PE Teachers Must Be Fit for a Demanding Job

You’ve surely heard the old saying, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

Perhaps you’ve also heard the similarly obnoxious follow-up: “Yeah, and those who can’t teach, teach gym.”

Many teachers may feel unappreciated, but physical education teachers get less respect than Rodney Dangerfield.

It’s time to set the record straight. There is much more to teaching PE than lobbing a ball at students and yelling, “Go to it!” The fact is, a lot of preparation and work goes into teaching PE in a typical public school.

To begin with, the standards and general requirements for PE teachers are the same as those for teachers in other fields. They must have a bachelor’s degree, plus the year of graduate school and practice teaching needed to earn a teaching credential.

Many would-be PE teachers major in tough subjects--physiology, kinesiology and anatomy, for example.

And those schools that offer a PE major make it tough: Students must pass skills tests showing competence in dozens of sports, from archery and gymnastics to soccer and swimming. They must also take a heavy load of sciences.

As with academic courses, there’s a curriculum for PE, although it can vary from school to school, and even from teacher to teacher. In recent years, it has gotten more rigorous--and just letting students play ball every day is not part of it.

PE teachers are spending more time in the classroom teaching about a sport’s history, current masters and events, and rules. Students also typically study the sport’s particular diet, equipment and training methods, as well as common injuries and the effects of steroids and other drugs on performance in that sport.

Like any teacher, the PE teacher must formulate daily lesson plans. Each semester is divided into units, with each devoted to a specific sport. A rate of two to five sports per term is common.

Plans must include goals and objectives for each day and a variety of ways to teach skills, practice them and assess them.

These days, teachers also pick the teams, with an effort to make things fair and even; gone, at many schools, are the days of team captains choosing all the popular kids.

And tests? In PE? Believe it.

In skills tests, each student must demonstrate, for a grade, the basics of the sport being studied. At the end of a volleyball unit, for example, a student may be asked to serve, set, bump and spike effectively.

Written exams about rules and background are now more common too. Writing is being integrated into more subjects besides language arts now, and PE is no exception. Students may write reports, poetry, short stories, journal entries, newspaper articles, and even crossword puzzles about a sport they’re studying. The image of PE teachers observing from the bench, with whistle and coffee mug in hand, isn’t much on target anymore, if it really ever was.

Many PE teachers participate with the kids on the field or blacktop. That way they’re able to model not only proper form but also interest and enjoyment. After all, if the teacher can’t be bothered, why should the students?

Predictably, the job is both physically and mentally exhausting. It means exercising all day most days, in addition to monitoring every student.

PE teachers attend conferences, workshops and seminars, just as their academic counterparts do.

And while high school PE teachers don’t usually take home papers to grade as many other teachers do, consider this: Most of them coach a sport, so they’re often just as late for dinner as everyone else.

As for academic subjects, the state has published a curriculum framework for physical education classes that public schools must largely follow. In next week’s column, I’ll review the state’s idea of what it means to be a physically fit student.