By John Kruse
September is almost here. This means that teachers will be working on class descriptions, class rules and communicating expectations to students. So it only seems fitting to discuss the subject of dressing for physical education.
Dressing for physical education seems to be a real pet peeve with our profession. I’m amazed at how often we find ourselves speaking about dressing any time you get a group of physical educators together. In addition, the amount of non-suits in a class seems to be used as a measure of teacher effectiveness when “sizing up” a colleague. To follow, are a few issues and and tips as they relate to dressing for physical education.
Grading
Giving students points for dressing or taking them away for not dressing seems to be common. I can’t say that I approve of this practice. In fact, I’m pretty certain there isn’t a state or national content standard that addresses dressing for physical education. As one colleague of mine puts it, “Did you or their parents teach them to dress? If there parents taught them to dress, then why give them a grade for it?”
“A friend of mine (who is a college professor) and I were discussing the issue of universities not including the grade from high school physical education in the grade point average used for admissions. As we talked, a number of high school physical educators were sitting nearby and were engaged in their own conversation about grading. As I challenged my colleague about why she didn’t approach her dean on this matter, the high school teachers were discussing the number of “non-suits” that should result in an F in physical education. My colleague turned to me and said, ‘That’s why!’” — Mohnsen, “Teaching Middle School Physical Education”
Work habits/Cooperation
Unlike academic grading, using dressing for class seems to help determine a work habits and/or cooperation grade does seem appropriate. If a student chooses not to dress for class, they are telling you something about a lack of work habits or effort. Also, as educators, we have put out the expectation that students are expected to dress for class. Not doing so is certainly a form of defiance and a sign of uncooperative behavior.
Participation
I have also witnessed teachers who don’t allow non-suits to participate in class as a consequence. I’m amazed at the ineffectiveness of this strategy. Does this teacher realize that perhaps this is exactly what the student wants? In this type of class, students know that by not dressing, they get a free pass out of participation on any day they choose. A better approach is to have students participate anyway. After-all, they need the exercise. I’ve found that this is a better strategy since students eventually get the message that they participate regardless. Most students figure out that if they are going to participate anyway, they might as well dress for class instead of getting their regular clothes dirty and sweaty.
Be Creative
Derek Mena shares an excellent strategy. Derek, is physical education department chair at A.C. Stelle Middle School in California. A.C. Stelle is home of an award winning physical education program. Derek’s team has created a right of passage for the eighth grade students. Eighth graders wear different colors than the sixth and seventh graders. This allows eighth graders to stand out from the lower grades in the school–kind of like seniors in high school and has proven effective in getting the eighth grade students, who are often apathetic, to dress for class.
Conclusion
I’ve discussed the major points that I find to be at the heart of this issue. Hopefully, I given you some food for thought. Dressing for physical education can be a hot topic in our profession and I invite you to keep the discussion going by posting a comment on this blog post. Feel free to share your own philosophy on this topic. Have a great school year!
m Option #2 (Movement Oriented Activity)
There is another way to use the posters, as well. Students can use them to write down the expectations on a worksheet. They can continue to walk around the room and find the information needed on each puzzle. This option makes the activity an individual activity for each student. To continue to work on the team building/group focus, you can also have students become experts in their “field” (or experts on their poster). You can perform a jigsaw teaching program by having one person at each poster match up with someone from all the other posters. The students use their expertise to teach their new teams their piece of the information. Students learn from each other. The key is that students are learning the materials, but you don’t have to lecture them about the process.