K-12 Health/PE Philosophy / Rationale / Beliefs
Philosophy, Rationale, Beliefs

Health and Physical Education K-12

Philosophy

Physical education has the potential to provide students with a variety of benefits including positive social interaction,
mental challenge, and activity and fitness enhancement.

-Grant M. Hill, California State University, and Brian Cleven, Long Beach Unified School District

Health and physical education are critical components of a well-rounded approach to preparing students to live healthy, productive lives. The MRH Health and Physical Education (HPE) curriculum focuses on creating an environment where students choose to be active and where they are provided with the opportunity to build the attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed to be healthy adults.

The MRH HPE curriculum steps away from traditional teaching approaches focused on competitive sports and focuses on supporting every student in becoming an athlete...someone with a lifelong commitment to being physically active. The curriculum helps students approach life with an athletic sense of purpose, power, and possibility. It focuses on a more inclusive approach involving proven instructional strategies, such as cooperative learning and critical thinking. Research indicates that when students are encouraged to take an active role in their learning and are provided with opportunities to make choices about their health and physical activity, they are more motivated to continue making healthy choices throughout their lives.

The courses, units, lessons, and activities included in the MRH HPE curriculum are designed to provide a high-quality program that

delivers health-oriented content,
includes standards-based assessment,
provides more than 50% of class time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity,
differentiates what students need by monitoring their growth through a variety of skill and fitness tests, including heart rate or step counts, and
addresses motor competence and self-efficacy.

A lifestyle characterized by moderate physical activity on a regular basis is important to the health and well being of adults. Research indicates that 60% of children 9-13 do not participate in any physical activity outside of the school day, putting them at risk for a number of health risks. With 95% of 17 year olds in the US enrolled in school, quality health and physical education is simply the most cost-effective way to reach all children to combat childhood obesity and establish lifetime habits for healthy living. Getting kids moving at school takes creativity and collaboration. In addition to Health and Physical Education classes, the program includes a variety of options at each grade level to provide choice and opportunity for students to be active. Depending on the grade level, students can choose to participate in activity period intramurals, lunch drop-in programs, structured and unstructured recesses, weight and cardio rooms, pedometer challenges, before and after school clubs, summer programs, and open gym times to enhance and increase the opportunities available for students to be active while at school.

Health units focus on impacting overall health in a positive way through physical, mental, and social well-being. During each one- or two-year key stage, students study topics related to body systems, safety, relationships, mental health, fitness, sexuality, and nutrition. Whenever possible, the health instructor collaborates with other staff and community members. For example, nutrition units integrate the garden programs in each building. Units focused on relationships and mental health are coordinated with the counselors. Community experts, such as firefighters often teach components of safety units, such as CPR training.

Physical Education units are also organized by key stage. Units are designed to build on prior knowledge, as well as to help students improve motor skills, develop social skills, function as effective team members, take control of their learning process, give and receive feedback, and become responsible individuals. Students are encouraged to consider the relevance of available information, use that evidence to make reasoned judgments, and apply what they know to physical actions.

Health and physical education classrooms are characterized by the following:

Students are actively engaged in small, fluid groups. Groups are flexible and change frequently.
Students clarify their thinking through reading. Teachers include highly structured and interactive activities using discussion, writing, and drawing to help students engage with, understand, and apply the reading that they do regarding health and physical education.
Students use representation to learn, including writing, drawing, sketching, jotting, mapping, and other artistic, graphic, and physical representations. Representation is both a tool for thinking, as well as a finished product.
Students participate in classroom workshops. Workshops include choice about activities, a balance between individual and social learning activities, and detailed training for students to work purposefully.
Activities are authentic and include tangible, genuine, real-world experiences.
Assessment is reflective and focused on growth and personal improvement. Assessments gather practical information about what students are learning and are used to guide instruction and help students set goals.
Units are integrated. Content is organized around big topics and ideas that make sense to students.

Rationale

Healthier students are better learners.

-Charles E. Basch, Columbia University

The need for quality health and physical education programs in schools has never been greater. The American Heart Association has identified physical inactivity as one of five primary risk factors for cardiovascular disease. We are in the midst of a global epidemic of childhood obesity and related diseases. Sick care expenses associated with obesity are estimated to cost tax-payers over $100 billion per year which amounts to about 8% of the national health care budget. The Centers for Disease Control reports that roughly, 25% of children participate in no physical activity outside of school.

The 1996 Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health reported that physical activity reduces the risk of premature mortality in general, and coronary heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, and diabetes mellitus specifically. Maintaining a moderately active lifestyle will reduce the risk of disease among adults, but despite this evidence, physical activity begins to decline during adolescence and continues to decline throughout adulthood.

With over 95% of children attending, schools are the best and most cost-effective place to impact young people’s behavior. Schools can make the difference between a lifetime of health and a lifetime of chronic health issues. Providing high quality health and physical education:

Improves physical health.
Enhances mental health.
Improves academic performance.
Reaches at-risk students.
Reduces medical costs.

Recent studies in many fields overwhelmingly support the positive benefits of high quality health and physical education. The following list includes highlights from some of these studies.

Impacts on Health

Programs that promote physical exercise during leisure time among high school students appear have a positive impact and provide one means of achieving the goal of lifetime physical activity. (Hortz)

A Rand Corporation study based on long-term US Department of Education data found that the prevalence of obesity and overweight among girls fell 10% in schools that gave first-graders one hour more of exercise time per week than they gave to kindergartners. Based on their findings, these researchers estimate that giving kindergartners at lease five hours of physical education time per week, the amount recommended by the federal government, could potentially reduce the prevalence of obesity and overweight among girls by 43%. (PE4life)

Areas of the brain involved in learning, such as the hippocampus, experience changes, such as increased brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), production of new neurons, and increased number and quality of inter-synaptic connections between neurons, as well as overall brain growth as a result of exercise. (Cotman and Engesser-Cesar in Berg)

Bouts of physical activity act in a way similar to psycho-stimulant drugs by facilitating attention. The affect appears to stimulate learning by raising the energy level and improving the ability to focus on a learning task. (Tomporowski in Berg)

Childhood physical activity has the potential to continue into adulthood, thus improving the quality of life and limiting the prevalence of risk factors related to serious diseases in later life. (Janz, Dawson, and Mahoney in Castelli and Beighle)

Workers who took an aerobics class, lifted weights, or practiced yoga for 30-60 minutes during lunchtime interacted more appropriately with colleagues, managed their time more effectively, and met deadlines. Other studies show that employees who exercise regularly have fewer sick days. (Ratey)

Impacts on Academic Performance

In CA in 2001 fit children scored twice as well on academic tests as their unfit peers. The following year, socio-economic level was factored in and within the lower-income students (who overall scored lower than their higher income peers) those who were fit scored better than those who were unfit. (CA Dept. of Ed using Fitness Gram & Stanford Achievement Test in Ratey)

An increase in the amount of time dedicated to physical health-based activities (such as physical education) is not accompanied by a decline in academic performance. Daily quality physical education appears to increase the rate of learning and is positively related to academic achievement. (Hillman, Erickson, and Kramer; Berg)

Physical activity is a useful means of treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depression, fatigue, and stress. It may improve the emotional state of students and consequently facilitate learning. (Berg; Ratey)

Just 20 minutes of walking before a test raised children’s scores, even if the children were otherwise unfit or overweight (Reynolds)

School attendance patterns are highest among students who meet all fitness standards. School-based physical activity programs may improve attendance by reducing obesity, which has been associated with absenteeism. (Ratey; Basch)

Complex motor activities may be especially advantageous for brain development and cognitive function. (Berg)

Fit children have significantly larger basal ganglia, a key part of the brain that aids in maintaining attention and “executive control,” or the ability to coordinate actions and thoughts crisply. (New York Times)

Exercise may enhance neuro-cognition in young people. In a study of 9- and 10-year olds, the portion of the brain that controls complex memory, the hippocampus, was larger in fit children. (New York Times; Berg)

The research makes a compelling argument that physical activity and healthy decision-making are critical components of an effective learning environment. Healthy students make better learners. And, better learners make healthy communities. The MRH Health and Physical Education curriculum is designed to serve the whole child by integrating physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and moral systems. The program is designed to broaden the definition of athlete. While the term athlete is generally used to refer to those who compete in sports, the goal in MRH is to help every student see him/herself as an athlete who makes a life-long commitment to implement healthy decisions and physical activity in everyday life.

Beliefs

We are who we are because of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

-Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon

In her book, We Are All Athletes, Mariah Burton Nelson talks about the power of story. If you see yourself as an athlete, you begin to have experiences that reinforce that identity. She redefines the term athlete to mean more than just someone who competes in sports. An athlete is someone who makes a lifelong commitment to implementing athletic essentials in everyday life. The MRH Health and Physical Education curriculum is designed to help students see themselves as athletes and include physical fitness and health as a major part of the stories they tell about themselves. The program is based on the overarching belief that what is good for the body is good for the brain.

Toward that end, the program is based the following beliefs and principles.

Healthy students make better learners.

Sports and exercise are not the same. The goal is to teach fitness and encourage students to approach life with an athletic sense of purpose. While sports have an important role in the lives of many students; athletics and fitness are about making a life-long commitment to a healthy, active lifestyle for everyone.

Daily activity is essential to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Classes are planned to provide moderate to vigorous activity for students more than 50% of the time. In addition to classes, it is critical to look for a variety of ways throughout the day, including both structured and unstructured activities, to encourage students to be active.

Choice is critical. Students need opportunities to experience a wide variety of fitness, sport, leisure, and adventure activities so that they find ones that they will enjoy for life.

Students learn more and take greater risks in a safe and encouraging learning environment. Health and physical education focus more on personal best and improvement and less on competition.

Effective health and physical education classes provide experiential, hands-on learning activities. Students are actively doing, talking, and collaborating.

Health and physical education teachers teach, coach, demonstrate, and model concepts and skills in their classes. They support students in goal-setting. They monitor progress and evaluate students’ growth.

Health and physical education courses are organized around deeper study of a few big ideas.

Higher-order thinking is emphasized to ensure that students learn key concepts and principles in health and physical education.

Students are responsible for their work. They set goals, keep records, monitor their progress, share their work, exhibit their work, and evaluate themselves.

Health and physical education are cooperative and collaborative. Students learn with and from one another.

Differing student needs are met in individualized activities and through the use of tools, such as heart monitors.

Scaffolding and support is provided for students who struggle, while rigorous expectations are held for all students. It is not okay to opt out of health or physical education.

Teachers, parents, and administrators cooperate with one another to provide an optimal health and physical education learning environment.

Evaluations are descriptive and focused on student growth. They include observation, anecdotal records, conference notes, and performance assessments.

Teachers and students make use of technology to enhance the learning environment.

Resources

Basch, C. E. (2010). Healthier students are better learners: A missing link in school reforms to close the achievement gap. Equity Matters: Research Review (6), Teachers College, Columbia University.

Berg, K. (2010). Justifying physical education based on neuroscience evidence. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 81 (3), 24-30.

Castelli, D. M. (2010). Physical activity in schools: Pedagogical and programming perspectives. Presentation made at 12^th Annual Obesity Conference, University of Kansas Center for Physical Activity and Weight Management, Overland Park, KS.

Castelli, D. M. and Beighle, A. (2007). The physical education teacher as school activity director. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 78 (5), 25-28.

Constantinou, P. (2010). Keeping the excitement alive: tchoukball and cooperative learning. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 81 (3), 30-35.

Hill, G. M., and Cleven, B. (2005). A comparison of students’ choices of 9^th grade physical education activities by ethnicity. The High School Journal, December, 16-23.

Hillman, C. H., Erickson, K. I., and Kramer, A. F. (2008). Be smart, exercise your heart: Exercise effects on brain and cognition. Nature, 9, 58-65.

Hortz, B., and Petosa, R. (2006). Impact of the “Planning to be active” leisure time physical exercise program on rural high school students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39, 530-535.

Lonsdale, C., Sabiston, C. M., Raedeke, T. D., Ha, A. S. C., Sum, R. K. W. (2009), Self-determined motivation and students’ physical activity during structured physical education lessons and free choice periods. Journal of Preventive Medicine, 48, 69-73.

Lodewyk, K. R. (2009). Fostering critical thinking in physical education students. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, 80 (8), 12-18.

Madigan, J. B. Action based learning: Building better brains through movement. Action Based Learning, online paper.

Nelson, M. B. (2004). We are all athletes: Bringing courage, confidence, and peak performance into our everyday lives. Dare Press: Arlington, VA.

PE4life: Developing and promoting quality physical education (2007). Human Kinetics: Champagne, IL.

Ratey, J. J. (2008). Spark: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. Little, Brown: New York, NY.

Reynolds, G. (2010). Phys ed: Can exercise make kids smarter? New York Times, September 15.

US Department of Health and Human Services. Health-risk behaviors and academic achievement. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Zemelman, S., Daniels, H., and Hyde, A. (2005). Best practice: Today’s standards for teaching and learning in America’s schools. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

MRHSD_mi%20copy.png