What is the educational point of physical education?

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What is the educational point of physical education?

Physical fitness and education involve the development and care of the body that ranges from simple exercises to a course study that provides training to students on hygiene, performance, control of athletic activities, and gymnastics. Physical education is an important aspect of education as it helps maintain and boost a balance between classwork and healthy living for the students. These, among other reasons, form the importance of physical education to students and the education system, which is why the essay is a major advocate for it to continue being implemented in schools. Physical education may at some point not be evident, but it brings about additional skills to children (Green, 2008). In order to understand the educational point of physical education in schools, the essay will cover all the importance and the negative points of implementing physical education and care. There will be a comparison of the two and an understanding of how essential it is in the curriculum development.

Physical education usually is referred to in schools by different names like gym, Physical Exercises, physical training. Still, regardless of the name, it is a field of learning that is mostly concerned with maintaining the fitness of the human body. This involves giving the children physical exercises to keep them fit. These exercises are usually of great importance to the children in many ways. Children lacking physical exercise leads to more negative situations such as heart problems and diabetes, which have more negative conditions. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one out of every five children usually suffers from obesity and other heart-related issues. Therefore, integrating physical education into the school curriculum will help control and reduce the instances in children and should not be overlooked. Maintaining and improving the children’s overall exercise is important to the children who can only be offered through physical education as students spend a lot of time in schools.

Physical education provides physical knowledge, which is also important in equipping the students with lifelong knowledge and skills of keeping them healthy (Reid, 1996b). The skills will help them have an active lifestyle among themselves and in their daily interactions with people in the outside or external environment. Physical education will have a physical impact on children, but it will also help boost their mental situations, emotional state, and academic level of excellence. Physical education will, in addition, create a structure of lifelong skills that the children can implement in their daily lives while, in the long run giving them the encouragement of pursuing a healthy lifestyle in their daily lives. A healthy lifestyle means an improved state of mind, which means a better and prolonged future of success.

Teacher involvement is crucial in ensuring that students get the best from physical activities (Reid, 201). This, therefore, forms the reason why physical education is crucial in schools. The teachers have been equipped with enough training on how to carry out physical education for the students. They understand the routines to be followed accurately and therefore can offer the right form of exercise that will enable them to have improved health standards. The teachers will also offer guidance which will enable the students to avoid focusing on a single form of exercise for too long or doing one too much and forgetting about the other. Proper routine is important for the children, and this can only be achieved through the use of teachers. This, therefore, forms the reason for the introduction of physical education into the curriculum. There exist several better physical activities that are being implemented, which are to be enforced multiple times of the day, family, staff involvement, and community engagement which can be a strong foundation for physical activities and student motivations to become the best and carry out physical activities. Schools help students become physically active in their school days by taking advantage of the numerous opportunities that enable students to achieve and succeed at the physical education requirements. All the motivation and encouragement from the trainers will provide the required baseline for the students to maintain an active lifestyle from the beginning to the future.

Also, students can get transferrable life skills from physical education. The main objective of primary education is to enable students to become knowledgeable get better skills, and have improved mindsets that majorly help them in having a better and active life. Physical education in schools gets the advantages of engaging in teamwork activities as well as group efforts in the different stages of life. Through physical education, the learners are able to acquire the skills at a very early stage and grow knowing how crucial they are in life (Carr, 1997). The use of sports is among the critical foundations of students being able to develop these skills. Sports, in most cases, enhances cohesion, which refers to the group being attached to achieving a common objective. Non less, for such a group to exist and be highly active, many other factors need to be kept in place. The factors and values comprise accountability, hard work, self-discipline, communication, and beyond doubt, accurate leadership skills, which are all acquired through the physical education program. The education curriculum also enables them to be able to accept losses that may arise and get a better understanding from the losses.

In addition, physical exercises that are to be carried out by children in most cases require a number of resources to be put in place. The high number of resources are in most cases provided by the schools (Parry, 1998). First of all, the schools provide physical education teachers who have the sole purpose of educating the students on physical exercise-related programs from start to finish. Therefore, the teachers can offer high-quality lessons compared to the parents who are untrained and, in most cases, untrained. The teachers are usually also equipped with effective learning strategies and practical personalized insights. In this case, the trainers have the profound ability to create a suitable classroom environment, use data to give instructions, have better engagement with the families to the learners, and make the best logical decisions and very precise. The trainers can also provide students with the best advice on which is the most appropriate sport they can engage in best on how the teacher will assess the student’s capabilities. Additional resources provided by the learning institutions comprise gym areas, fully equipped classrooms with all the required gadgets for physical education like iPads and laptops, with a full schedule on what to do and how to carry it out. The gadgets also serve as key assistance to the needs of learners of all ages.

Moreover, physical education highly boosts the general health of children (McNamee, 1998). Schools ought to highly incorporate physical studies in the curriculum to be educated on the advantages of leading a good healthy lifestyle. Research shows that carrying out proper exercise supports healthy habits among children, which in turn leads to an improved healthy life. For instance, learners who are involved in constant physical education have been observed to have low chances of getting affected by health-related complications like diabetes, obesity, heart problems, among other diseases. These students are known to have increased metabolic activities in the body, well-developed muscle mass, and an improvement in body fitness. Therefore, learners who are exposed to constant body fitness exercises have low chances of being affected by weight issues since they naturally develop healthy eating habits in conjunction with their physical activities. In addition, regular gym exercises and visits boost bine development and enable the learners to have strong bones, improved brain activity, better cardiovascular health conditions, and body activeness. Physical exercises also help in nutrient uptake by the body and improve digestion processes in the body. Therefore, based on these reasons, it’s wise for schools to use physical education on students and maintain the trend over the years.

However, some people argue that physical education is a time-consuming activity with no benefits to the students compared to what they get from academic sessions in classes such as mathematics and sciences. Non the less the magnitude of physical education is equal to what they get from the other academic sessions. McNamee (2005) agrees that exercise is a very important factor that helps in boosting the student’s performance. A report by the Institute of Medicine has indicated that exercise is an important factor in the improvement of academic performance. In most instances, children engaging themselves with physical activities sharpen their ability to focus their attention, get a better understanding in class, and execute assignments efficiently compared to the very inactive kids. The main concern will be why anyone would try and object to introducing physical education in the curriculum despite its remarkable advantage to the learners. The implementation should even be made compulsory for all schools by the government.

Physical education has been proven advantageous and an essential factor in the school curriculum based on the stated reasons and factors. The consequences of introducing physical education in the curriculum are evident. A number of states and countries are yet to take the initiative to make physical education part of the school curriculum, which is why they are experiencing high numbers of obesity and other health-related effects on children (Whitehead, 2020). If recognized as a key epidemic, it will be important to incorporate physical education in the schools. Stakeholders such as teachers, parents, board members, and government officials should not be worried about its introduction but instead come together and advocate for the introduction of the curriculum for the improved physical well-being of their kids. The stakeholders need to ignore the fact that physical education is a necessity for students in schools and make it a mandatory fact in the school system so as to save ad boost the health of the kids and upcoming future generations.

Everyone needs to participate in daily physical activities to have better health. There is no better place to start this trend than the school. Regular physical activities and fitness play an important role in advancing health and averting children away from chronic illnesses in their adult life (McNamee, 2009). Inadequate time spent on physical activities ineffective implementation of the curriculum in most cases can develop major health conditions, and physical activities are important for ensuring overall health. Lack of exercise results in health issues, and to avoid them, physical education is a crucial factor. Numerous benefits come to the mind and body, as indicated by the discussion about the essence of physical education in school. Administering physical activities into the students’ daily lives always leads to better and happy, healthy livings for the students and learners. Policies and practices of physical education forms the need and progress of future generations.

Overall, there are several reasons why physical education needs to be introduced in the schools and for all grades. The primary and key purpose of introducing physical education is to minimize the highly growing epidemic of childhood obesity and ensure that the children come up with better and improved health of the children. More reasons comprise of improving the children’s performance by sharpening the ability to focus on what is being taught in class, grasp the concepts taught, faster execution of tasks and assignments, and improved proved problem handling skills. Moreover, the introduction of physical education equips the students with all the necessary transferable skills. As mentioned, schools also provide the necessary and required resources that are key for implementing physical education, unlike carrying it out at home. It is therefore imperative to introduce physical education to be made part of the schooling curriculum. The paper has given a clear overview of what physical education provides to the students and should be introduced in all and even made mandatory by countries and states. The overall goal is to have a healthy nation, and this is the only way in which it can be achieved.

References

Carr, D. (1997) Physical education and value diversity: A response to Andrew Reid, European Physical Education Review, 3(2), 95-105.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ” Childhood Obesity Facts.” Cdc.gov. Web.

Green, K. (2008) Chapter 1: ‘The nature and purposes of physical education’, in Understanding Physical Education. London: Sage.

Margaret Whitehead (2020) What is the education in physical education? (p87+). In Sue Capel and Richard Blair (2020) Debates in Physical Education. 2nd edition. London & New York: Routledge.

McNamee (2009) The nature and values of physical education. In Richard Bailey & David Kirk (eds) The Routledge Physical Education Reader. London: Routledge. Pp.9-28.

McNamee, M. (1998) Philosophy and physical education: analysis, epistemology and axiology, European Physical Education Review, 4(1), 75-91.

McNamee, M. (2005) The nature and values of physical education. In K. Green and K. Hardman (eds) Physical Education: Essential Issues. London: Sage Publications. pp.1-20.

Parry, J. (1998) Reid on knowledge and justification in physical education, European Physical Education Review, 4(1): 70-74.

Reid, A. (1996a) The concept of physical education in current curriculum and assessment policy in Scotland, European Physical Education Review, 2(1), 7-18.

Reid, A. (2013) PE, Cognition and Agency, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 45:9, 921-933.