A shared secret

Abstract

This article is based on an interview with a Norwegian physical education (PE) teacher on the social contact she had with pupils when teaching them PE. The article examines a two-dimensional aspect of a teaching situation relating to swimming instruction in PE, especially focusing on pupils' positive experiences of learning to swim and the teachers' interpretations of pupils' behaviour in these situations. The pupils' physical activities have perception qualities or special vitality, which means self-declaration and identity formation through mastering the skill of swimming and the vitality of swimming for the pupils, while for teachers, it is self-declaration and identity formation as a teacher of PE accomplished through mastering teaching tasks and the vitality of teaching. The article focuses on teachers' interpretations of the pupils' behaviour in PE, which is closely connected to its historical circumstances, and is in the middle of something with a beginning and a direction of something in the future. Teachers see pupils in a framework of stories created by them and the pupils together. These stories are not primarily about what goes on in their minds, but rather about what occurs in their common shared world, and about how they understand and respond to what occurs in this world dominated by bodily movement in PE classes. The article then looks at the qualities teachers perceive in their teaching and the importance this has for their professional understanding of self and learning of knowledge on the profession.

Keywords:

• Physical education
• Teaching
• Vitality of teaching
• Professional knowledge
• Teacher identity
• Continued professional learning