I think if you were to ask most adults they would be able to relay to you either their own, or someone else’s “horror” story of high school gym, sport or physical education. Incidents of shouting, exclusion, bias to athletically gifted students and bullying seem to abound, to the point where many students withdraw from classes or are actually removed by their parents.
I write this not in attack of PE teachers, but actually out of concern for them and the young people they work with. While there are always negative examples in any profession, I also don’t believe that PE teachers deserve to be as badly caricatured as they are in films such as ‘Mr Woodcock.’
The concern I refer to is related to Australian research released last week. A survey of more than 500 trainee PE teachers has found that male teachers were almost five times more likely than other teachers to fast, use avoidance tactics around food, smoke, take laxatives, use diet pills and purge as a means of weight control. Female trainees were twice as likely to purge or take laxatives and were more likely to skip meals and avoid social situations that involved food. Over-exercising abounded.
The key question is why? How can these trainee teachers who are so young themselves, be engaging in practices that are incredibly dangerous and leading them down a path of developing an eating disorder – if they are tragically already not there. Aren’t they meant to be people who know a lot about health, the body and taking care of oneself? What has gone wrong here? I don’t profess to know all or even any of the answers – but my hunch is that the following plays some part.
Somewhere along the way the desire to be muscular and/or thin has seen many people begin to equate physical exercise with weight loss, perfection, drive and obsessive behaviour. Are these young trainees so concerned about their own physical appearance that they have to resort to these methods to feel ok about themselves and their bodies? They must. What other possible explanation could there be? If you know of any – please do comment. I would appreciate your input.
The follow on question to all of this of course is how these teachers of the future will possibly impact on their young students. Will their own body image woes and dangerous behaviours somehow transfer either directly or indirectly? Somehow, I tragically think that they may, unless we begin to seriously challenge this warped view that many have of exercise. In the grand scheme of our wonderful lives – it’s not about weight loss, perfection, muscles, drive and body fat. Surely it must be about health, vitality, energy and balance. I hope our trainee teachers can learn this very soon not only for themselves, but for all their students of the future.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post. Sad & Scary.
Who, exactly, is teaching our children? And teaching them what? The trainees who will be teaching "Physical Education" engaging in an array of physically unhealthy behaviors makes me cringe.
I am an advocate of parents taking back and taking responsibility for their own kids. We parents cannot leave it to or rely on the schools, the government, the media, or our kids peer groups to teach them about health, nutrition, body image, self esteem. It is our job.
Dexter Godbey
http://www.Dad-EDs.com/blog
This post is particularly interesting to me because I just graduated with my B.S. in Kinesiology. My emphasis was Health Science, but many of my classmates had the Physical Education emphasis and are passionate about teaching PE.
Perhaps I am lucky to have had amazing instructors who taught us lessons such not using exercise as punishment and not giving special treatment to athletes. One of my instructors was actively pushing for California to change their standards to have all PE teachers to have to have a 4-year degree in the field.
With PE being cut in schools, it is imperative that the little time (if any) kids have in PE is effective.
Great post!
Thanks Dex & Andrea for your thoughtful posts – all the way from the USA!