By: Irfan Hussain Malik
Physical education fosters personal and community wellness by empowering students to attain healthy, lifelong attitudes and behaviors through physical activity as part of the total educational experience. It promotes a physically active lifestyle that is essential for good health, preventive measure against disease proactive academic learning besides self-esteem.
Physical education is an important part of a student’s comprehensive, well-rounded education program and a means of positively impacting life-long health and well-being. The optimal physical education program will foster a lifetime commitment to physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle improving coordinated school health programs, of which physical education is a central component. This will augment other prevention efforts and help to reverse the growing epidemic of childhood obesity which threatens to undo decades of progress in the fight against cardiovascular disease. Effective efforts in this sector will help children avoid a lifetime of chronic disease and disability.
Physical education develops the students’ motor-skills and hand-eye coordination and allows students to function even better in classrooms. It boosts longer attention span during classes allowing longer concentration and absorption. It is because of the self-discipline and dedication to excel in a sport that brings out the best in students. In school, the physical education program introduces students to various sports activities allowing them to make choices to which sport areas they want to get involved in.
A curriculum framework for physical education:
Adjusting the focus builds on the belief that learners in a school setting have a fundamental need and desire for movement. This framework defines physical education as – that part of educational experience which provides learners with the opportunity to become aware of and engage in physical activity, that is whole-bodied, intrinsically valuable and personally meaningful within the context of the learners social and environmental setting.
Physical education, in its broadest sense, contributes in making appropriate decisions in relation to physical activity and take responsibility for those decisions. It also helps in exploring movement activities purposefully, both independently and in groups. It also demonstrates understanding to the relationship between health and an active lifestyle.
By virtue of physical education, students will be able to demonstrate understanding of the importance of rules and regulations in society through the application of rules and principles of fair play in game situations. This will also boost understanding of sustainable development and its implications for the environment besides demonstrating co-operative group skills; and understanding of the need for social interdependence.
Physical education will empower students to explore, reflect on, and express their own ideas, learning, perceptions and feelings relating to movement. It adds to the understanding for facts and relationships presented through words, numbers, symbols, graphs and charts, in relation to game or group activities.
Students who take part in physical education will be able to identify describe, formulate and reformulate movement problems formulate tentative ideas and question assumptions to solve movement problems individually and collaboratively besides acquiring, processing and interpreting information critically to make informed decisions related to active living.
Physical education leads us to use a variety of strategies and perspectives with flexibility and creativity for solving problems. It leads us to use various movements as a means of formulating and expressing ideas, perceptions, and feelings. It also demonstrates understanding of the contribution of movement to daily life, cultural identity and diversity, and the economy besides boosting understanding of the ideas perceptions and feeling of others as expressed in various movements, forms.
Regular physical activity is associated with a healthier, longer life and with a lower risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and some cancers, current recommendations are for children to engage in at least 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Children spend over half their day in school, so it is reasonable to require that they should get at least 30 minutes of their time in school.
Physical education should be an important part of that requirement and does more than provides some minutes of moderate vigorous activity. It also exposes students to life time activities and teachers students how to integrate exercise into their lives.
Since childhood obesity rates continue to rise across the globe, there is public support for more proactive physical education in schools. A study conducted by ‘Opinion Research Corporation International’ for the ‘National Association for Sport and Physical Education’ (NASPE) in 2003 indicated that 81% of adults believe that daily physical education should be mandatory in schools. Some recent researches show that regular exercise can restore blood vessel function and improve cardiovascular risk factors in obese children.
A six-month exercise program has been found to reduce Body mass index, Diabetes risk factors, and Low – degree inflammation.
The writer is a Faculty member at Govt. College of Physical Education, Gadoora, Ganderbal. Irfanscout2012@gmail.com
