Its that time of the year again! Back to school, back to students, back to planning, and lessons, and activities! The nerves, joy, and excitement we normally feel around this time have likely been replaced by the unknown, anxiety, and discomfort. Terms and phrases like virtual PE, hybrid learning, socially distanced PE, and blended PE are dominating our thoughts and plans. Many of us are tirelessly working through plans to accommodate any (or all) of these circumstances.
As physical educators, we know we have the important responsibility of rounding out a student’s educational experience. We know that we provide avenues for the development of skills, habits, and traits that extend far beyond that of just sport and games. The students’ need for movement, connection, and joy has never been more apparent. And in this time of uncertainty, it is easy to get wrapped up in all the outside noise and feel concerned about “how we’re going to do this” or “what will this look like for us” and, as a result, lose focus on what we know is so important.
We might not know the answers to how things will go this year or even what we will have to prepare for tomorrow, next week, or next month. But we do know the power of quality physical education and we know what that looks like. And that does not change whether we are in person, online, distanced, or anything in between.
Providing meaningful movement opportunities, building relationships, establishing a positive culture, having FUN, and showing up with a smile on your face…we can do all these things in any setting. There is a wealth of resources, supports, and strategies out there to help physical educators feel more comfortable through all this and allow them to focus on the things we know are so important!
The Athlos Movement & Character Program is one such resource!
A robust PE curriculum, instructional videos, SEL tools/resources, rubrics, and MUCH more! This program was created by physical educators, for physical educators. Circumstances change, our goal has not, we hope to support physical educators in their efforts of developing the whole child, regardless of the educational setting.