INCLUSIVE?

There’s a new concept now commonly used by curriculum developers and policy makers in designing Physical Education curricular programs - inclusive. It’s a very powerful word that gives more meaning to the already known and much accepted word - “child-centred”. But what does this word really mean? 

The Oxford Dictionary of English defines inclusive as “not excluding any section of society or any party involved in something”. 

I’d like to believe that many Physical Education curricula around the world are inclusive. However, there are more concepts involved when we dissect the inclusiveness of a particular PE curriculum. Besides, its definition suggests an absolute inclusion - not excluding “ANY” section. In this case, all students in schools.

How do we know if our curriculum is absolutely inclusive? Can there be a room for a little exclusiveness? Does integration of all aspects of the academic subject make our PE curriculum inclusive?

To answer the above questions, we need to dig deeper on the concept of an inclusive PE curriculum.

Can a particular unit activity or lesson be for all students? For example, Basketball. The answer is yes, maybe and no. It depends on many probable instances. If I have a homogeneous class of physically gifted learners, definitely yes. If I have a heterogeneous class with different skill levels, maybe. It will depend on me as their teacher. My approach, methods, and techniques of delivering the content of the lesson will determine whether my curriculum is inclusive or not. Furthermore, if I have a heterogeneous class of different skills, different preferences, different learning styles, and different capabilities (sometimes incapabilities), providing them with common standards, common methods or approach, and common assessment tool will definitely not going to make the curriculum inclusive. 

Most schools have the third picture - a heterogeneous class of different skills, preferences, learning styles, capabilities and incapabilities. What works with a child physically gifted with height may not work as well with the one who is genetically not tall. In the same way, what works with a medium built child may not work the same way as the thin ones or yeah, let’s say it - the fat ones. In other words, there are other factors that lead to the exclusion of learners - it’s not always about the curriculum or the teachers' methods. These factors are learner issues school and teachers have no control of.

Inclusive PE curricula pay attention not only with the big picture, but also with small details that include the type of parties involved, the curriculum itself, the methods, approach and practices used, and of course, the learner issues.

Learners are the centre of education. Everything we do should be for the benefit of our learners. This is probably the source of the coined word “child-centred”. Child-centred teaching method is giving priority to the interests and needs of children according to the Oxford Dictionary of English. Its definition tells us to prioritise these two important words to make our PE curriculum “child-centred” - interests and needs. I believe that these words are also the keys to inclusion.

INTERESTS. What do learners want? It refers to our learners preferences, what they are good at, what they are capable of doing, and what they enjoy doing. Learning learners’ preferences in physical activities will help educators develop a curriculum that best fits the learners. I mean, when learners like what they are doing, PE teachers will never encounter motivation problems because learners will participate intrinsically in PE class. Try offering an activity that most learners hate - you will know what I mean. So how do we do this? Emphasise “preference” in PE. Conduct a survey. Ask learners about their preferred physical activities. What is wrong with that? I think that is a very educational process when teachers make their learners aware of the concept of preference. 

NEEDS. They could either be essential but disliked or essential and preferred. Whatever the case is. For educators, curriculum developers, and policy makers, how do we determine whether certain lessons or activity units are essential or needed? For instance,we may justify fitness as a needed lesson because everybody knows exercise is good for your optimum health and it can prolong life. But if we already used that reason for fitness activities, why would our students learn basketball to be fit? Or why dance? Can we say, “if you don’t play basketball, you will not be healthy”? or “if you don’t learn dancing, you don’t have a way to enjoy yourself?” Definitely not. Health and physical fitness are commonly the reason why we move. We want to live longer and enjoy life - this could be our basis to say a certain lesson is needed? But then, we should realise that it all comes down to wellness - being able to make healthy decisions for one to enjoy life. Yes we know that all physical activities are beneficial to the wellness of everyone and it is our responsibility to educate them. Generally we can say these stuff to justify our cause. However, in practice, our PE lessons are usually focused on the unit itself and not on the purpose of why we are having the unit. Anyway, my point here is this: how do we justify the need for a particular lesson in our PE class?

This leads us to the curriculum in itself. PE curriculum, the academic content of Physical Education taught in schools, has an integrated set of broad topics that include sports, exercise, rhythmic activities, aquatic activities, recreation, movement education, and many others. For educators, curriculum developers, and policy makers, how do we properly select the academic content to include in PE class? the obvious determiners include the access to facilities and equipment, the faculty teaching the lesson, and academic resources like textbooks or workbooks. In the absence of any of these, a certain unit or lesson is discriminated or not included. Do educators, curriculum developers, and policy makers consider learners’ interests or physical activity preferences? Do the learners take part in the selection of the units? 

Selecting activity units in PE without including students along the process assumes that all learners have the same interests and needs. This is definitely a "one size fits all” type of curriculum - providing the same activities to a heterogeneous class of different activity interests, skill levels, learning styles, and capabilities and incapabilities. A “one size fits all” type of curriculum is never “inclusive”.  

So what makes a curriculum inclusive? 

It’s inclusive when learners participate in the selection. My idea is to let schools select for the needs of the learners in the same way as letting the learners select for their activity interests. The end is to give our learners both their interests and their needs. Sounds familiar? Yes, that’s the child-centred method. A child-centred curriculum is an inclusive curriculum.  

But being inclusive doesn’t end here. It also involves the methods by which lessons are taught on a daily or regular basis. It would be easy to teach homogeneous classes. But the challenge is when we have different types of students in one class. Do we need to classify them? Classifying for the sake of inclusion and better learning is not all that bad. Classifying learners according to their preferences will create homogeneous classes. Let’s say, the athletic learners are grouped together, the artistic and rhythmic learners are together, the learners who love to do different recreational activities are also teamed up together, those who love exercise and fitness workouts have their own class, so as the learners with leadership potential. I believe that teaching homogeneous classes in PE will result to absolute inclusion. They key is for learners to figure out which group they belong.

Finally, the approach and practices used by teachers in response to some learner issues are small things that count. How do we deal with obese learners? How do we treat them? What best practice could we use as educators to motivate them to make healthy decisions for themselves? Obese learners usually exclude themselves because of personal issues. In the same way, how do we deal with students who have low self-esteem? How do we teach learners who have physical learning issues or learners who are not kinaesthetically gifted? How do we approach a learner who hates his or her uniform or swimming kit and are embarrassed to wear them? How do we address bullying issues, unsportsmanlike behaviours, attitude and behaviour problems, classroom conflicts, etc.? These are petty things but are essential parts of keeping inclusion part of the PE curriculum.  

Finally let me leave you with a simple question: how do we make PE inclusive?