Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Schools
Introduction
Physical education plays a vital role in students development and
growth. According to recent medical studies, physical well being of a student
is directly related to his or her performance whether in class or in the office.
The optimal physical education program will foster a lifetime commitment to
physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle. Ultimately, improved
coordinated school health programs, of which physical education is a central
component, will augment other prevention efforts and help to reverse the
growing epidemic of childhood obesity which threatens to undo decades of
progress in the fight against cardiovascular and other diseases. Effective
efforts made now will help children avoid a lifetime of chronic disease and
disability. Before further discussion of the importance of physical education,
there first needs to a formal definition of what physical education is and what
type of teachings occur in such a class. Definition of Physical Education
People are often mistaken in defining physical education as they often
assume that physical education is sport education. Simply put, physical
education is defined as a process of education through physical activity. The
goal is the development of individuals acquired through experience of motion.
In a broader context, physical education is defined as a process of learning
through physical activities designed to improve physical fitness, develop
motor skills, knowledge and behavior of healthy and active living,
sportsmanship, and emotional intelligence.
Thus, Physical Education is not only aimed at physical development but
also includes the development of the individual as a whole. With Physical
Education students will acquire a variety of expressions which are closely
related with the personal impressions of fun as well as various expressions of
a creative, innovative, and skilled, have the physical fitness, healthy habits
and have the knowledge and understanding of human motion. What is taught
in Physical Education?
The health and physical education programs should be designed to teach
students the skills, knowledge and attitudes essential to live a healthy
lifestyle and select healthy and safe behaviors. Physical education is unique
1
106 of the states school districts reported that the most recognizable benefit
of the mandate was improved academic focus. Importance of Physical
Education as it relates to Swimming
In an article about How to Learn by Swim Smooth written in 2009, it
speaks about the brain in two parts, our conscious and our subconscious.
When we perform a familiar movement pattern such as walking or riding a
bike we perform the movements on auto-pilot. The same goes for swimming
stroke. Freestyle is such a complex set of movements that nearly every
action is controlled by our subconscious. It may be thought that you are
concentrating
very hard on your stroke but in reality you can only make small changes
through pure conscious thought power or concentration. The subconscious
mind is very fast, can do complicated things in a fraction of a second, and
can react before you have time to think. The conscious mind on the other
hand is very much slower and could never react or co-ordinate things this
quickly. It can only co-ordinate one thing at a time and often very clumsily.
With proper physical education, a swim coach can teach about the muscle
groups used in each different form of swim stroke, the proper nutrition
required in order to keep the body fit for doing swimming on a regular basis
and give proper instruction on swimming techniques so that as the individual
practices and it starts to move from conscious thought to subconscious forms
of movement, the actions being carried out are correct and precise. It can
also be of benefit where the physical education is concerned because with
technique again, focus will be made on single aspects of a stroke and
gradually everything at once in order to give the body a full feel and more
susceptible to get it done correctly than a person teaching themselves and
trying to do everything at once.
Since the conscious mind can only do one thing at a time, focus should
only be on one part of the swimming technique at a time and the
subconscious gets a feel for things most quickly by doing the action. Many
swimmers believe they have to concentrate very hard when they swim or
their stroke technique will fall apart. Theyre vastly over-estimating the
influence of their conscious mind as theyre swimming! If they mentally
switched off they would swim almost identically sometimes better because
theyd be more relaxed.
Source : http://studymoose.com/importance-of-physical-education-in-schoolsessay
5