Because Your Preference Matters… A Teacher’s Twisting Realization

A few months ago, I gave a task for my former middle school students in Bangkok and asked them the following questions:

1. Create your own world of Physical Education.
2. In your PE utopia, what are the elements in PE that you would like to eliminate from the real world?
3. What would you like to keep?
4. What new elements are you going to welcome as part of your world?

These were my indirect approach to better understand what was going on in the minds of these young learners. I have to understand and see things from their perspective. Their views, their frustrations, their complaints, their opinions, and their attitudes toward PE matters a lot for me to identify the problem. Why can’t I motivate them like the way I did with my former students in Burma?

I thought there was something wrong with me - my approach, method, and strategy in teaching perhaps. I though the main problem was about me as the teacher. I once got blamed for demotivating students because of my approach in teaching. It maybe true and I felt bad for that. But if you try to see things from a different angle, there might be more reasons other than that. 

My Mandalay (Myanmar) experience was awesome! I introduced the activity that I love the most - Capoeira, a Brazilian martial arts, dance, and game. I was the one who developed their curriculum too. I introduced activities that were exciting, innovative and challenging like cheerleading, foreign folk dances from all over the world, hip hop, aerobics, yoga, dance improvisations, traditional games, lots of other games, more games and some sports. 

When I moved to Bangkok, I though I’d be happy because the school had already prepared and outlined the curriculum. I thought I was the luckiest PE teacher in the world. My job was only to follow what had been set before me. I could tweak the units and the lessons just a little bit. But I couldn’t change the whole thing. I had to follow the curriculum map. I even had to teach activities that don’t fit my preference. 

Yes I can teach sports like basketball, volleyball, swimming, football, badminton, athletics - you name it - because I have a degree and experience. Even if these sports activities are not my forte, I am happy I could teach them to my students. This throws be back to the time of my first interview when I was asked what martial arts can I proficiently teach. If I did not tell them that I was good in teaching Arnis, the Filipino martial arts of stick fighting, I would have not had the job. But did I enjoy it? Did I enjoy teaching activities that I can teach but not really part of my preference? Here in Bangkok, did I enjoy teaching teaching the curriculum that I did not create myself? Apparently, the answer is not.

I am a firm believer that students best learn in a set of activities they are interested in. PE100 SYSTEM is very student-friendly because it advocates that students’ preference in physical activities matter. I realised that I’m missing something here. How about the teacher? Is there also a thing called “teacher’s preference”?

At first, I was only looking at the two end points of the line - the school and the learners. I was thinking that the teacher’s preference represents the school’s choices. My experience proved me wrong. Teachers don’t always get to choose the topics or units they teach. Teachers who are teaching activities outside their preference, whether they do good at it or not, are less likely to enjoy teaching in the same way as students learning activities outside their preference are less likely to enjoy learning. I could be wrong about my theory.

Students are complaining about activities in PE. They want to be active but they can’t because of the many perceived barriers. There are not much choices available. The grading system is unfair. Assessment differs from one school to another school or from one program to another. Fitness testing has no use at all. And many others…

On the other hand, teachers don’t get to teach what they are passionate about. Teachers are required to follow the curriculum. They are required to follow period. If they don’t, you know what will happen next. 

I am not against international policies in education. I don’t discredit standards and benchmarks in education either. I believe they are necessary as well. Also, I am not criticising schools for having this type of system where both the learners and the teachers have no freedom to select the activities as if they are not going to be successful or to live long enough if they don’t do the required activities. 

There you go... there's the problem I have been searching for.

Students' preference in physical activities matters! 

And now, I realized that teacher's preference does too!