What does teaching the whole child mean? The whole-child approach to teaching supports and nurtures all areas of children’s development and learning from social-emotional, physical and cognitive skills.

This can sometimes be challenging, especially when we get into a groove strictly teaching our content. I cannot speak for classroom teachers, but with all of the testing, and new curriculum they are expected to get out to their students to master I can only imagine how hard it could be for them to teach the social, emotional and physical aspect of the child.

As a PE teacher, I like to pride myself in the fact that it is easier to teach the whole child based on the activities I plan. But does this always happen?

The answer is no. I too can admit that sometimes I get caught up in the content of my subject, and forget about teaching the whole child.

For instance, a huge favorite of my K-8 students is Matball. It’s a variation of kickball that requires a lot more physical activity. My students get so into the game that I like to step back and observe. We play from the moment teams are made until the very last second of class. No reflection or closure at the end and throughout the game the students get SO INTENSE. Sometimes in a good way, sometimes in an unhealthy way. That’s where I could improve as their PE teacher, and help them channel their intense highs and lows into positive experiences they can grow from.

Fair play could be improved on, teamwork and communication needs improvement and simple rules and expectation that sometimes get overlooked but turn into hostile arguments over time if not addressed immediately.

But to some people…it’s just gym class so who cares what or how they played right? Wrong. Playing a fair game of Matball can translate into being a hard working individual in your student’s adult life.

What Does Teaching the Whole Child Mean?

Teaching the whole child is an approach to education that strives to ensure every child no matter what school they are in or where their community lies, is healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged.

As educators, we must recognize our students as a whole person. They cannot just be looked at as a math test score, or a physical fitness test score. Does it make you look good as a teacher if your students score high on their assessments? Absolutely.

But what approach did you take to get them there? Did you teach what’s on the assessment, or did you practice teaching the whole child?

Children must be provided with character education programs. This is a great way to advocate for the Arts (PE, Art, Music, Technology, etc.) in your schools since children need an outlet to be artistic, physically active and develop their creative minds.

Although the Arts are a great way to build character in your students, it is strongly suggested that ALL teachers practice teaching the whole child.

So how do we do this? Let’s look at some strategies.

Strategies For Teaching the Whole Child

According to Rutgers University professor Maurice. J Elias, the below strategies help bridge the “believing-doing” gap.

• Know your kids. You need to know them developmentally and relationally. You have to understand that 8-year-olds are very different than 9-year-olds, for example, and know and be able to make decisions based on that.
• Listen to your kids: they are great truth tellers.
• Ask questions and be willing to explore the answers.
• Be data-driven about all all factors affecting the whole child, not just what is collected on achievement tests.
• Teach and model all aspects of the whole child: healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged.

A lot of us knew this information already, but do we actively practice this approach? Being conscious of supporting and nurturing all areas of students’ development and learning is key. Understanding a child must have their social, emotional and personal health needs met before cognitive skills, like critical thinking can be developed is extremely important. Edmentum Online Learning Programs for Teachers stresses, “teaching the whole child approach encourages learning by making lessons approachable and capitalizing on students’ existing understandings, interests, and abilities. It leverages curiosity and every child’s natural eagerness to discover. It takes advantage of the intrinsic “need to know” mindset we’re all born with”.

Teaching the Whole Child in Physical Education

Since we know that kids typically do better in school when they are physically and emotionally healthy, we can also understand that because of this students tend to miss fewer classes, and are less likely to engage in risky or antisocial behavior, concentrate more and achieve higher test scores.

As PE teachers we know that our physical education programs not only improve our students physical fitness, but can also improve skill development, reinforce self discipline, support academic achievement, reduce stress, strengthen peer relationships, improve self-confidence and self-esteem and teach goal setting.

But all of the above can fall by the wayside if your the “roll the balls out and let the kids play” type of teacher. If you are not actively trying to better your students quality of life then what are you even doing?

The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model:

SHAPE AMERICA, basically the PE teachers Bible set up a model framework for educating the whole child that has supported a weight gain plateau in recent years in communities where this model is used.

“The WSCC model allows for greater integration of and collaboration between education and health for the purposes of improving each child’s cognitive, physical, social and emotional development. It expands upon the components of a coordinated health program, built around the whole child approach to education, and provides a more collaborative framework for addressing the relationship between health and learning”.

If you have not checked out this framework, I strongly suggest you do (purple link above this paragraph).

The goal is to ensure every student is healthy and successful academically. As teachers we pride ourselves on being there for our kids, but what if we are missing something? What else can we do to make sure they are getting the best education possible because all their needs are being met. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

Improving Character Development While Teaching the Whole Child in Physical Education

Again, PE is not just basketball, football and volleyball practice. It runs much deeper than that. Below are some characteristics that should be taught to strengthen the whole child to improve their quality of life in school and especially outside.

Improve Skill Development

The only way students are going to learn a skill is if they can feel successful at it. One of my favorite examples is when I teach my K-4th graders volleyball.

Modify, modify, modify!

You will have students at all different skill levels, so make sure your modifications can be used at the same time as other students who don’t need modifications.

For example, when I teach the little ones how to underhand pass (bump). There is no reason a first grader needs to immediately start off with a regular volleyball, tossing it into the air and trying to keep it up for as long as possible. But what they can do, is use a softer lighter ball, toss is up, let it come back down and bounce once or twice, position themselves underneath it and bump the ball back up in the air. And repeat those steps until they get the hang of it.

If your students can’t feel successful in the skill they are learning they will lose interest fast. When an activity isn’t enjoyable, you’re not going to want to do it right? Same for skill development in your students. This can also be said for students tasks outside of school. You are showing them that they can find ways to be successful at something by taking a different approach. And if they build on that effort, eventually they will get to their end goal through principles and strategies you taught them before they give up.

Reinforce Self Discipline

Self discipline is a learned behavior, and no better place to help your students practice than in your PE class. Gaining control of your own self discipline requires practice and repitition in your day to day live. Developing good habits, breaking bad ones and improving self control can be obtained by making small changes to your everyday routine.

Improving your students self discipline can help them live happier lives and help them make healthy choices instead of emotional ones.

Below are four methods you can help your PE students work at to improve their lives:

• Remove Temptations

If you know your students, you will figure out what their triggers are. Maybe it’s specific people they cannot work well with, or maybe it’s a type of activity that riles them up. Eliminating these temptations for them will help them enjoy a stress free physical education class.

I used to have a sixth grade class that could not work together. No matter what I did, every class ended in chaos. Then, I eliminated ALL competition games and activities. The turn around was slow, but we did it. This class actually became one of my favorite classes over time because I was able to remove temptations that would set them off. After restructuring the entire outline of how that class works, my students actually became well functioning PE students for me.

• Eat Regularly and Make Healthy Choices

This is almost a no brainer for the PE teacher. Helping your students understand that we need food for fuel, instead of food for comfort will really improve the quality of their lives.

Your students eating habits are out of your control, but as long as you give them the tools and information needed to make healthy choices you’ve done your part.

But then there are the students who might be hungry that you may not know anything about. When you’re hungry, your ability to concentrate suffers as your brain is not functioning to its highest potential. Your hungry students wont be able to focus as well, and their moods can worsen. All of this can cause a weakened sense of self control in all aspects of life…and in PE class that translates to exercise, work ethic, relationships/team building and communication. Eating healthy and regularly will often regulate your blood sugar levels and improves your decision making skills. This allows your brain to focus on its goals and priorities.

If you have the means, it might be in your students best interest to have some healthy snacks on deck. You wont know all of your kids situations, but if you can help some then that’s better than nothing. The point of the snacks isn’t to hand out like candy. But when you know a student is hungry, you’ll be able to feed them.

Last year, I had a 7th grade student come up to me crying, telling me she was so hungry. Before I started class I took her right into my office and gave her a few snacks to get her through the rest of her day. I let her eat in private and regroup until she felt healthy enough to rejoin her classmates.

• Don’t Wait for it to “Feel Right”

According to Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, he explains, “Improving your self discipline means changing up your normal routine, which can be uncomfortable and awkward. Habit behaviors are traced to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia – a portion of the brain associated with emotions, patterns, and memories. Decisions, on the other hand, are made in the prefrontal cortex, a completely different area. When a behavior becomes habit, we stop using our decision-making skills and instead function on auto-pilot. Therefore, breaking a bad habit and building a new habit not only requires us to make active decisions, it will feel wrong. Your brain will resist the change in favor of what it has been programmed to do. The solution? Embrace the wrong. Acknowledge that it will take a while for your new regime to feel right or good or natural. Keep chugging along. It will happen”.

• Schedule Breaks and Rewards

Knowing who your students are, and expecting them to mold into exactly what you want overnight is impossible. You’re setting yourself and your students up for failure. Let them know what your expectations are, and allow them to grow.

Self discipline does not mean your students regimen needs to be entirely cold turkey, hard core, or drill sergeant-like in execution. In fact, giving them zero wiggle room often results in failures, disappointments, and more issues down the road. While practicing self control with your students, schedule specific breaks, treats, and rewards for them.

Support Academic Achievement

Cross curricular activities are a must in PE. It can be as simple as skip counting during warm ups for Kindergarten, or learning the state names while doing squats.

With virtual learning, I found this to be extremely fun. I worked closely with the K-3rd grade teachers in my school to carry over what they are teaching their students into my class. But instead of them sitting in front of a screen trying to learn concepts their teachers were trying to teach them, they got to review those concepts while moving.

In person can work just as easily though. For the older students, get with your social studies teachers and figure out what their weekly lessons look like, then build a mini unit around that. When I student taught, the S.S. teacher was right in the middle of an ancient Rome unit. So I looked up everything about the Olympics and cross referenced it with terms they were using, and we ended up having a mini Olympics unit for the whole week.

Another way you could look at supporting academic achievement is to reward students who tend to struggle with some gym time or with something they really enjoy.

At my current school, a few students have a reward system built into their behavior plans. Instead of them getting anything taken away, they gain extra gym time with their favorite behavior specialist at the end of the day on Fridays. They have to have their work for the week completed, and stay on track in their classes to earn this.

I loved the fact that the kids were rewarded with something they loved. In my opinion it pushed them to stay on track and take more pride in their studies.

Reduce Stress

Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress reduction benefits since it pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity may help bump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins.

It’s one thing to know this, but it’s another thing to actually teach this to your students. Give them different activities to fall in love with so that when they are feeling anxious and stressed, they will automatically know how to cope.

My K-3 students end every class with 5 deep breaths. It’s a small activity that takes less than a minute, but I am helping them understand that when they feel worked up, stressed or when their minds are clouded, they can slow down and regulate their breathing.

Strengthen Peer Relationships

One of the best ways to strengthen relationships is to play team building activities with your students. I start every school year or trimester out with a week of team building games.

To be successful in life, it is important to have skills such as open, honest communication, combined with the ability to comprehend the feelings and apprehensions of others. Active listening and the willingness to share knowledge is the heart of one-on-one and group communication.

Going back to my team building activities. For one class I specifically grouped my students with others I knew they did not get along with. Normally when I would make teams, I try to separate the students who don’t work well together so everyone can be successful, but for this unit I wanted my students to build on their teamwork skills. That was the whole point!

I only had one student out of my 30 of that class that did not do well with the activity. But the rest did AMAZING! All week they kept the same groups, which meant all week they actively had to work with together to overcome whatever obstacle I had planned for them. It was really fun to watch, and set the tone for a great trimester with these students.

Improve Self Confidence and Self-Esteem

This one can be scary, especially for your students in PE who don’t feel like they belong there. Continuously giving them positive reinforcement for a job well done will slowly but surely build their confidence up.

Each summer, I teach High School PE. The students are skill levels are all over the map, so I play a lot of lead up games to the actual sports I want them to learn. But what I actually am doing is playing modified games with the kids that help the ones who aren’t good at sports feel successful while still challenging the athletes. What I found was during their 20 minutes of outdoor time (3 hour block classes), the GIRLS were playing variations of football games. They played every day.

At the end of the summer school program, I had all my students asses their class. The majority of them told me they loved the mini games, or activities that we played. They expressed that they had no idea “gym class” could be this fun. And this is the exact reason I do what I do. Help kids feel confident getting as much physical activity as they need in whatever way they want.

Goal Setting

The most effective goals are based on the S.M.A.R.T. formula, that is, they are goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time oriented. If you want your students to become more physically active or develop certain skills, help them set S.M.A.R.T. goals.

Just like when you practice your skill development in class. Make sure you’re students can feel successful some of the time. If you are setting goals that are not attainable, your students will lose interest fast. It can turn them off from physical activity completely.

Setting goals helps people develop strategies for success, and this will be beneficial in every aspect of your students lives.

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