I believe physical education should provide students meaningful movement experiences that develop physical literacy and foster an appreciation for lifelong physical activity. My role is to challenge assumptions and facilitate experiences that allow students to find personal meaning and develop skills for healthy active living. As a teacher, I am committed to continuous learning and supporting students to develop their own approaches to teaching in a way that respects individual ways of learning.

1. 4423 Physical Education
Education
Philosophy of Physical Education and your Personal Philosophy of
Teaching Physical Education

2. A Personal Philosophy1
 A personal philosophy allows you to clearly articulate your
practice as a teacher in the future.
 Many teachers do not believe that this is really important
 Kretchmar (1994) suggest 2 ways to develop this:
– write a comprehensive philosophy of the profession
– Developing a philosophical position for YOUR purpose
1 Green, K. (2002) Physical Education Teachers in their Figurations: A Sociological Analysis of Everyday „Philosophies'
in Physical Education, Sport, Education and Society, 7 (1), 65-83.

3. A Personal Philosophy cont …
 Personal philosophies should be individualised, grounded
in reality and based on personal objectives founded on
experiences
 Used to guide action while maintaining the required
flexibility to be contextual
 Your practice (as a PE teacher) is intrinsically worthwhile,
as such you live your own sessions vicariously and
emotionally

4. Trent’s personal philosophy of teaching PE
 Physical education is an important and wonderful subject. I want
prospective physical education teachers to be passionate and
enthusiastic about the educative value and richness that it possesses.
 Challenge assumptions, assertions and thoughts on prospective
physical education teachers understandings and meanings of physical
education
 I am a learner; I want prospective physical education teachers to
consider themselves as learners always. I do not think that I will ever
stop learning.
 As a physical education teacher educator I want to be able to develop
prospective physical education teachers who enable and facilitate
„meaningful lived experiences‟ through movement with their students.

5. Trent’s personal philosophy of teaching PE
 I want to support prospective PE teachers develop their „own‟ ways of
teaching; I do not want them to teach like me.
– Methods classes will present opportunities to openly discuss
issues (classroom management, planning etc) where solutions are
generated by YOU, with support from my own
practice/research/teaching.
 Be open and sensitive to the ways that individuals learn.
 Demonstrate, „model‟ approaches and behaviours that will lead
prospective physical education teachers to engage successfully with
the profession
 Present knowledge that is holistic; overlay experience and examples
and then support prospective physical education teachers make
decisions

6. Let’s pause for a minute and reflect
 Our discussion up until this point has focussed very much on the
personal (or at least I hope!)
 Additionally I am hoping that it has related to concepts such as lived
experience, doing (prac; the teaching), identity, teaching, learning, etc.
 In our reflections though, we have drawn on the personal-social-
cultural-political-historical-ecological to answer these questions. We
need to keep these thoughts with us as we move throughout the study
of this unit.

7. Time for some philosophy
John Dewey (1859-1952)
Educational reformer
Pragmatism (praxis; theory
and practice are not
separate
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
Existentialism (individual is solely
Cogito ergo sum (I think
responsible for giving his or her own
therefore I am)
life meaning; emotions and feeling)
Cartesian dualist
Importance of the self
Subjectivity is important here.
Martin Heidegger (1889- Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
1976) experience is the source of all
Question of Being knowledge
phenomenology

8. Education and physical education
 Before we endeavour to know what is physical
education we need to philosophise about what is
education?
– What is it to be a person?
– How can what is being suggested help the person to
actualise himself along lines that are in keeping with
a good life?
 So before you can develop curricula, your pedagogy
and engage students perhaps it is wise to ask
yourself:
– What do I want physical education to be? Why do I
think this? Is it in keeping with all that I have learnt
over the past 3 years?

9. Trent’s ‘philosophising’ on the profession
 That physical education, and physical educators have not succinctly justified
physical education‟s inclusion within the curriculum
– Perhaps thinking about embodiment, „physical literacy‟, meaning-making
 That the overt focus on scientificism within physical education is a dominant
discourse and possibly leads to individuals being miseducated or not deriving
meaning from participation in physical education – creates dualist thinking, body
as machine; physical education-as-sport-techniques
– we need to move towards holism
 Also need to find common ground between the so-called biophysical and socio-
cultural elements of physical education; more explicit teaching of these
 Sports role within physical education needs some important theoretical and
pragmatic philosophising – relates to the culture of youth in today‟s society

10. Trent’s ‘philosophising’ on the profession
 We need to know our „history‟ so that when we go into the future (Penney and
Chandler, 2000; Kirk, 2010) we don‟t make the same mistakes
 Practical activity versus theoretical knowledge (note debates about VCE PE)
and pedagogical differences between 7-10 and 11-12)
 That the dominant paradigm model (multi-activity curriculum) does not and has
not EVER worked
 Physical education-as-profession OR physical education-as-discipline?
– Sport & Outdoor Recreation
– Other programs
 Hoffman‟s (1987) & Tinning‟s (1992) „future‟ for physical education – from Kirk
(2010)

11. Towards a justification of movement in education
 For full development of human beings „requires education
in a variety of realms of meaning rather than in a single
rationality‟
 Holism rather than a collection of parts, eg mind/body
dualisms
 Meaning
– Experience
– Rule, logic, principle
– Selective elaboration
– Expression
Arnold, P. (1979) Meaning in Movement, Sport and Physical Education, Heinemann; London, UK.

12. Introducing the 3 dimensions of the
concept of movement
 Historically physical activity in the curriculum has been called:
– Drill, training, physical education, human movement, sports
science, kinesiology.
– These mean different things to different people.
– Often there is confusion about the types of movement from the
community and from within the profession.

13. Arnoldian dimensions of movement
 We can conceptualise movement in some different
ways:
– About
• We can learn what movement does;
– eg “muscles exercise gain in size”
– Through
• As a means to an end;
– Eg by exercising we get healthy; increase productivity
– In
• Engage in movement for its own sake as part of being
human; it is not an objective viewpoint; movement
has inherent value and is worthwhile in itself.
 These are overlapping and interdependent
Arnold, P. (1979) Meaning in Movement, Sport and Physical Education, Heinemann; London, UK.

14. Education about movement
 Rational form of enquiry
 Draw on the areas of anatomy, physiology, history,
sociology, anthropology, psychology plus others
 Sport, dance, movement, physical activity should be seen
in the same light as music, poetry and painting because
they are likely to provide rich sources of meaning and
expression.
 Rational movement knowledge → objective; analytical

15. Education through movement
 This term is most currently linked to physical education as it
is practised today in schools.
 Concerned with the extrinsic or functional values
– Spin offs, by products, outcomes
 Outcomes suggested:
– Cognitive development, aesthetic education, moral
education, social relationships, fitness, physical activity for
leisure/life

16. Education in movement
 That movement activities, especially when looked at from
the „inside‟ or participatory view of the moving agent, are in
and of themselves worthwhile.
 Educationally they are valuable as it allows the agent to
learn a great deal about themselves and in the world where
they live.
 To be in an educative situation is to be caught up in the
qualitative process of becoming.
 Neither education „about‟ or „through‟ movement is
concerned with meaning.

17. Plausible complementarities in PE
1. Person‟s fitness and health will be improved
2. Range of physical skills will increase as well as knowledge and understanding about
them
3. Kinaesthetic perception will be extended and refined, enriching his consciousness
4. Become more aesthetically aware and more sensitised towards their own movements
5. Appreciate the range, intricacy and subtlety of non-verbal interpersonal perception
and communication
6. Because of need for choice will become more aware of their identity
7. Engaging in actional projects will experience herself as a total, holistic, acting-
thinking-feeling-willing-being: unitary embodied consciousness
8. Touched by „sportsmanship‟ and quality of relationships; will become more morally
conscious and socially responsible
9. When a person is absorbed by what she is doing will be open to possibilities of
„peak‟/‟rush‟ moments, discovering what it is to be self-actualised and thereby
experience new and value-laden forms of existential meaning.
Arnold, P. (1979) Meaning in Movement, Sport and Physical Education, Heinemann; London, UK.

18. Penney & Chandler (2000)
 Thematically oriented, rather than activity-based curriculum.
– Movement and physical literacy
– Physical activity, health and fitness
– Competition and cooperation
– Challenge
Bailey, Armour, et al (2009)
 Four domains:
– Physical, social, affective, cognitive
– it can be concluded that many of the educational benefits claimed
for PESS are highly dependent on contextual and pedagogic
variables
– Is there any gleaming omission from such a review?

19. Tinning (2006)
 „Aliens in the Gym‟
– Uniqueness of PE in the school curriculum
– Do we really know what interests kids with relation to „physical
activity‟, movement/physical culture?
– Need PL to participate in movement culture
– Competence as capital
– Pedagogical encounter
Whitehead (2010) Physical Literacy
 „Physical Literacy‟; Appreciation and understanding of embodiment
i. embodiment understood through the lens of existentialism and
phenomenology is fundamental to human life;
ii. that movement and its development was being „lost‟ in early childhood;
iii. there is a drift away from physical activity as part of our lifestyles, and
iv. within physical education the focus has become high level performance
and elitism at the expense of notions of participation where it is seen as
valuable in and of itself.

20. Writing your personal philosophy
 Informal task to complete – what you put in is what you get out.
 Email to Trent (trent.brown@monash.edu) as soon as possible.