An element of an educational curriculum concerned with bodily development, strength, physical co-ordination, and agility.
Physical Education is generally thought of as taking place in the gymnasium, with balls, bats, hoops, and other types of sports equipment. Indeed these are aspects of PhysEd, however these only encompass a very small bit of it. Physical Education is all about health and activity – keeping fit, having fun, and getting educated about how to stay healthy.
Traditionally, students are given a separate period for Physical Education, which does, unfortunately, give the impression that it doesn’t take place in the classroom. There are many ways to overcome this, and as student teachers in Thailand, it is necessary for us to do so, given our unique positions as foreign-language classroom teachers.
As part of Lertlah’s foreign department, we do not have our own classrooms but rather we share them with other staff members. This limits our freedoms somewhat, but on the other hand, it also allows us to become creative on how to integrate our lessons effectively and within the constraints of our situations. Lertlah’s students only get one hour of PhysEd a week, and in my five months of teaching, I have observed that rarely do Thai lessons take place outside the classrooms or in similar settings where being physically active is necessary. This personally helps to make me feel obligated to do so for my lessons.
To criticize the school system here is uncalled for, because comparing Thailand’s ways with Winnipeg’s school system is like comparing apples to oranges – there are different factors that have to be accounted for. Obviously, Thailand’s (and Lertlah’s, for that matter) priorities are different, because culture, language, climate, and so forth, are different.
I teach two grade three classes. One is a “higher level” class, which from this point on I will call P3/1, while the other is an “average level” class, my P3/2s*. Both classes provide challenges that are mutual as well as individually unique. Of all these, perhaps the language barrier is the worst culprit that causes most of the issues that occur in my classrooms.
Going back to the topic of integration, I want to use the example that I have already done with my classes back in August: school Olympics, or Schoolympics for short. In lieu of the actual Olympics in Bejing, I have decided that it would be a great idea to integrate that world event into my classroom, creating events that tie in to lessons I was doing at the time.
FOOTNOTE:
(* I use the terms “higher level” and “average level” loosely, because in all fairness there really aren’t any other ways to describe the way that the school has divided up the grades into sections. The students with the highest academic averages are all placed into one section, while the rest are randomly placed into other sections.)
"I was a physical education major with a child psychology minor at Temple, which means if you ask me a question about a child's behavior, I will advise you to tell the child to take a lap."
- Bill Cosby
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