The goal of physical education is to give students the skills to be physically active and healthy for a lifetime. This is the top of the mountain. To get to the top of the mountain, the students need certain tools. In my opinion, the most important tools that the students can have are a knowledge of how exercise and a healthy diet affects their health, the ability to sift through all of the fitness information available, and activities that they enjoy doing that they can participate in for a lifetime.
In physical education, as in any branch of education, knowledge is power. If students are to remain healthy for a lifetime, they will undoubtedly need to know how to do it. By teaching them about such topics as heart rate, a proper diet, the recommended daily amounts of exercise, and other topics related to exercise, I hope to give them this knowledge.
The ability to sift through current information to find out what is right is basically critical thinking. I firmly believe that students should be taught how to think critically in every class. Scan through the television channels on a Saturday morning and take a look at how many different exercise programs, fitness machines, and health supplements are being advertised. While some of these actually do what they are advertised to, many of them could be considered “crockery.” I want my students to know how to determine whether the information they are presented with is valid or not and whether it is right for them, personally.
Lastly, I think it is very important that I expose my students to as wide a range of physical activities as possible. People’s likes and dislikes vary greatly, and it is not my right to limit a student’s potential for staying active by only introducing them to activities which I enjoy or which are the traditional activities. While this method may give the students less time in each unit, I believe that it will give me a better chance to give more students activities which they can enjoy for a lifetime.