Printer-friendly versionIn physical education, working with overweight children and teens can be a balancing act. Educators want to demonstrate support and acceptance for them exactly as they are, while at the same time offering resources and knowledge to help them—and all students—live healthier lives.
A consistent focus on individual progress and development can be key. Lesson plans that avoid explicit student-to-student comparisons of fitness and abilities can help overweight students feel safe enough to give their best efforts. Emphasizing improvements in what they can do and not what they look like or how much they weigh is essential.
In health class, teachers can guide all students in examining the connections between diet and fitness, why people eat what they eat and ways to eat healthier. Lessons can also explore how advertising and popular media twists people’s perception of body image and how opinions of the “ideal body” have changed throughout history.
Schools also need to make it easy for children to eat healthy foods. And they can create opportunities for kids to integrate nutrition and wellness into their daily lives. Likewise, it’s important for teachers and parents to model healthy behaviors to children. The most important thing is to show the importance of achieving optimal health—not focusing on appearance or thinness.
Special needs kids are one group that has sometimes been underserved by physical education classes. But in many districts, resourceful teachers are working to change that.
Sheryl Hall teaches PE in the Springfield Public Schools in Massachusetts. She works with PreK-1 children, including a class of students who are autistic that she sees for 40 minutes every school day.
Through experience and self-education, Hall has struck on a formula to reach children who are often viewed as the most difficult to reach: “Routine, routine, routine,” she says. “We start every class with a song, then some exercise, then another song. Then we walk or jog around the gym.” She signals students using handheld signs that indicate “stop,” “throw” and other instructions, an idea she gleaned from an expert on autism.
Hall also adapts skills exercises to help students experience success. To practice striking skills, kids will hit a ball off a tee then run the bases without the pressure of making an out. Students also kick a ball attached to a handheld band so the ball will not skitter away. “My goal is to create such a fun activity that they’ll want to continue,” Hall says.
In another class, Hall helped a student who is blind cross a low climbing wall by guiding her hand and foot placement. After repeated practice, the girl completed it solo. Hall then offered the class’s sighted kids the chance to wear a blindfold and do the same. They left the climbing wall with a new appreciation for their “special needs” classmate.
