Inclusive PE: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Today we looked at the good,bad & ugly in inclusive education in PE. Working together in group (thanks Kate & Dave for a great chat), we explored how we explored our own perspectives of inclusive PE in school. Here is some of what we see in our school:

1. The Good: Learn to Move: A PE class for students with various disabilities. The class is tailored to their stregnths. The negative feature to this class is that it is not inclusive.

At Dave's school they have PEB's Friday. On Friday afternoon students are allowed to go to the soccer dome for the last hour and do student-led activities. It's his favorite part of the week. Eleanor (me) talked about after school activities that reached out to students that may not be on sports teams: like zumba and running club.

2. The Bad. We talked a great deal about obesity and anxiety that we see in the school which could be curbed by proper health and fitness programs in school.

3. The Ugly. We talked about the lack of physical fitness for all of our students. Most are not getting enough during or after school.

Roxanne showed us a powerpoint by Dr. Marty Block: "Inclusive PE: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly. It started with some incredibly important questions "Is inclusion in PE necessary for all children? and Is inclusion in general PE really not the best thing for at least some children with disabilities?" Using research Dr. Block showed that inclusion of children with disabilities can be very "meaningful and successful experience for everyone involed, including the teacher." While it is a good thing, the bad is that most general PE teachers are not confident in their "ability to include children with disabilities into their programs." He finished with "The Ugly" and it was pretty ugly. Often times students with disabiities do nothing in PE class. They often just sit and watch or sometimes are asked to leave the gym. Personally, I'm glad that noone in our classroom witnessed ugly such as that in their schools.