Questions for thought...

1. The purpose of schools is… to educate and shape young minds and bodies. Not only should students go to school for an education to help them further in life, but they should also be exposed to learning ethics, morals, and lifelong lessons to shape them as young adults. Students should also learn how to take care of their health independently, including diet and exercise.

2. Faculty and staff in schools should…put students first. Faculty and staff must be caring and enthusiastic about their students, not only in their academic lives, but in social, emotional, and physical well being.

3. Curriculum should…..consider students individual needs, such as learning styles, age, culture, and ability. The curriculum should wholly educate the students in a verity of subjects.

4. Instructional approaches must…be diverse to accommodate a verity of learning styles. They also must be fresh, interesting, and every changing to keep student interest.

5. School leaders…. must be good examples. School leaders must be positive role models and set good examples for students to strive towards.

6. The ideal school includes…a sense of community. The school should function as a unit, with everyone having respect for themselves and others and they all strive for the same goal of success in the school.

7. Parents and communities need to…become involved in the school. Parents need to help foster growth in their children outside of the classroom. Communities should offer programs to better student learning in the hours they are outside of school.

8. The major problems facing education today are…funding and lack of motivation, both in educators and students. School with poor funding have trouble implementing programs that are effective, and tend to have students who do worse within the environment. Students in public schools have less resources to become successful, and their lack of success may have a negative effect on the teachers. Some educators give up on their students if they show no improvement or drive to succeed, while they really should be finding ways to help these students become successful.

9. What is physical education about? Physical Education is about educating students on their body, the benefits of exercise, nutrition, and life long fitness. Physical Education is unique in its ability to integrate almost any subject matter into an activity within the gym. Here you may combine student learning with kinesthetic movement. Physical Education is used to teach students new skills involved in sport, and to understand lifetime fitness which can be used in the community and throughout the students lifetime.

10. What does it mean to be “physically educated”? A physically educated person should learn skills needed to perform a verity of physical activities. A physically educated person is physically fit and participates in daily activity. A physically educated person values the benefits of physical education.

11. What is the role of the field in society? Currently in society physical education isn't exactly looked at as a profession. There must be a lot of work to push for a better reputation for Physical Educators in society. Our job is important, and vital to the success of America. With the rates of childhood obesity increasing,  physical education needs to be pushed for and students must become active.

12. The ideal physical education program would……keep kids interested day in and day out. An ideal program would get all children involved and active each day. This program should have a wide verity of activities including sport, recreation and lifetime activities.

13. What is athletics about?  What is its purpose? Athletics is about competing an physical activity in a controlled, recorded settings outside of the school day. It is a commitment to a team, the coach and its team members. Personally I think the purpose of athletics is to build character and learn life lessons through the use of sport.

14. The role of the coach is to…..A coach should be able to teach his/her players the core values of respect, loyalty, friendship, support, and compassion. Although a sport should strive towards physical excellence, it should also include building students roles in the community and as young adults.

Bullying In Education

Tonight in my night class we discussed the recent events of bullying in school. These events have been widely publicized in the media, yet even before they were given public attention, bullying has occurred all over our country for years. My professor, Ralph Hesse opened with this video...

The fact that these young boys were bullied to their death breaks my heart. The most concerning thing Ive found after watching this video is that even when parents and students reported this bullying to the school, nothing was done. This was an ongoing discussion in our class about what is considered bullying, and why does it go unnoticed? Why do teachers often under-estimate the rate of bullying at their schools? We came up with some answers to these questions. Bullying usually occurs in a place where teachers do not have supervision; such as in the bathroom, locker room, during recess, in the hallways, and on the walks home. Often teachers may turn a blind eye, or simply not notice certain ways of bullying, and that is how things get so out of hand. Also many schools within the state and the country don't have specific plans to deal with reports of bullying.

My professor then showed us this video of a school in Norway that has a phenomenal anti-bullying program at their school. If schools in the United States could take a page from Norway's book, we may be on our way to building better school systems, and more well rounded students.


To view this video click here. The program implemented in Norway is pretty amazing. Developing a sense of community within their schools has had an positive effect on their schooling. There is almost no bullying and when there are instances they are dealt with immediately and with seriousness.