Physical Activity vs Physical Educaton

Sourced from Zethus's blog

Last Thursday in our EPE 310 class we talked about the difference between physical activity and physical education.  It was interesting to take the time to differentiate the two and once our group started talking we realized there is overlap, but there are also sharp distinctions.

wiktionary.org defines physical education as: An element of an educational curriculum concerned with bodily development, strength, physical co-ordination, and agility.


wikipedia.org has a page on physical activity that defines it as: any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons including strengthening muscles and the cardiovascular system, honing athletic skills, weight loss or maintenance, as well as for the purpose of enjoyment. 


I think these definitions are generally accurate, but we talked about a few more things that should be considered.  Obviously physical education has a curriculum associated with it.  But it also has purposeful movement that will help students to develop skills and aptitudes in a variety of areas. It should encourage students to remain active throughout their lives, and it should help students develop social skills.  This does not mean that physical activity does not have those components, but rather that there is more purpose or meaningful content included in education as opposed to activity.


The national association for sport and physical education or NASPE (based in the US) has a page devoted to outlining the differences. They say that : "A quality physical education program provides learning opportunities, appropriate instruction, meaningful and challenging content for all children" whereas  "Physical activity is bodily movement of any type and may include recreational, fitness and sport activities" 
These definitions are very similar to the ones posted above from wikipedia and wiktionary but the page on NASPE is more complete with details on what they consider instruction, meaningful content, and appropriate assessment as well as examples of physical activity.  I found that page to be very helpful in understanding the differences.


The government of Alberta also has some information outlining the differences between physical fitness and physical activity.  To start with, they say "quality physical education always includes physical activity, but the reverse isn’t always true."  This is the same comparison as 'all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares'.  Although there are some similarities and overlap between physical activity and physical education they are not one in the same.


Specifically, from the point of view of education, 
The Alberta curriculum identifies four general outcomes for physical education (the ABCDs):
A: Activity
B: Benefits health
C: Co-operation
D: Do it daily … for life!

The Saskatchewan Curriculum does not have a cute acronym for the overarching goals of physical education but the general sentiments are the same.

The K-12 goals are broad statements identifying what students are expected to know and be able to do upon completion of study in a particular area of study. The goals of physical education are interdependent and are of equal importance. The three goals for students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 are:

• Active Living – Enjoy and engage in healthy levels of participation in movement activities to support lifelong active living in the context of self, family, and community.
• Skillful Movement – Enhance quality of movement by understanding, developing, and transferring movement concepts, skills, tactics, and strategies to a wide variety of movement activities.
• Relationships – Balance self through safe and respectful personal, social, cultural, and environmental interactions in a wide variety of movement activities.

7-Up (sourced from The Pilver's blog)

Again, although there is overlap between physical activity and physical education we can see there are also distinct differences.  Unfortunately I think there are too many teachers who have not taken the time to read and understand the differences and think that anytime students are moving they are "doing phys ed".  I have worked in classes where teachers didn't have access to the gym, or chose not to take students to the gym because they were too loud in the hall way last time, so they tried to do phys ed class in the classroom.  What happened? Students usually ended up playing 7-up or four corners.  Neither of which meets any of the curriculum goals.  It might be fun for the students, but it is definitely not phys ed.

Should Boys and Girls be in segregated PE classes?

Photo taken by Judy Baxter.  Some rights reserved.

On the first day of our EPE 310 (university phys ed curriculum course for K-5 teachers) we all spent a minute talking about who we are and our experience with phys ed in elementary and high school.  Many of the stories from the girls in the class talked about the over competitive nature of phys ed classes and the focus on team sports where there is a clear winner and a clear loser.  Many of the boys seemed to like that format and were successful in their phys ed classes.  This is a very small sample size, but it does lead to the question, should we segregate boys and girls into different phys ed classes that can focus on their interests?


The government of Alberta has an article on their healthy living site that explores the differences in activity preferences between girls and boys in physical education classes.  Although this article is clear to say that not every boy will like competitive team sports, and not every girl will like dancing there is a gender divide in preferred activities.  If this is the case, should we try to work within the interests of our students in the activities we use to meet the curriculum goals?

Photo by Lower Columbia College. Some rights reserved.

In high school there seems to be a movement towards this segregation.  Most of the people in our EPE class talked about having phys ed classes separated by gender in at least grade 9 and 10 (the years it is required in the curriculum). It is easier to do in high school because there is enough variance in classes being taken, and space availability for concurrent phys ed classes.

Is it practical, feasible, or even desirable at an elementary level to have separate boys and girls classes?

As our Saskatchewan society continues to evolve and change with the increase in the Aboriginal population and an increase in immigration there is the potential for cultural traditions to also influence how we teach phys ed.  In Manitoba some recent immigrants have requested exemptions for their children to not participate in physical education classes that are of mixed gender.  However, a local (Winnipeg) Muslim leader says that there is no reason for the separation between genders before the students reach puberty.  The question then becomes how do we fulfill the provincial curriculum objectives while still being respectful of the traditions and beliefs of students and families in the community?

Some studies have been done, and journal articles written on the the benefits (or detriments) to both single gender and co-ed classes.  This summary on the University of Michigan site tells us that single sex female classes allowed the girls to perfect skills more effectively, it actually reduced their overall exercise.  There were no noticeable differences in either skill or exercise level for boys who were in segregated or co-ed classes.  These studies were done on high school students and not elementary students so the results might not translate directly.  Many studies have also found that the most importnat factor in physical activity is having a friend to exercise with.  Regardless of gender it is important that all students have someone in the class that they feel comfortable with and they want to participate with.

The one area within the Saskatchewan curriculum that I think might be missing if we create segregated phys ed classrooms is Relationships.  Students would be able to develop good working relationships with others in the class, but it is not realistic to think that in their everyday lives they would only have interactions with others of the same gender.  These students will, in most cases, still be taking other classes in a co-ed setting, so perhaps they will gain relationship understanding in those classes which will be sufficient. However, they are not really fulfilling all of the curriculum goals of phys ed.  We then have to ask do the benefits (if there are any) outweigh the harms (if there are any).  The opinions on this topic are diverse and the studies inconclusive, especially at the elementary level.

This issue does, however, provide something to consider as we plan the physical education component of our future classrooms.