness Test was removed in 2013, the PACER test became a new method of torture. Are these fitness evaluations the best way to measure progress in our students?
What are we really trying to do with physical education classes? Is the goal of PE to learn the rules of basketball and baseball? Does every student need to be able to throw with perfect form? Should a student be able to meet a certain criterion of minimum fitness? The answer to all of these is yes, but they are not the goal of PE. These are all objectives that should be addressed in PE. However, suppose we are looking at the goal of a physical education program over the whole span of the student’s tenure in school. In that case, we must consider the wanted long-term behaviors generated from PE class. We should distinguish objectives from goals. We aim to accomplish objectives in a (block of) lesson(s). A goal is the culmination of knowledge and habits we hope to instill for lifelong physical activity and health.
The goal of math class is not to learn addition; this is just one objective. It is an essential objective from which lots of math progress, but it is not a goal. The goal of math class is to build a love for mathematics in its different forms. The goal of any class is to build interest and provide students with the framework to continue their pursuit. That framework is made up of achieving objectives in the class. This is no different in PE. Running is an essential objective for every student because so many other skills, games, and sports rely on the ability to run. However, that is not the goal. A goal PE in PE could be that a student love running and continues to do so life-long. It doesn't have to be running; many different movement modalities exist. We want to give the child as many potential possibilities as we can by exposing the child to as many different types of movement as possible. However, we do work towards mastering basic gross and fine motor movements.
“…in every child is the seed that will mature into an adult.”
I believe wholeheartedly in this quote. However, a seed is destined to be one type of plant. Maybe Dr. Montessori was making a statement about the role of fate in one’s life. However, I think she would have updated the metaphor if stem cell knowledge existed in her time. Within a stem cell is the tissue it will become. However, a stem cell can potentially be many different types of tissue. In comparison, the stem cell becomes what the body needs; the child manifests as a combination of their talent (nature) and education (nurture). An excellent education can leave a world of possibilities for the child to choose from, hopefully increasing the likelihood that they can find and pursue their life’s ambition.
On the other hand, a poor education closes the doors to future possibilities when the child loses interest in learning. Think of life’s infinite possibilities as a knowledge tree. When a child decides “they are not good at math or reading,” those self-imposed limitations eliminate all the possibilities that closed door. It is tragic to think that someone’s life calling cannot manifest itself because its road was prematurely sealed in childhood.
The same can be said for students who decide they are not athletic and exercise is not for them. They will only be able to enjoy the benefits of being fully healthy once they change their mind. Some argue they are intellectuals who do not need their physicality. They don’t need exercise because their focus is on the cerebral. They fail to realize that their brain is their body too. Consciousness is not separate from the biological tissue of the brain. When we see injury to the brain, we frequently see dramatic changes to the person’s identity. It’s like they have literally changed in front of our eyes. The classic example is Phineas Gage, who demonstrated how different parts of the brain control our personality. Loads of research show that exercise is good for cognition. If someone is a true “intellectual,” they would exercise to keep the brain organ healthy and optimize their thinking ability.
Suppose we are valuing the long term over the short term. In that case, we are looking to create adults that love moving their bodies and exercising in the modality they choose that promotes lifelong fitness. How do we do that in PE? Promote games and activities that spark the tinder of enjoyment for the non-compliant, and nurture the drive of those who naturally gravitate towards PE. We fully acknowledge that a child who is not physically gifted today can improve through hard work for tomorrow. We also meet physically gifted students where they are and continue to provide challenges that keep them interested. We teach the concept of sportsmanship to all our students so that they may have the complete Social and Emotional (SEL) toolkit available to them as they grow and mature.
Physical education is essential because it promotes good health, provides an invaluable opportunity to work on SEL skills, and opens the door to possible vocations. So how do we get everyone involved? Students who dislike gym are typically less physically gifted than some of their counterparts. This makes them hesitant to perform, especially if the game has direct competition. Playing games that don’t always have direct competition but are team-based against a goal or time can facilitate a way to involve every playing ability. Many times a student who is not as physically inclined may have other abilities that shine (in the classroom). A way to entice a student that loves learning in the classroom is to bring the classroom to PE. By integrating classroom topics into the PE environment, students who are hesitant to participate are more willing when they see how the game mirrors what they are learning in class. Everyone benefits from increased exposure to classroom vocabulary; many will experience increased critical thinking skills regarding the topic. For some students who are more kinesthetically inclined, this may be the most beneficial way of learning about a topic.
Physical education professionals (and some Montessori teachers) may ask, “What are we losing from traditional PE if we utilize an integrative model?” If this is a zero-sum scenario, then there will be trade-offs. What are we losing? If something new is implemented, it has to replace something else. The good news is that I don’t believe we have to make a compromise between the benefits of traditional PE and integrated PE. We are still practicing gross and fine motor movements. We are still learning about the human body and how it functions. We are still utilizing SEL and team-building concepts in the PE. We are still teaching the students about health and wellness. We are still utilizing concepts of sportsmanship.
I believe many of the Illinois state standards for PE would be better met by integrating the classroom curriculum. Instead of showing a diagram about the heart, what if the students played a kickball game where the base path was how the blood traveled through the heart’s chambers? We are playing kickball which uses lots of gross and fine motor movement patterns, and the students move through the diagram instead of just looking at it. For Montessori teachers, this is similar to how sandpaper letters teach how to make letters by physically tracing the letter with a finger and getting tactile feedback. Kinesthetic movement of a path produces better results for memorization of it. I don’t see a difference between a path made to create a letter or the path of blood through the heart and lungs.
So what are the downsides?
The person administrating the PE lessons must have a lot of knowledge about many subjects. This may be easy for a classroom teacher who has to teach PE because they are already expected to know all the curriculum. However, the Montessori classroom teacher needs to be comfortable and knowledgeable about basic gross and fine motor movements and be able to articulate them to the students. While this is a sweeping generalization, unfortunately, many Montessori teachers may have had poor experiences with PE in their childhood. This makes them resistant to wanting to teach PE. Over the years I have presented at conferences, I will take a quick poll of Montessorians and their PE experiences. The majority typically describe it as unfavorable. In reality, many classroom teachers don’t know the gross motor movements needed for many sports and games. I’m not saying that Montessori teachers are not physically fit or healthy. They simply need more expertise to teach the physical component of physical education.
This can also be very difficult for a PE teacher who has specialized in their craft and has less working knowledge in the other classroom subjects. A physical education teacher is not expected to know the full classroom curriculum. The classroom curriculum is meant for the classroom teacher to teach, right? However, the stark difference between PE and the classroom creates a schism where most students don’t see PE as a “legitimate” class and more like a second recess. However, an ambitious PE teacher willing to (re)learn classroom content to integrate with their games has the key to engaging their students more effectively. This is an incredibly tall order, and the work involved in doing it properly may be too demanding or daunting for most PE professionals to want to undertake.
It’s obvious which way I lean on the subject. I believe the integrated model is the superior method. I will fully acknowledge the years of work it has taken me to get to the point. There is also a lot of luck in my life to have the combined skill sets that allow me to do what I do. However, from research and years of experience, I genuinely believe there are too many positive outcomes to ignore the integrative PE model. I am leveraging that humans learn better and faster when playing. There is exciting research suggesting that learning through play reduces the repetitions needed to learn something. If that is the case, arguably, playing classroom concepts in PE class is potentially a more effective way of learning than in the classroom (at least for some). While that statement may seem blasphemous, it should help us realize that if we make learning fun, they may learn the concept faster and enjoy the process more. In PE, that means integrating classroom topics with games they love. This may increase students’ ability to persevere through work they don’t like by injecting fun and play into it. In the worst-case scenario, they are getting more repetition of classroom content. Everyone can agree that practice makes perfect, and practice requires repetition.
I have good news if the integrated PE model sounds interesting, but it also sounds like too much work. Hopefully, I have taken a lot of the creative work out of it for you. Your only job is to implement it. Please take a look at the free lesson examples in the free lessons section of the website. The complete volume series has over 125 lessons, more than enough to keep you busy for years. Don’t let the fear or doubt of not being able to create great integrated PE games stop you from implementing integrated PE. Trust the thousands of people who have downloaded lessons. I am confident those who try it will find it the best way to teach physical education.