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Last week, I wrote a blog on one aspect of physical literacy. If you would like to read the blog, you can find it here. To be honest, I was surprised with how many shares and retweets the blog received. However, it confirmed my belief and my motivation for posting the blog....
Physical literacy is a very misunderstood term in the physical education, sport, and parent circles.
When we think about it this makes perfect sense. For instance, if you teach physical education - how much professional development have you received in recent years? If you coach, how many coaching education resources/materials have you received in recent years? If you parent, how many of you find yourselves treading water on most days, let alone having time to accurately research a new term that seems to be popping up at your child’s youth sporting events or in a new physical education curriculum?
If you are reading a post that I wrote, I know you care deeply about the growth, development and health of youth - for all citizens for that matter. So, the purpose of this follow up blog is dig a little deeper into the term physical literacy. I invited some colleagues from England, Australia and Canada (from my Professional Learning Network) to contribute. I thank Dr. Vicky Goodyear and Dr. Dean Dudley for their participation! I would invite each of you to contribute to the comment section below.
So, here goes…
In my previous post, I touched upon how physical literacy is individual and can develop at different rates. I also explained how it addresses both competence and confidence in applying fundamental movement skills and skill combinations in a wide variety of environments (on different surfaces). However, it’s critical that we understand that there is much more to the term than demonstrating the competence and confidence of applying fundamental movement skills (FMS) and FMS combinations - in a wide variety of environments (land, ice, snow, water).
Below are descriptions of two different individuals. They are made up individuals to help us further understand physical literacy.
Meet “Emma”
Emma is an individual who lives with cerebral palsy as a young child, Emma used a wheelchair to move from point a to point b. With positive support from her parents, doctors, and physical therapist - and a very determined spirit, Emma ditched her wheelchair and began using a gait trainer for mobility. Now, at age 23 Emma moves independently with a cane. Emma is so empowered to help others gain the independence and health benefits she has, she now coaches a community sledge hockey team for others living with CP. Emma participates in local 5Ks, swims and participates in CrossFit activities.
Meet “Ty”
Ty has always been talented athletically. He moves with ease and picks up new sports skills quickly. Ty was an NCAA D1 All-American athlete was recently invited to try out for a professional league. Until now, Ty has always been a proficient mover in all physically active environments. At this elite level, however, Ty realizes he may not make it at the professional level. He is at a crossroads and doesn’t feel as competent in his abilities as in years past. Therefore, yesterday, Ty contacted someone in the sport who was known as taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and requested some. He plans to take the PEDs so he has the added advantage to solidify his spot on the team.
Above are two very different individuals in two very different scenarios. Please enjoy thoughts from myself, and Dr. Dean Dudley (@deandudley) of Australia as they answer the question..
Who is more physically literate - Emma or Ty?
Dr. Amanda Stanec’s thoughts (@MoveLiveLearn)
I’m not sure if I dreamed up these individuals because we have observed them in society or because I so often feel we are missing the boat when we speak of promoting physical literacy in physical education and sport and only talk about fundamental movement skills.
Physical literacy is a lifelong journey. I interpret the term to conclude that if someone is athletic (can proficiently apply FMS along with strategies and tactics in a wide variety of environments) yet fails to do so in a way that is health promoting, than that person is not as physically literate as someone who does apply their FMS for health promoting. I also view the competency level of FMS and their application as individual and ongoing. So, while Emma might not score as high on a FMS standardized assessment, to me she is clearly more physically literate than Ty. She is demonstrating motivation to promote her health in a way that illustrates her confidence in herself and her abilities as well as competence in modifying skills and activities as necessary. Emma views FMS, fitness and health promoting behaviors as key to her success as a professional and as a person whereas Ty is not competent in his abilities. Ty is willing to inject harmful substances into this body to receive an edge (if you can call it an edge when you consider the detrimental health consequences of his doing so).
So what implications does all this have for teachers, parents, and coaches? We must always account for more than physical skills when we teach kids in active settings (at home during preschool years, physical education, sport, physical activity programs) and include life skills, asset development, etc. It also means that while parents, educators, and coaches are very responsible for teaching about physical literacy, at some point individuals must demonstrate their understanding of the term through their independent application of the concepts taught. Hopefully Emma grows to be an 80 year old women still motivated to take care of her health and Ty realizes soon that the cost of being a professional athlete does not outweigh the gains he would receive from health promoting behaviors on his body and through sport ethics. I would hope Ty would be a little more like Scott Mercier. Additionally, policy makers must understand the difference between physical activity that develops the psychomotor component of physical literacy and the physical activity opportunities that serve to teach the development of the whole person.
Dr. Vicky Goodyear’s thoughts (@VGoodyear)
University of Bedfordshire, UK
There are some salient messages around physical literacy that become evident around from these two ‘characters’. Most evidently, I would argue is that physical literacy is an individual journey – to me this means that ‘being active’ takes many different paths and turns as one goes through the life course. Whilst we may think of this from child to adult, the pathway is much more fluid and is dependent on the interactions with the environment. For Emma, whilst the pathway was linear, the obstacles she may encounter next may mean that different movement capabilities may be required, where she needs challenge and needs to muster the self-esteem (or self-worth) and motivation to ‘move’ in varying contexts and environments. For Ty, a different skill set and challenge was certainly required, but has he adapted to the environment yet? Did Ty have a motivation to continue to develop as a ‘mover’. Both examples show that support is needed in development movement skills. Whilst we often think of these as FMS and those which should be developed during ‘education’, when taking the central point of an individual journey, guidance and development is needed throughout the life course whether in leisure or professional capacities. We might introduce person “C” an elderly person who has been active throughout her/his life but due to illness and declining motor capabilities has become less active. Her/His interaction with the environment has changed. So whilst we think of physical literacy often in the early years, the individual journey suggests that we, as physical education, health, sport-based practitioners, should be firmly looking at the life course and how we can support movement and FMS throughout the years, not just ‘early’.
Dr. Dean Dudley’s Thoughts (@deandudley)
Churchill Fellow and Senior Lecturer - Health and Physical Education
Charles Sturt University, Australia
Consistent with the recent work being undertaken by the UNESCO Consultation Committee on Quality Physical Education, there is a premise that physical education has a significant role to play in developing physical literacy, fostering automated physical activity engagement, and expanding regular social participation through games, sport and other physical activity pursuits. As such, physical education should be recognized as the basis of an inclusive civic participation continuum over an individual’s life-span.
According to Margaret Whitehead (2010) physical education should produce children who are physically literate, and provision of physical education that inculcates the virtues of physical literacy should feature from commencement of compulsory schooling through to its completion. A physically literate student demonstrates the knowledge, skills, attitude, and motivation to fully use their capacity and potential for many forms of human movement.
Margaret Whitehead’s definition is an important starting point when attempting to understand how the construct of physical literacy is likely to manifest as a result of the learning students undertake during their physical education programs and it also captures the central thesis of physical literacy expressed in other physical education instruction models proposed by Len Almond, Rod Thorpe, David Bunker, Daryl Siedentop and Don Hellison.
However, I think Margaret’s definition is basically a philosophical compass for physical literacy. Her concise definition of the concept is that physical literacy can be described as a disposition to capitalise on the human embodied capability, where in the individual has “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activities throughout the lifecourse”.
These philosophical notions are important for educators to maintain direction in our research and pedagogy but often they remain nebulous goals without means or evidence to achieve them. My current phase of research is to model and translate these philosophical goals across a variety of pedagogies with tangible, observable and assessable instruments. Until such work is complete, we are embroiled in a debate of ‘what physical literacy looks like’? We philosophically understand what we want to achieve thanks to Margaret Whitehead excellent articulation of physical literacy, what we lack are the evidence-based means of achieving it.
If you, your school, district, state or country are interest in participating in such research, please feel free to contact me via email: ddudley (a) csu.edu.au. Physical literacy will be a central tenant in the Quality Physical Education Guidelines to be released by UNESCO in 2014 and there is plenty of work needed to be done to make it a reality in our education systems.
Clear as mud?
If you take anything away from this post it should be something that I heard my friend Dr. Jamie Mandigo (@JamieMandigo) say once. (I paraphrase).
“To say that physical literacy is fundamental movement skills is to say the alphabet makes one literate. It’s simply not so.”
This doesn’t mean that performing the skills in a wide variety of environments and in a wide variety of settings makes one physically literate either. Physical literacy is a (as Dr. Margaret Whitehead teaches and as Dr. Goodyear emphasizes in her response) cradle to grave concept. In teaching different pieces of physical literacy, we must be sure to help individuals to realize their responsibility in this role. Additionally, if we are really cool, we will work tirelessly to support each other to model physically literate behaviors and we will advocate for policy that promotes physically literacy in our workplaces and in our children’s schools. Who’s in?
Another point that can not be omitted from the conversation on physical literacy is assessment. Dr. Whitehead calls this mapping the journey because there really is no end point. It’s important that those developing assessments of physical literacy are mindful of the term as it was intended. I am not familiar enough with the various assessments of physical literacy to comment on them at this time. However, I would love to hear about all of them (please share in the comment section below) so that we can explore them in a dialogue here. It’s important we have this space to share, question and grow. For as the late Nelson Mandela shared, “Education is the most powerful weapon which, we can use to change the world.”
Thanks so much for reading this post! I sincerely look forward to hearing your thoughts. I’m signing off...gotta run (literally).
