ALL MEANS ALL!

 

Everyone should have the right to participate in weekly Health & Fitness classes. This means that all students, from kindergarten through 5th grade should have an opportunity to access a thoughtful and well-designed PE curriculum. Students should not be denied this right because of unfinished classroom work, behavior problems or any other reason. In many cases, this calls for a variety of adaptations to the curriculum to meet the needs of such a diverse group of movers and learners. It is our duty as qualified PE instructors to make necessary modifications so that our students can leave class with a sweat and a smile.

 

 

 

 

 

All Health & Fitness lessons should be planned and purposeful. Gone are the days of dodgeball and other mindless activities were only the strong survive. Every child deserves access to a thoughtful PE curriculum that aims to develop mind and body.  In Seattle, we are fortunate to have a K-12, articulated curriculum called "5 For Life". This curriculum meets state and national learning targets by blending 3 main parts within each lesson: 1. Fitness Component(s), 2. Motor Skills, and 3. Health and Fitness learning content (this content covers a wide variety of units such as nutrition, body systems, consumerism, safety, and more).

 

 

 

 

 

All of us can relate to this idea, right? If you eat your dinner, then you'll get your dessert. Our daily lessons in Health & Fitness classes are modeled after this philosophy. If students can complete the main course (this often includes a warm up followed by a learning activity from our essential curriculum), then they might have time for dessert at the end (this often takes the shape of a group game, club card time or skill time). Most of the time students really like what's served for dinner, and sometimes they don't. The bottom line is that we know that the dinner is the critical part of the lesson that boosts student learning and improves overall fitness.

 

 

 

 

 

Teaching is an art. It is difficult to come up with a recipe for educating students that will always ensure success. That said, there is no question that the main ingredient is a genuine effort to build relationships with each other. We sometimes forget that students are not robots who can consume hours of information at a time. They are real people with complex needs. It is important that we address social and emotional needs and always remember to put people first and other things second.