Elementary Physical Education

781 Words2 Pages

Elementary Physical Education

The effect of physical education on elementary students is noticeable through all types of skill development. From personal experiences, people can conclude that there is more to games and activities than just expending energy to relieve and calm younger children. The main focus of my ideas is mainly directed towards motor skills, relationships and how they contribute to student learning, and setting and achieving goals as well as the five areas to which I set beliefs, theories, and assumptions.

Children, especially young, need to learn basic motor skills to make their physical life easier when they get older. Sometimes motor skills come to us phylogenetically, such as walking, but often times we have to be taught, and need to learn how to use our body parts. If teachers try to incorporate motor skill enhancing games and exercises into their lesson plan, the students will benefit. Some early mechanics, such as Rudolf Laban's four classifications of movement, might be very helpful towards early, as well as later, control of body parts. Also, basic motor skills are beneficial to classroom work, such as pencil control, hand control, and body control in class exercises. Some skills also depend on the physical environment of the participants, and the opportunity placed before them. And then other times, it just depends on the speed at which the individual is capable of learning. Elementary phys. ed. programs and teachers tend to push gross motor skills onto younger children to enhance basic skills, therefore creating a "prerequisite" for more advanced games and drills. This is what makes later grades more exciting for students at higher levels.

How relationships contribute to learnin...

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... Society should, but will never, learn that equality is difficult to achieve, and to never assume that the fastest, smartest, biggest, or fittest is the best.

In conclusion, the motor skills, relationships, and the achievement of realistic goals of children in the elementary phys. ed. class are what I believe to be important in the students learning. Are my beliefs, theories and assumptions true? This is a question that I would believe to be 'easy'; in my mind I believe them to be true. These, to my knowledge, are the best and most accurate ways of separating how I feel about elementary Phys. Ed. The points made in this paper, as well as what I've learned in the classroom, whether being the learner or teacher, have helped me make a much more important decision in my life, I now feel I can, and will be an elementary teacher, maybe not in phys ed, but possibly.

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