Physical Education: Liberate It Or Confine It To The Gymnasium?

Values and issues

The National Government has clear agendas for the future and the purposes of education. The value orientations underlying administrative and curriculum reform were focused on the development of an education system that is both responsive to and supportive of a market economy. Similarly, physical educators involved in the development of unit standards and the curriculum also have their value orientations and theoretical foundations as I have discussed. Despite the apparent variance in orientations and foundations between the curriculum developers and the government (with its monetarist, social and economic agenda), I still believe there is scope for great change in physical education. However, as Tinning et al. (1993) argue, the new view of social integration, in which curriculum practice equips our learners with a critical range of skills centering on the development of physical skills, personal body care, personal and social health and physical activity within a societal setting, may be particularly difficult to accommodate let alone operationalise within this market orientation. The difficulty is compounded by the fact that in more recent times the practice and theory of physical education, whilst operating within and accommodating the market logic, has also embodied a technocentric ideology in which the quest for economic efficiency is inextricably linked to the need to achieve predetermined goals and objectives. Education is thus viewed as a commodity and the learner becomes the object that is supposed to maximise productivity (Kirk and Tinning, 1990).

The technocentric or technocratic view of physical education is closely linked to the historical imperative within Physical Education to develop a scientific base. This has reinforced for many practitioners the notion that the human body can be likened to a high performance machine which can be measured against criteria of economic productivity. In other words, this is the epistemological version of an inputs/outputs model which assumes that if individuals undertake particular activities or practices then they will reap personal benefits. This model also assumes that societal benefits can be measured through increased economic outputs. As a consequence of this view, physical education curricula have become characterised by a very strong scientific base including anatomy, exercise physiology, biomechanics and exercise nutrition. Of course, this scientific functionalism has served more than one purpose in the development of physical education. First, it has provided the platform from which the profession can claim academic credibility and thus maintain its status in relation to other curriculum areas. Second, it clearly demonstrates the assumption of some sort of added value for the individual through the development of their fitness and health. Third, it almost totally ignores the view that the body can be viewed as the site where personal and social issues are grappled with, overcome or resolved in the achievement of personal meaning and identity. It is the latter purpose that is absent in our present curricula and it is this absence that bedevils our profession.

The failure to promote socially critical thought about physical education practice is a weakness in New Zealand physical education. For example, this is obvious in the examination of the developing influence of health related fitness programmes as part of current school physical education practice. Daily physical education and fitness in the primary school, and the strong scientifically based emphasis upon a fitness orientation in the secondary sector, reflect and reinforce the hegemony of the technocentric view. While it can be argued that health related fitness programmes are worthy aspects of any physical education programme, it is the lack of a critical examination of the social context within which such content is applied that is the problem.

The pedagogical and psychological context within which this is done emphasises self-control and self-responsibility which can lead to tremendous feelings of guilt, personal inadequacy and failure (Colquhoun, 1990). Tinning et al. (1993) argue that such feelings are generated by moralists with a 'point the finger' mentality. They argue that such programmes rarely articulate the inter-relatedness of such concepts as body use, body care, body shape, body image, substance use and abuse, sexuality, skill and health related fitness development, élite performance, illness, disease and life span development. Furthermore, it is rare indeed for physical education practitioners to acknowledge and interrogate these as social constructions which are gender, race, culture and class specific.

These debates around the discourse of healthism have taken place up and down the country within the regionally based consulting groups (composed predominately of practising teachers) as they have grappled to define the term fitness within a curriculum context. In the debates I have canvassed, physical education practitioners signalled that the meaning of this term was widely recognised and generally well understood by students and the wider community. However, some physical educators also argued that the lack of teaching about the inter-relatedness of fitness concepts has created a false and erroneous impression around them in New Zealand (written submission to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority).

These arguments suggest that there is a need to make a comprehensive effort within the curriculum and wider pedagogical debates to provide the social critique that Bain (1985), Hellison and Templin (1991), Kirk and Tinning (1990), Sage (1993), Tinning et al. (1993) suggest is necessary. As a consequence, the senior school curriculum based on the unit standards will have content that relates directly to health related fitness, elite performance and scientific approaches to health and fitness. Correspondingly, it will incorporate a perspective that is significantly focused on the social critique of such concepts so that students will be able to clarify their own personal values and the values of others, as well as understand the social context within which physical education themes have emerged and developed conceptually. By doing this, physical education programmes will attempt to provide students with a course of study which allows them to reach their potential in their search for personal meaning.

Purpose statements in some of the draft unit standards being developed at present, based on the personal meaning and social critique notions, suggest, for example, the examination of personal physical activity patterns; the understanding of the relationships between exercise and personal well-being; how exercise participation is influenced by social factors; and the contribution physical activity makes to a community's nature and identity. A curriculum approach that attempts to achieve all of the above should at the same time take cognisance of, and actively address, the realities of race, gender, culture and class. For example, some of the achievement objectives for senior school health and physical education programmes could include the:

• appraisal, adaption and use of physical activity to ensure specific social and cultural needs are met;
• evaluation of the role laws, policies and regulations have in contributing to social justice within the school and the wider community; and
• critical analysis of societal attitudes, practices and legislation regarding contemporary sporting issues in relation to the promotion of mentally healthy and physically safe communities.

In the quest to achieve a more critical understanding of the social context within which physical education and schooling operates, the issues generated by these key variables are understood to be pivotal within the socio-ecological curriculum perspective. They are acknowledged within the fourth strand of the Draft Health and Physical Education Curriculum Statement (1996); "Creating Healthy Communities and Environment".

The debates around the discourse of healthism bring to the fore an issue that is yet to be grappled with in open debate. The New Zealand Curriculum Framework (1993) has grouped Health and Physical Education into the same learning area. It is uncertain whether the Ministry of Education is making a conscious attempt to redefine physical education in terms of health or whether it is purely a convenient subject grouping. As I have argued earlier, the physical education fraternity objected to the name of "physical well-being" as it threatened the subject integrity of physical education.

As one of the two writers of the Draft Health and Physical Education Curriculum Statement (1996), I believe that its four aims, which were set out in the Policy Specifications for a National Curriculum Statement in Health and Physical Education, provide an excellent platform upon which integrated learning processes can take place. These are to:

• promote understanding, skills and attitudes for personal health and physical development;
• develop motor skills and kinaesthetic1 awareness through movement ... acquire positive attitudes to physical education and physical activity;
• develop understanding, skills and attitudes to enhance interactions and relationships with others; and
• participate in creating healthy communities and environments by taking responsible and critical action (Ministry of Education, 1995, p. 2).

Indeed, by using integrated learning processes physical education can liberate itself from the discourse of scientific functionalism and enhance its potential for a greater socio-cultural focus so that our students have a better understanding of the social context within which physical education takes place. I, as the physical education writer and Gillian Tasker, the health writer, have no intention of redefining physical education in terms of health in the new Curriculum Statement. Instead, we seek to encourage both health and physical educators to work towards similar goals using different learning media and contexts. By doing this, each subject's uniqueness and integrity is maintained. Tinning et al. (1993) state that the integration of health and physical education on a wholesale basis is not necessarily an attractive proposition to physical educators. However, Lawson (1992) provides a coherent socio-ecological model in which the two quite separate disciplines could be integrated. He argues that the new health paradigm:

... builds upon the notion of personal health by identifying its interdependence with societal health and ecological health. This conception elevates health from a subordinate concept to a superordinate concept (Lawson, 1992, p. 110).

This debate should, in the near future, occupy tertiary educators and practitioners within the two disciplines. I predict however that the responses of both groups will be particularly guarded given the possible threat to the status and integrity of both disciplines in the current climate. Given the coherence of the arguments on the educative values of both disciplines, mounted by their respective theorists and advocates, the new paradigm of a socio-ecological conception of health should strengthen rather than threaten the position of both subject areas within the Curriculum Framework. This is particularly so in light of the broad and non-specific nature of the policy specifications. The danger, however, is not in a possible integration of health and physical education but in the social and education agendas of the government.

The release of the Policy Specifications for a National Curriculum Statement in Health and Physical Education (Ministry of Education, 1995) were met with considerable interest by scholars as it was assumed that physical education would be redefined into a health consciousness perspective embodying a strong healthism focus. This, of course, is at variance with what Lawson (1992) is arguing and threatens both disciplines' integrity because the prime function of the curriculum as health consciousness, of course, would be to satisfy the needs of capitalism. All this raises an interesting question. Does the shift to locate physical education in a more dominant position indicate a shift from the original intention to marginalise it? At present this question is unanswered and one suspects that it will remain that way given the complexity of the arguments underlying each subject's educative worth. The challenge lies with Gillian Tasker and myself as writers to present a policy document that will address the needs of New Zealand school students and incorporate innovative models for practice while safeguarding each subject's uniqueness and integrity.

previous / back to index / next

Footnote
1. This term refers to the sense of awareness derived from muscular contractions and limb movements and is related to proprioception (Schmidt, 1991 p. 285). More simply it refers to an awareness of body position (Fox et al, 1988, p. 697).