Teaching BMI

In physical and health education it is important for us to teach the students what being healthy means. One of the big things when doing this is talking to the students about what their body mass is and how it can affect them by either being to high or to low. In order to do this effectively we give them the tools to do it on their own so they may have a better understanding for its importance. 

There are a few different methods when teaching body mass and how to calculate it. One of the methods is the skin fold test. This test has been quite controversial over the years and here is why.When conducting this test you use calipers and pinch the skin from different areas of the body. These areas are the tricep, bicep, subscapula, and the top part of the hip also referred to as the suprailiac. Once you have pinched the area of skin you take the measurement found on the calipers and compare them with a conversion table to calculate your body fat percentage (link posted below). This test when conducted by a professional is can be quite accurate but when used in a school simply as a tool to show the student another way to determine their BMI can be harmful to a students. It can be embarrassing and uncomfortable if the students is not totally comfortable with being used in a demonstration or just doing it with the class at all.

 Some teachers feel that it is completely  fine to use this method during class as long as the student agrees to it whereas, other teachers feel that it is not worth the risk to physically demonstrate it when they could just show this through other teaching media such as YouTube, diagrams, and text. The risks that I mentioned are discomfort to the student along with the possibility of lawsuits. In the society we live in nowadays lawsuits are becoming more common and it is important that as teachers we keep ourselves safe as well as our students. It is unfortunate but when there are other ways to teach this method why not do what we can to make it the best experience for everyone. 

http://www.ptdirect.com/training-delivery/client-assessment/body-composition-testing/taking-skin-fold-body-fat-measurements\

How Common Core Helps!

A major change for education overall is the new installment of Common Core. Common Core is a program that has been adopted state wide with the exception of Minnesota, Nebraska, Indiana, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas, and Alaska. All states who have adopted this program will be held to standards that ensure that a student in Main will be learning the same thing as a student California. These standards were also made in a way to help the students become more college ready. In some areas they were seeing a very drastic jump in expectations and preparedness of the incoming college freshmen.

One of the biggest ways this new system affects Physical Education teachers in particular is by giving us better job security. There has been the debate in certain schools whether they should continue to fund physical education along with any of the arts programs. Having these Common Core Standards solidifies the fact that what we are teaching is important for the students to know and understand.

Another huge gain by adopting these standards will be the accountability it will put on the teacher to meet certain criteria. In the physical education field the difference in teacher who has been working for 20 plus years compared to and first year can be vastly different. Not always but in some cases the 20 plus teacher can become more relaxed and may take the "roll out the ball" approach. This approach is where the teacher simply just throws out the equipment and lets the students play games with little to no instruction or reasoning. Sometimes these teachers can be close minded to new ideas that a new incoming teacher will have as well. So these standards really help bridge that gap!

Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance (JOPERD)

JOPERD otherwise known as the Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance is an academic journal. This journal is easily accessible and cheap. They are delivered in the mail once a month from August through May otherwise old articles can be found free on the internet.

Within this journal professors and other educators in the field submit articles of assessment tools and techniques they are using in their classroom. Another interesting thing about this article is found within the first few pages. Each month they spotlight some type of malpractice that has occurred recently. They dig into the situation itself along with explaining the correct way the situation should have been handled and what you should do before it gets to that point. They also have sections designated for new ways to include technology and way to integrate more cross curricular learning.

Being a subscriber to this journal I have found it to be greatly helpful. The articles themselves are easy to understand and the information given is readily usable. However the layout itself of the journal as a whole is somewhat frustrating for me. The articles tend to all mesh together if you don't know what you are looking for. There isn't a definite distinction between when one article ends and the next begins. Overall this journal is wonderful. It is useful and for the most part easy to read. I would strongly suggest this journal to anyone interested!

A Deeper Look into Health and Physical Education

There are a lot of assumptions that are made of education majors. On top of that health and physical education majors are grouped into a whole new category of under acknowledgment. Many fields say that it does not take much effort, knowledge, or work to become a teacher. Within our education field even the other specialties feel that it does not take very much brain power to be a physical education and health teacher and that we just wanted to take the easy way out in college. This is where they are wrong. On the physical education side of the two majors we need to know all aspects of the human anatomy, physiology, and correct benchmarks where the students should be at a particular age. As for the health side, it is important for us to understand all sides of recent and ongoing health debates such as; Should you vaccine you children? Should alcoholism be considered a disease? Is it appropriate to teach only abstinence in schools? Introducing topics like these in your classroom is very important and it is crucial that as a teacher you are able to show the students both sides of the debate so they can be better informed and are able to make their decision with all possible pieces of subject at hand.

Our main goal in health and physical education is not to just simply teach children how to play games but to give them as many tools as we can to help them be active well into their life. Lifelong wellness is the main goal of my field. We believe that giving students a well-rounded background in multiple activities helps them to become more comfortable and find their "thing" that that are good at and enjoy. Some students succeed in team sports like basketball, volleyball, and football. Then you have your students who do better when they are competing more so just against themselves in activities like track events. There are also students who just need to see the opportunities to be active in leisure activities like boccie ball, croquet, and even juggling. There is something out there for everyone and our goal as educators in this field is to do everything to help them find it.