i think we need to ensure exercise is fun so that kids want to take part. im not sure they are bothered about any other of the good effects exercise delivers

thanks
Sam
Pay Monthly Store

This was an amazing video. Fitness for life is what PE needs to be focused on. Where I teach I always get questions like, when are you going to do kickball in PE. I always answer with, "when was the last time you played kickball." They usually say, "back when I was in elementary school;" exactly. Why do things in PE that won't help the kids outside of school? I am into activities that can be used outside the school. Great video!
Gary

This is fantastic! I think what many people, including anonymous, forget is that Physical Education is not a gym where it is our job to get kids into great shape. That is not possible with the amount of time we see students. We are teaching students how to be physically active for a lifetime; Introducing students to a variety of activities that they can do once they are out of school. While we want to be active in our classes and get them up and moving and we do a variety of cardio activities, it is also important to teach the other aspects of physical activity such as recreational activities that may turn students on to being active adults. We also teach current trends in technology so students have the tools needed to stay active in their world. We are teaching for the future not just for today!

I just love (not really) how my kids no longer value play because it is not exercise. No better way to get kids to stay on the couch!
And Fitness Phil; we see the same benefits from kids who are physically active. And we see that kids who are forced into fitness activities rather than just enjoyable physical activity have what you may call negative or harmful brain chemistry issues. Yes fit kids have good brain chemistry but so do unfit kids that are physically active.
The kids that are not fit and are in a fitness based program (not a physical activity based program) experience a negative brain chemistry imbalance that negatively affects behavior and learning. In fact when it comes to learning as well as quality of life, doing the physical activities you enjoy on a daily basis is more important than being fit. Fitness, Physical Activity and Play are three very different things that all have their place and are all important at some level. Physical education should be about Physical activity and learning not fitness or play.

Good job in the video all but the fitness personal training stuff.

Developmental Neurologist

I would not call this new PE as we have been doing these things for many years. But once the video got past the same old technology (heart monitors and pocket PC's only used to make the teachers job easier, not to teach!) and even older fitness based 1950's PE I thought the video was really good.

The technology applications that I saw were not ways that I would like to see my tax dollars spent. After all we are teachers and we should be educating individually not personal training (personal training for now educating for life). I am not sure from the video that the kids are learning from the heart monitors. It looks like they were just keeping assessment data. After all how much can my child learn from a heart rate monitor? If you move your heart beats faster (can do that without the monitor). There is a target range that you should try to be in. (Can teach that without it as well). Heart rate can change over long periods of time with exercise as you improve cardio capacity. (Don't need monitors for that either). What did spending all of that money teach the kids that could not have been taught otherwise? Maybe there is something but I can't see it.

The Pocket PC is even worse what did the kids learn from the pocket PC? Here is a great tool that can be used in stations as a question and response center or as a video demonstration tool, or as a learning assessment tool and many, many other things where kids learn using the pocket PC yet it was just used as a data collection device just like the old clip board. If we spend $5000 of my tax money I want to see $5000 of improved learning!

I would be very interested to see if the program actually works. Are the kids more physically active outside of school and after they graduate even into adulthood? They seem to have the enjoyment focus but I am not sure about the self-efficacy (learning and confidence in their skill agility to produce a desired effect) that is required to impact lifelong change in physical activity habits.

PE as a profession needs to decide what they are going to hang their hat on. Since the 50's (Eisenhower) it has been fitness and kids kept getting less fit ever since. PE should have been cut. If PE is going to be about increasing physical activity habits and physical activity for a lifetime then we should be assessing it and if we do not improve those things then we should be cut. After all you can get kids as fit as you want to in PE (which we all know in the real world you cannot) but if they are not being active outside of school that fitness level will soon fade away once they hit the couch and PE class is no longer there.

Good focus on Enjoyment and opportunities for adventure! I loved the connection between pe activities and physics classes and so on! Keep that up; we often forget that we are academic! As teachers it is our job to impact academic learning and the life lessons should be found in every lesson not just adventure lessons designed to teach them alone.

its important we make exercise enjoyable for those who arent sporty, so i like the ideas in the video
Kris
Personal Trainer