From the cheap seats: one consideration of school-based PE's position in contemporary American schools

Abstract

Background: As the USA enters the second decade of the twenty-first century, it does so in a polarized political, social, and educational climate heretofore unseen in its relatively short history. Such a climate has implications for what role schools play in American society and especially how school-based physical education (SBPE) may need to reinvent how and what it contributes to the schooling of American children and, ultimately, the common good. Currently, SBPE receives verbal endorsement from the public and politicians yet little in the way of policy and financial support from legislators at national, state, and local levels.

Aims: The purpose of this essay is to present a US-centered perspective on the current ‘position’ of SBPE and offer some modest (and hardly earth-shattering) suggestions for the immediate future from the perspective of a mid-career physical education teacher educator. Recommendations are made that may enable SBPE to make valuable contributions (perhaps even more that it currently does) and, hopefully, remove SBPE from the divided debate on what public schooling should include and how it should be provided.

Conclusions: SBPE is in a precarious position where it can be severely wounded or even wiped out by those issues plaguing it or it can emerge from this time as a subject matter of great import. More importantly, it can emerge as this important piece of education on its own terms.

Keywords:

• USA
• physical education
• policy

Acknowledgment

Gratitude is expressed to Karen Lux for her many readings of earlier drafts.