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Study ignores new methods, teacher says

Recent news about negative experiences in sports ignore many of the positive changes that have happened in the last couple of decades, said a local physical education teacher.

Recent news about negative experiences in sports ignore many of the positive changes that have happened in the last couple of decades, said a local physical education teacher.

A new study out of the University of Alberta last week suggested people who have negative experiences in sports as youngsters can become so traumatized that they go on to a lifetime of inactivity. Bellerose teacher Sue Leighton felt the news coverage was overly negative.

“Things change and [the study] didn’t take into account how many new curriculums we have implemented since those people were there,” Leighton said.

Leighton thinks a study of people’s experience with other subjects like math or chemistry would yield similar stories about sweaty palms.

“It’s unfortunate that the representation of physical education is that it is a place where kids are less than what they could be or are measured by a superstar system. That has not been the case for a very long time,” she said.

Physical education tries to strike a balance between teaching specific sport skills and promoting general activity and healthy living with the ultimate goal of creating well-rounded students, Leighton said.

The study’s author, University of Alberta researcher Billy Strean, agreed that teaching methods have improved but said the main message to emerge from his study was the lasting impact of negative experiences.

For his research, Strean surveyed 24 people from diverse backgrounds, whose ages ranged from 21 to 64. The respondents reported a mix of positive and negative associations with sports, Strean said.

A 51-year-old woman wrote, “even as I write this, my hands are sweating and I feel on the verge of tears. I have never experienced the humiliation nor felt the antipathy toward any other aspect of life as I do toward sports.”

Another person wrote, “to this day I feel totally inadequate in team-related activities and my natural reflex is to AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS, largely because of humiliating experiences in childhood.”

Some of the experiences people wrote about occurred in school while others came from teams outside of school, Strean said.

“People talk about being robbed of the joy of physical activity,” he said.

Common threads were, being asked to do something in a public setting without enough instruction and/or experiencing some form of ridicule from teachers or peers.

On the positive side, some people reported returning to some form of physical activity later in life. The most positive associations were reported for low-organized activities such as playing shinny on a neighbourhood rink.

Strean thinks physical education needs to focus on fun games and agrees that is happening.

“People start life inherently enjoying physical activity. Little kids do it with rare exception,” he said. “My hope is that, as people go through physical education, that love is enhanced rather than diminished.”

Bellerose student Aurora Halldorson said she’s been turned off of team sports because of feeling inadequate in gym class in junior high.

“The teachers get lazy, ‘You guys are going to pick the teams today,’” she said.

While she enjoys individual pursuits like running, she still doesn’t care for gym class.

“It’s just a lot of stuff that you don’t like to do,” she said. “For everyone who’s not athletic, they just want to get gym over with.”

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