Teaching physical education to children is based upon their innate urge to play and move. Physical Education should also invoke the childhood traits upon which good teachers capitalize in other parts of the curriculum--curiosity, experience, interest, cooperation, knowledge, enthusiasm. In one sense the teacher's job here is uncomplicated; it is to help a youngster to throw and catch a ball, to do a handstand, or the many time-honoured ways that children learn physically, and to understand the "how" and "why" of these activities. Of course this task is complicated by the diversity of play forms and physical activities and also by the technocentric language and practice that now mystifies physical education to many. It is further complicated and distorted by the fact that physical education has been trivialized in the reductionist process which sees many programs comprising merely relays, group games and fitness activities.
With so many demands upon the time and energies of teachers, it is unrealistic for this guide to ask that school staffs embark upon a new program that will take up huge amounts of inservice time, reading and professional preparation. Instead, we hope that the material assembled here and in the accompanying resource documents will make the generalist teacher's job easier, more rewarding, and in keeping with the needs of young people for quality physical education.
We all need to review and reframe what we do in education and in life as time goes by. In teaching students in physical education this is equally true. We need to ask ourselves what is the big picture that we see for children and the place that movement should occupy in their lives? What is our job in this context? How can we help students to make important connections between what they learn through their senses and their intellect? How can we help youngsters to understand themselves better, and the world in which they live, through the medium of physical education? If such questions are kept at the forefront of our day-to-day work in physical education, and if we find even partial answers to these questions, we will have done much to enhance learning.