Boundaries

PE is powerful.

Not for the potential impact it can have on children’s learning and development but because, at least in England, it is the only time all children between the age of 5 to 16 are compelled to engage in movement. For external groups, agencies and stakeholders who have vested interests in inducting children into different forms of movement (for example women’s football or rowing) and for different agendas (fighting obesity or life skills) then PE then becomes a priority battleground within the media and policy.

External bodies attempting to influence PE for their own needs cause confusion about the subject. This used to upset me, but considering how confused the PE profession is about its own subject, it shouldn’t really be surprising that those outside it are even more so. Take the recent updated school sport and activity action plan. There has been a fair critique of this action plan that at its heart are misconceptions and a deep misunderstanding of the differences between PE, sport and physical activity. I would usually respond the way the PE profession in England always responds, by drawing tighter definitional boundaries around PE and the related domains of sport and physical activity. However I recognise that this might be a misguided approach.

In my opinion there is a hierarchy in England between PE, Sport & PA with it being:

1. Sport
2. Physical Activity
3. PE

The reasons for this are many. For example those who make policy tend to have been educated in the private school system with its focus on competitive sport, which you can see influencing the current National Curriculum in PE. Sport has played an enduring element to life in England, with strong historical roots and has shaped our culture. David Horspool, in More Than A Game, reminds the reader that we are “a country that has put so much of itself into the invention, codification, dissemination, playing and watching of sport.”

When PE responds to these misconceptions by drawing tighter definitions and boundaries around itself it can be counter productive. It doesn’t begin to address the hierarchical issue (and I don’t think anything we do ever will). The constant reminding to others that PE is a school subject and that only happens within lessons might not play out the way we hope it will. Greg Dryer would add that those of us in PE are the only ones bothered about this definition and we potentially alienate ourselves by insisting it’s a relevant conversation. A definitional response can undermine PE’s uniqueness and value as it assists others higher up the hierarchy to use it for their own vested interest and we inadvertently remove ourselves from important conversations.

I need to do something different. Rather than spending my time trying to educate people on what PE, sport and physical activity are and are not my current position is that perhaps PE would be better served by focusing less on a tight definition boundary and more on a porous purpose boundary.

What is the purpose of physical education? For me personally it is to ‘nurture the physically educated person.’ James MacAllister (2013) defines a physically educated person as “as those who have learned to arrange their lives in such a way that the habitual physical activities they freely engage in make a distinctive contribution to their wider flourishing.“

Can PE do this by itself? I don’t think so. Due to the limited amount of time the subject has and due to the multidimensional nature of the process of becoming physically educated (the interrelated physical, cognitive, social and affective domains) it is beyond us. It takes a village to physically educate a child. Parents, teachers, schools, youth sports clubs, public health authorities, active partnerships, town planners etc. all working together to either make a positive contribution (or not).

PE by itself will never wholly contribute to nurturing the physically educated person. We need to work in conjunction with others and we want others to share in this responsibility with us for this. This doesn’t happen when PE’s response to misconceptions about the subject is a tight definition. We should be leading the conversation with a porous purpose. If PE, sport and physical activity take place at school then the priority should be for educational reasons and quality of learning experience. If adults work with children within different movement forms & cultures inside a school context, whether that is in PE lessons, whether it is after-school clubs or during school based physical activity interventions then it has be for the purpose of nurturing the physically educated person first and foremost.

I’m unsure if this will help. But I’ve been working in PE for almost 25 years and we continue to have these definitional conversations. I have colleagues who have been in PE for a lot longer and it’s the same for them. We keep doing the same thing and expecting different results! I’m happy for others to point out where my thinking is faulty on this, but I’m done with definitional conversations. I don’t think they help. Rather than discussing what PE, sport and PA is or isn’t I think more can be gained by discussing what they are meant for and how they should be used within an educational context with children and young people.

I’ve spent the majority of my career in PE trying to put an ever more defined boundary around the subject that I care about. However my current view is this response it not only ineffective in changing the discourse by stakeholders that are outside of the subject and that covet its potential power, but it is also detrimental to the subject leading the conversation about the process of nurturing the physically educated person. The tighter we draw a boundary around PE the less relevant it is for much of the population. Instead my effort is going to focus on why rather than what, on purpose rather than definition and to make the work we do in PE more porous so it can seep out and meaningful influence people long after their PE journey has finished.