Multicultural Education

Multicultural education is a way of advancing sport and exercise psychology and to influence the public interest.  As a physical education teacher at a public middle school, I am looking to incorporate multicultural education within my curriculum.  It is going to allow us to reach out to the diversity of the students as well as promote being physically active (Gill & Williams, 2008). 

                According to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE), a two-year strategic plan has been developed specifically for promoting physical activity amongst diverse settings.  This plan is aimed towards enhancing and improving the quality of physical education programs, and as a teacher, it is my duty to create an inclusive environment amongst the diversity of the students within the program.  Identifying the multicultural competencies is necessary while teaching in such a diverse setting (NASPE).  It is going to allow the program to see where we are on the continuum and what we need to do to in order to develop certain competencies and to be able to be where we want to be in the near future as well. 

                Gill and colleagues (2005) suggest a need for the concept of cultural competence, a continuum, as well as selected resources.  They also suggest the application of the concept of cultural competence to be applied within physical education including program instruction, the curriculum itself, as well as the policies involved in the program (Gill & Williams, 2008). 

The concept of cultural competence includes the inclusion of culturally diverse forms of physical activity (Gill & Williams, 2008).  As a way to create an inclusive environment, a multicultural games unit will be introduced for four weeks out of the semester.  This is going to allow the students to be able to create an understanding of different world cultures.  As an introduction of multicultural education, there is going to be a time for research and allowing the students to collect resources specific to multicultural physical activities.  The students will be divided up into groups and given the task of researching and learning about a specific multicultural game.  The students will then be assigned a day to present the information they have found to the class as well as teach and play the game itself. 

By allowing the students to teach themselves about the variety of multicultural physical activities, we as a school and the program itself will promote the improvement of cultural competence and we will be able to move up the competence continuum.  As a school having never included any type of multicultural education previously, we have been within the first few stages of the continuum.  However, now that there is a clear plan of introducing multicultural education within the physical education curriculum, we as a school are between the stages of cultural precompetence and cultural competence (Gill & Williams, 2008). 

As a starting point for including multicultural education within the curriculum, our school aims to reach the final stage of cultural proficiency by the end of following school year.  Multicultural education is necessary for creating an inclusive environment and allowing not only the students, but also the teachers and staff to broaden their knowledge of other existing cultural physical activities.  This improvement in our education system is a mere stepping stone in affecting social change.  Someday, society will become educated and there will be a stop to oppression and injustice for all. 

References

Gill, D., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise. pp. 267-289. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

National Association for Sport and Physical Education. (2010-2012). NASPE strategic plan. Retrieved from http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/about/upload/NASPE-Strategic-Plan-2010-2012.pdf

Team Building

As an adolescent physical education teacher, I would like to incorporate some team building activities within the class periods I have with my seventh graders in particular.  The overall goal of physical education classes is to enhance physical fitness and skills of the students.  Teamwork values seem to always be reserved for those who participate in sport; however, not all students choose to participate in sport (Glover & Midura, 1992).  Personally having strong feelings towards all children and adolescents building and improving on their teamwork values, I would like to take my seventh graders to the next level.  I want them to be able to build their teamwork values within class as well as through other extracurricular activities. 

                There are four basic approaches to team building.  They are goal setting, interpersonal relations, role clarifications, and problem solving (Klein, C., DiazGranados, D., Salas, E., Le, H., & Burke, C.S., 2009).  The reason for goal setting is to allow for individual and team goals to be developed as well as to be able to discuss a plan of action in order to meet the goals by a set time and date.  Interpersonal relations increase teamwork skills of each individual as well as help the team to develop trust with one another and belief in the team itself.  Role clarification is necessary in order to increase communication within the team and to allocate personal roles and duties given to each individual.  Finally, problem solving permits involvement of identifying task-related problems within the group as well as action planning and solutions (Klein et al., 2009).    

                Team building is meant for each student to feel a sense of accomplishment.  As a team, they will be given challenges to overcome together, and in doing so, cohesion will take place.  Each individual will be given their own specific role to play, differing for each challenge, for a sense of personal success and achievement throughout the semester.  This program will influence the students’ communication with each other, as well as being able to learn all of the different roles and tasks that need to be overcome with each challenge given to them. 

                By incorporating a team building program into physical education classes, the students will significantly gain higher perceptions of global self-worth, athletic competence, physical appearance, social acceptance, as well as gaining higher perceptions of scholastic competence and behavioral conduct (Ebbeck & Gibbons, 1998).  The students will be able to improve their team building skills.  From this, they will take what they have learned and apply it to future extracurricular activities aside from physical education classes. 

RESOURCES

Carron, A.V., & Spink, K.S. (1993). Team building in an exercise setting. The Sport Psychologist, 7, pp. 8-18. Retrieved from http://journals.humankinetics.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/

Ebbeck, V., & Gibbons, S.L. (1998). The effect of a team building program on self-conception of grade 6 and 7 physical education students. Journal of sport and Exercise Physiology, 20(3). Retrieved from https://secure. Sportquest.com/su.cfm?articlesno=S-13125&title=S-13125

Gill, D., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise. pp. 261-265. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Glover, D.R., & Midura, D.W. (1992). Team Building Through Physical Challenges [pp. 1-21]. (Google Books), Retrieved from http://books.google.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/books?hl=en&lr=&id=1bgd1ftzwFwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Team+building+through+physical+challenges

Klein, C., DiazGranados, D., Salas, E., Le, H., & Burke, C.S. (2009). Does team building work? Small Group Research, 40(2), pp. 181-222, Retrieved from http://sgr.sagepub.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/content/40/2/181.full.pdf+html doi: 10.1177/1046496408328821