Written by When beginning to think about completing my first ever blog, I started to think about myself at this time last year. I had just switched to teaching full time girls’ Health and Physical Education in the Middle School. My wonderful teaching partner (@mverbeek) provided me with a scary but informative infographic.
Many of those facts on the poster were shocking to me, and made me realize that Middle School is when we need to hook the girls into wanting to be active and involved in physical activity. Our next health lesson I brought the book “Strong is the New Pretty” by Kate T. Parker in to class and read many of the pages of the book to the girls. This book celebrates, through more than 175 memorable photographs, the strength and spirit of girls being 100% themselves. We then talked about the data on the infographic and reasons why they think that only 2% of girls ages 12-17 get enough physical activity, why are only 1 in 10 girls choosing to enroll in optional physical education classes in High School, and why are girls not wanting to be physical fit?
The discussion was wonderful among the girls and by the end of class they had decided that they wanted to help close the gap in girls’ physical activity levels. I also decided that I need to do everything I can do to help the girls stay active. There have been many positive changes to the physical education program over the last year and a half, but there are still areas that the students need continued improvement. I believe the three most urgent needs of the girls at this time are: fitness levels, perseverance, and movement competence. Our next step is to determine ways in which we can meet these needs. I asked the girls some open ended questions, and I am beginning to look through their responses.
Being able to share in this Cohort21 experience with HSC’s PE team is a great opportunity, and I can already see by reading @bsimmons blog post that the needs are similar in the Early Ed Schools. What a great chance we have to align our action plans! Looking forward to getting started on this at the next F2F session.
Hi @jsetzkorn,
Congratulations on writing your first official blog, nicely done! I love that you’re keen to address the gap in girls physical education. This will be such an interesting and meaningful action plan to pursue. I look forward to hearing more about this on Saturday, particularly the girl’s responses and their understanding of physical literacy.
Cheers, Nicole
What a great read @jessicasetzkorn! I also agree of the importance of getting our girls confident and active. I think starting as young as possible is the key to sticking with it. Love the idea of sharing stories of successful female athletes and programs. I am a classroom teacher but also try to stay involved with coaching whenever I can. Having 2 daughters myself, I also encourage them to be active and follow their passions as well. Love the like…”STRONG IS THE NEW PRETTY”!!!!!
Jess, I love this post. We have been banging out heads in Senior School for years about this very issue. My colleagues and I are always so proud of the number of students we get enrolled in grade 10, 11, and 12 phys-ed, but those numbers are always so heavy on the boys. Looking forward to see how your action plan develops over the year in line with the rest of the HSC crew and to see if we can make a difference in our girls’ phys-ed enjoyment and participation in the future.