At a very young age physical activity was a part of my life.

My parents started me as
young as 3-years-old with swimming lessons and it continued from tee-ball through collegiate
football. Physical activity was always a great way for me to "escape" from society as a child, but
as I've grown up, I realize that sports/physical-activity are really a reflection of society itself.
They can be great tools in teaching young children the importance of respect, discipline, and
goal-setting and, this is what drives me today to educate young individuals within the Physical
and Health Education fields today. Not only did this prove true to me throughout my young life,
but even government studies have shown that physical activity in a young child's life leads to
better performance physically, academically, and socially, and, leads to an overall healthier life
style. With that being said, the United States faces a tremendous obesity problem among its
population. Not only do we as adults need to fix this problem, but also need to educate the youth
that the solution to this problem is living a physically active lifestyle and making healthier
choices when it comes to meal selection and overall nutritional choices. Many programs have
been formed throughout the nation that promotes active lifestyles for young children, such as
Play 60, sponsored by the National Football League (NFL). However, motor learning shows us
that when young children only play one sport, they develop "sport-specific" skills, and their
abilities increase in these specific skills. Ultimately, this may cause poor development of other
skills that are not related to the sport and can have a major impact on how individuals perform
certain tasks throughout their life
What ultimately drives my will to teach young children about physical and health education is
that it truly can have a positive impact on your life. When you eat healthier and exercise
regularly, you not only "look better" but you feel better; you perform better not
only physically but cognitively as well, which ultimately leads to a positive impact in someone

socially. In "technical" terms, Physical Education is a process through which an individual

obtains optimal physical, mental, and social skills, and fitness, through physical activity (NASPE
& MA CF standards strive to meet objectives pertaining cognitive thinking, physical activity
levels, and how the students respond to a difficult or changing environment; or behavioral). As
an educator of these fields, it will not be enough to just strive to have your child(ren) obtain new
skills and concepts. In addition to this, I will teach your children how these skills and concepts
can transfer to, and become beneficial attributes to their everyday life. However, the previous
statement is difficult to comprehend at an elementary level because of developmental
characteristics. This will translate to developing each lesson with clear objectives that will be
easily measurable through forms of assessment, whether it is formal or informal. It is also
known that every child is unique in their own way. With that being said, multiple assessments
will tend to be more "visual," as children at these young ages tend to be visual learners. The
unique characteristic about visual assessment is that it not only measures a
learners comprehensions on a cognitive level, but it's also is a great tool in measuring the
"affective" domain, or the social aspect of classes as students listen and follow instructions, and
ultimately, translate this to comprehension (cognitive) and action (psychomotor).
Additionally, violence is all too prevalent in todays news. Although topic such as
bullying are covered extensively in health education, these lessons can easily be transferable to
physical education; because children tend to be competitive with their peers, countless physical
activities throughout the year, at any level, can stress the impacts of bullying on one another.
Where in health education we can talk and even do some exercises that show what bullying is,
and how we as individuals can negate it, physical education allows for the environment for this
to possibly happen, and students negate the bullying in a positive, constructive manner, while

still trying to complete other objectives for that day. Ultimately, the relationship between health
and physical education will always go hand-in-hand.
To conclude my philosophy on Physical and Health Education, they truly are the only
subjects that challenge an individual mentally, and possibly requires them to respond physically
while exhibiting, what we as a society deem, "responsible behavior" (i.e. Good sportsmanship).
In addition to this, we see that educating young children about physical activity and healthy
eating choices has a life-long, positive impact. Although physical education is a great way of
teaching healthy habits, it challenges them to better themselves physically, mentally, and
socially. In reference to health education, it goes hand-in-hand with physical education. We are
now in a day-and-age where it is understood, you get out of your body what you put into it. I
will always stress this with students because, had I this knowledge at an earlier age, I still would
not be trying to break bad habits I have today. Ultimately, when a child exhibits responsible
behavior in the classroom it not only leads to a better performance in physical and health
education but in all their other classes as well. If nothing else, physical and health education is
an excellent foundation to a child's learning-experience, as it teaches them the basis for a healthy
lifestyle and ultimately contributes substantially in creating a stronger society for tomorrow.