I was fortunate enough to be chosen by my school board to attend RBC's Learn to Play Knowledge Exchange Event that was held Wednesday March 23, 2016. I was even more fortunate to be part of a pannel of experts where I was able to promote my Bike Across Canada Program in Schools!
I drank the physical literacy and the long term athlete development cool-aid many years ago.
"Physical literacy is the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life."
The International Physical Literacy Association, May 2014
After listening and exchanging ideas at RBC's Learn to Play Knowledge Exchange Event, I am happy to say that we are headed in the right direction. Many educators, city employees and government employees were there and shared the same vision. We were all eager to share and learn. This is what happens when you put like minded people in the same room. I went back home excited to go to work the next day. Usually, I'd go back to school full of enthusiasm and would be brought back down to reality (not everybody is as excited about physical literacy as I am). However, I'm happy to be working in a school where many of my colleagues also believe in developing our students' physical literacy.
At this point in my career, after having worked with children for the last 17 years as a referee, a coach, a teacher, a personal trainer, a sports conditioning coach and a movement coach I am pretty confident in my knowledge.
However, and this is the reason I am writing this post because I want your feedback, can teachers with our crazy teacher : student ratio, truly improve our students' PL? Are our students truly getting the feedback they deserve when there are 25 other students wanting that same feedback? When our students are developing their PL and are repeating some movement patterns, are they repeating bad movement sequences? I often see on Twitter pictures of students and their techniques are awful. However, these pictures often have many likes, shares and retweets. Does that mean all these people didn't notice the bad form?
What do you think?
Are physical education teachers truly capable of developing every students' PL with our current T:S ratio?
What are your thoughts on physical education teachers having a scope of ability? (I think it's ok to admit that we don't know everything and that we should refer out when in doubt)
