Reprinted from the Health District's quarterly publication mailed to district residents (Spring 2002)

TOPIC: Curriculum's aim: Get kids into the exercise habit

by karin meyer
 

The curriculum coordinator for grades K-12 physical education in PSD schools and his staff have about 1 hour a week to teach the importance of physical education, and hope their young charges walk away with lifelong exercise habits.

"What would happen if we would teach math once a week?" Fotsch asks rhetorically. "We have to ask ourselves, do we want healthy kids?

"And at age 50, what do you want? You want to be healthy and fit," he says. "It has to start young."

But physical education is competing for time with academic demands and testing, says Fotsch, who has taught P.E. for 29 years at Moore Elementary School.

"It will take proof that physical activity and physical education increase test scores," he says, citing a French study that did just that. "Or that youths have become so poorly fit that they’re at risk for death. It sounds terrible, I know."

Given the weekly 60-minute allotment at the elementary level, Fotsch needs to make sure every minute counts for what youngsters learn. And if time, budget and policy constraints weren’t enough, add society and family pressures that put low priority on physical activity in favor of computer games and TV.

"We’re fighting sometimes a losing battle," he concedes.

But Fotsch’s defeatist tone ends there. In the next breath, he’s fired up about making physical education a fun and memorable experience for kids. Gone is the drill instructor regimen many baby boomers remember from childhood. Today’s P.E. has a stronger educational component and, as Fotsch demonstrates, a "walking pushup" revamped from the stationary, up-and-down variety can turn chore into challenge for any child.

"When kids are having fun, they’re not sure they’re exercising," he says.

"(When my kids leave here) I want them to say ‘I had fun at Moore (Elementary School) in P.E. and I want to continue doing this.’ "