This is a seminar presentation that I gave in week 12 of semester to my final year PETE students on the future of PE.

1. EDF 4423 Physical Education
Education
Module 7 – Physical Education
Futures….

2. PE Futures
“We regard substantial change within the
subject as a matter of necessity if it is to
have educational worth in the 21st
century…There is not only one possible
future of physical education” (Penney
and Chandler, 2000, p. 85)

3. PE Futures (Green, 2008)
 The Sportization of PE
– PE = school sport
– Transformation from education to recreation
– Already synonomous
– Private providers (sporting agencies)
– AOTTs (as coaches)
– PE teachers will support rather than oppose it
 The Healthization of PE
– Exercise for health promotion
– Lifestyle diseases
– Rebadging PE as HPE (in Australia)
– Schools (and domains) as sites for health promotion

4. PE Futures (Green, 2008)
 The Academicization of PE
– Have wanted to justify itself as equal to other subjects
– Tried the theoretical and practical justifications
– Most evident in the senior syllabus (VCEPE)
• Mostly theory
• Little practical
– PE teachers demonstrate the success of its
attractiveness as justification for status quo
– PE teachers are comfortable with above dot point
because university courses mimic this

5. PE Futures (Green, 2008)
 Issues
– On a continuum from stability to fragmentation; Green
suggest PE is becoming more unstable and
fragmented
– Physical education comes to mean senior study;
whereas K-10 is more aligned with ‘school sport’
– AOTTs
– Status convergence; PE teachers diminished to taking
senior PE, AOTTs (coaches and cert qualified) take
school sport
– Teachers become de-professionalised

6. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Future One: More of the same
 Physical education-as-sport techniques continues
– Multi-activity, sport-based, decontextualised
teaching, focussed primarily on skill development
(psychomotor)
– Historically radical reforms, such as new syllabi
(national curriculum) as absorbed and adjustments are
made so that PE-as-sport-techniques continue intact
 Why will this continue?
– Notions of skill, games, lifelong learning are a powerful
logic
– Teachers unlikely to change
– Schools are unwilling to support change

7. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Future Two: Radical Reform
 History demonstrates that PE has been at the centre of
radical reform before
– PT/Drill → Swedish gym;
– Swedish gym → Ed. Gym → games/sport (role of men)
– ?? Emergence of sport coaches (degree qualified)
• This is on the agenda because sport is seen as the
focus

8. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Future Two: Radical Reform
 Physical Education-as-physical-culture
– Physical culture
• Different dimension; moving
body, sport, dance, OAA, games, meditative arts
– Pedagogical models (models-based practice)
• Sport Education
• Health Related Exercise
– Can be narrow, biologically focussed, not holistic
• Games Sense
• TPSR
• Games Making
• OAA

9. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Future Two: Radical Reform
 Several fields (subjects) out of one
– Stand alone subjects
• Sport Education
• OAA
• Dance
• HRE
 For either of these previous two suggestion reform needs to
also occur in the institution of school

10. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Future Three: Extinction
 Without radical reform this might seem likely.
 Current and ongoing practice that disconnects knowledge
from student lived experiences of life beyond school is no
longer tolerated.
 Teachers don’t change and do not want to engage in
‘unitisation’ and timetabling issues with innovations such as
SEPEP.
 Higher studies in ‘PE’ (or Exercise Science/Kinesiology)
possess little practical activity and therefore all practical
activity is removed from curriculum.

11. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Futures: Issues
 Outcomes of PE programs become more accountable
 High costs of PE teacher salaries, higher education
programs, facilities and equipment warrant closer
inspection
 Teacher education programs focussed more on academic
work at the expense of practical activity – we are complicit

12. PE Futures (Kirk, 2010)
Futures: Suggestions
 Push for a new configuration of schools
 PE needs to be bold and acknowledge our differences to
‘academic’ work and argue for the importance of bodily
work. Rejoicing in our difference
 Connections with social worlds and communities
 Based within physical culture
 Understanding history – provides connections with today’s
and tomorrow’s practice
 Universities to be ‘hubs’

13. My take on PE Futures
 PE is centrally around the ‘moving body’
 Educational experiences that lead to meaningfully-rich and
good lives
– PE contribution is …?
 Students not sport; not content is why we ‘educate’
 PE-as-physical-culture must develop at the core of our work
 Education ‘about, through and in’ movement
 Professional Learning
– Teacher as Researcher
• Honours, Masters, Doctoral, Lecturer
– The next generation of academics in PETE
– CPL programs - Mixed modes of delivery