Educational tasks in kinesiological culture

Josip Cvenić

Department of mathematics, University of J.J. Strossmayer in Osijek

Educational phenomena in physical education has always been emphasized and held a
very important place. A fact that speaks in favor of this is the title of 1st Summer school of
pedagogues of physical education in Croatia, whose subject was Kinesiological views on
education. With that experts from this field made it clear that starting points for all further
research in all the branches of kinesiology are based on a very important educational
influence. We know that the definition of education is not unambiguous, and because of that it
is hard to define which educational goals can be achieved through kinesiological contents.
What also needs to be said, is that in the past 17 years there were very little research about the
educational variables, and that issue was not being deeply researched, as it has been done with
other components of physical education, which include the research of anthropological
features, motoric skills and achievements. There are still many open questions. The scope of
education is still not defined, what are the variables that belong to education and what are the
effects gained by applying certain educational stimulus. Are the activity of the students in
class, participation of students in after school activities, acquired health-hygienic routines and
theoretical knowledge the only variables to be looked at and tested or there exist some other
dimensions? Can certain educational variables only be influenced in a certain time of life, are
there sensitive phases or development features of every age? One of the tasks should
definitely be establishing the links and the correlation between teaching units and educational
tasks, to find the contents of physical education which can influence today’s youth, direct
them and change their work habits, their relationship with friends, respecting the rules, moral
values. Try to see where other subjects stand when it comes to determining their educational
tasks, are the tasks similar or the same, can the same methodology be used, and the same
means of monitoring and testing.

There is the inevitable need for one project to deal with that very important educational
component of all school subjects, and in this case of physical education, because by its
structure, conducting and teaching methods it belongs to subjects that have a lot of spaces for
influencing the students' educational tasks.

Key words: educational variables, kinesiological approach, education, physical education

Introduction

It is well known that physical education in the educational system has a very important
meaning in preparing and enabling children, pupils and young people for life and work. That
statement is based on physical workout as a basic process for transformation of
anthropological features, motoric skills and achievements, health condition and educational
effects. Nevertheless, all the above mentioned components are hard to monitor and test in
everyday school practice for many reasons. One of the reasons is qualification of the teachers
who need to have all the required skills and knowledge for monitoring and testing of all the
features. Furthermore, for successful monitoring the right instruments, devices and tools are
required, and in our circumstances they are still very inadequate. Finally, it takes much more
then two lessons a week just to recognize and value, and even more to influence and have the
expected effects of one educational process. This paper will research the meaning of
education, of educational effects show different elements that exist by now, discuss different
studies made about that subject and consider the importance of education as a part of students
schooling.

Education

To understand the meaning of the term education, we first need to consider a few
definitions.

From the kinesiological point of view (Findak at al., 1992) education is defined as
permanent planned process of forming certain features, competences and knowledge which
improve the health and the development of each individual and his relationship to the world
that surrounds him, mostly towards work, nature, society and other people. With the education
we prepare the man for independent, healthy, free, creative and interdependent life in a social
community of people (Pokec, 1992). Educational values are different according to the age of
participants, from children, teenagers, to adults. Since the efficiency of education is higher as
the age is lower, than by any doubt children and teenagers are the age groups that can be
influenced the most. (Relac, 1992)

Other authors, from pedagogical point of view, explain education as a conscious influence
of man on its development and on development of other people. Education is every conscious
activity that develops mental and physical features of man. Education is permanent and
important function of man (Vrgoč, 1992). It can be realized on himself (then it is self-
education), or it is directed towards other people (Malić at al., 1983). In the narrower sense
education is affective learning of values, attitudes and habits. In broader sense education is a
process of moderate (intentional, deliberate) development and forming the man with all his
human features (Silov, 2003). The process of forming and building all his physical,
intellectual, moral, aesthetic and work features (Vukasović, 1995).

According to the last definition we can distinguish few basic educational areas: physical
education (maintenance and strengthening of the body, of its shape and health), intellectual
education (strengthening of the brain, generally speaking), aesthetic and moral education
(which we will conditionally put under education of a soul). Traditionally in this classification
we put work education- as the reflection of a man being a working being and his need (and
necessity) to create and form material goods. We will add social and emotional education-
because a man lives with others and with himself; needs to be able to control his relations
with others and to know himself.
 Many types of education can be found in teaching, and some of the valuable components
can be improved or sustained in any way. Educational contents of teaching (Miljković, 2009):

1. Existential (work and productive education, ecological education, traffic education,

physical education, health education, education for self-protection)

2. Social ( human relations between genders, family relations, education for human rights,
civil education, successful communication, social skills, work and cooperation in a team)

3. Humanistic (developing a positive image about yourself, professional information and

orientation, optimal development of your own potentials).

Physical education

The term of physical education has a broader meaning than the school subjects itself and
the range of work in primary and secondary schools, and institutions of higher education.
With that term we conotate the whole educational work whose purpose is proper physical
growth and development, improving the health, and raising general physical ability.

In the educational reality all basic educational areas must be interrelated and focused on
gaining mutual purpose. In these mutual attempts physical education is not only limited on
caring about proper physical growth and development, improving the health and raising
general physical ability, but it also helps the development of intellectual and work abilities, of
moral and aesthetic features, of building willing features and traits of personality and
character. With that it is comprehensively involved in a unique educational process whose
purpose is to develop the whole personality (Vukasović, 1995).

The activities of physical education offer great and favorable opportunities to develop
moral qualities, positive traits of personality, help you form strong will and firm character.
With the proper organization of life and with continuous working out, you develop the
initiative, independence, reliability, persistence, determination, accuracy, precision, boldness,
courage, discipline, consciousness, and by including social components that inventory
expands and enriches itself by new positive characteristics like friendship, solidarity,
cooperation, helping, sense of duty and responsibility, honesty, principle, patriotism, and other
.

Through educational task physical education influences development of aesthetic features,

sense of beautiful, spotting, experiencing and making aesthetic values. By developing the
sense for natural, beauty, harmony, rhyitmicity, elasticity and gracefulness of movement, and
even and proportional body development, by connecting and harmonizing movement and
music, nourishing of sense and experiencing natural beauties, nourishing the feeling for
harmony of colors and shapes - aesthetic values are noticed and developed as well is the
general sense for beautiful.

Physical education offers many possibilities for enrichment of emotional life. Appropriate
exercises, games and socializing in different conditions bring out pleasant feelings, moods
and emotional states: cheerfulness, contentment, happiness, joy, liking, enthusiasm, self-
confidence, love for nature and your country, love of life and optimism. In the conditions of
long-term work out with adequate education the feeling of anger is can be overcame more
easily, surprise can be avoided, pessimism eliminated and so called mental peace and balance
achieved, and without those thing there can not be any success in sports, or desirable social
adaptation. Physical workout teaches a man not to take defeat in life tragically, which can
sometimes be the cause of unsuccessful adaptation.

A man who practices this activity by a combination of circumstances suppresses the

inferiority complex, and because of that sportsman usually don't have many inappropriate
reactions, that can usually be triggered by this complex. With physical workout you can also
easily and successfully direct aggressiveness, which can otherwise cause asocial behavior.
Living in a sports collective and proper education also provides the acquisition of work habits,
removing the selfishness, developing the sense for collective and forming other qualities of
personality, which make problems of social and micro social adaptation easier, and relatively
harmonious expression of personality ( Mraković, 1982).

We will specially point out self-discipline and the culture of conduct (behavior). The
habits in different situations and features like decency, courtesy, boldness, benevolence,
modesty, proper vocabulary, culture of communication with other people, positive attitude
towards material and cultural values, etc.

Physical education is a part of physical schooling-education area, and with that the part of
general schooling and education ( V. Findak, 1989). So, between basic tasks it implicates also
an educational task whose realization, or the difficulties with the realization, has been a matter
of discussion in the frames of contemporary change of schooling and education. Difficult
realization of educational effects in an overall educational area, so also in the area of physical
education, is almost a chronical problem. The consequences are already evident, and they are
shown in different manifest forms of partial or complete educational neglect of young
generations (Poduška- Radaković, 1993).

Educational tasks in physical education

As we said at the beginning educational tasks are not identical for all development periods.
Every developmental period has its own characteristics which distinguish it from all other
developmental periods, but most of them have a certain time when there is the strongest
influence on some features, attitudes and habits of pupils.

Some of the tasks of physical education in pre-school age (first and second developmental
period) that are related to educational tasks ( Findak, 1995 ):

 enabling a child to cooperate with other children through game

 creating conditions in which a child feels content and free

 acquiring a healthy way of life and habits necessary for preserving your own and other
people's health and lives

 developing and nourishing child’s health-hygienic habits by keeping personal hygiene,

hygiene of clothes and footwear and hygiene of your immediate surroundings
  acquiring basic standards of behavior and order , to contribute to development of
independence, safety and self- initiative

Work group for that made HNOS for primary school suggested following tasks that can
be accomplished and that are to be developed within the school subject of physical education
from I.-III. Grade (third developmental period)

 acquiring hygienic habits

 developing personal responsibility for your own health

 accepting and respecting the difference between pupils as well as understanding

children with special needs

 accepting different personalities

 developing positive image about oneself

 developing ability of self-control , self confidence and decisiveness

 developing the skill of overcoming fear, and encouraging persistence

 developing cooperative behavior to be prepared for team work

 accepting and understanding the needs of children with difficulties

 following personal progress

 developing communication skills

 developing the sense of contentment

 knowing and following safety measures for preserving life and health

 encouraging the respect for tradition of your people

 respecting the opponent, following the rules of the game, overcoming rage and
dissatisfaction, and acknowledging the victory of the opponent

Educational tasks from IV.-VI. (fourth developmental period)

 acquiring the sense of balance between freedom and responsibility

 taking into consideration the differences between genders in physical abilities
 Respecting the rules and their importance in life (waiting fro your turn, consideration
and decency towards other participants in the game, accepting others success or
advantage, and so on...)
 encouraging persistence in working out
 establishing self control in the moments of anger and discontentment, accepting
defeat with recognizing mistakes, judgment of inappropriate display of disappointment
and incidents caused by defeat, peacefully resolving the conflicts
  presenting the reasons for avoiding simulative and narcotics
 helping the children with developmental difficulties

Educational tasks from VII.- VIII. Grade ( fifth developmental period):

 correct relation between freedom and responsibility

 ability of expressing self respect and respect towards others

 acquiring healthy eating habits and healthy life styles

 helping other pupils and influencing the control of aggressiveness

 promoting decent team supporters habits

 respecting racial and national differences

 identification with national symbols ( flag, coat of arms), emphasizing your own
national identity and pride of belonging to your country

 encourage good manners and point to its importance in life

Educational tasks from I. - IV. Grade (sixth developmental period) according to Findak 1999:

 encourage the acknowledgment of own personality with each individual student

 helping pupils in communication with others
 fulfill the interest form motoric creativity by aesthetic design
 enabling pupils to independently organize activities of physical education

Educational tasks of physical education in seventh developmental period (Caput- Jogunica

and co., 2007.) relate to:

 encouraging positive values towards physical education with the goal of enabling for
self initiative lifelong exercising
 raising the level of frustration tolerance
 positive influence on different kinds of anxiousness
 directing aggressiveness to constructive values
 forming the habit of exercise with the goal of improving the health, work efficiency
and quality of life

Neljak (1992) in his appendix shows one completely different approach to defining
educational tasks as well as the way to their operationalization. All educational influences
during one lesson, he classifies in two groups of educational messages. The first one points to
educational influences that come directly from the topics during lesson, so it is called
dependent. The second one is not, or doesn't have to be in functional relationship with the
topics in class and because of that it is called independent. Overall educational effects during
class are a product of dependant and independent component of educational influences. For
the component of dependant educational tasks it is necessary to compare and coordinate two
groups of information. The first group are teaching topics for each individual class behind the
official plan and program of upbringing and primary education of physical education area,
while the second group is formed by the terms standardly used in pedagogy. The component
of independent educational tasks primarily depends on the educational plan of the school,
because that is the only way to coordinate the educational approach of the teachers from
different school subjects. After the dependant and independent component of educational
information have been known and defined, the teacher can only then completely coherently
make the educational task of each lesson concrete.

And while teaching topics for each class have been set a long time ago, and are being
innovated and improved in regular periods ( last change for primary school was in 2005. ,
when HNOS was introduced), nobody has come up to form the educational terms. It is
necessary to make one inventory of features and values, to see what features are more
appreciated, which are recognizable for the area of physical education, and which should be
given

Monitoring and evaluation of educational effects

Evaluation of work is very important in every area of human activity, so therefore also in
the area of kinesiology, or in the applied areas of kinesiology, such as education, sports and
sports recreation. Components of evaluation are testing and grading.

Thanks to scientific achievements in kinesiology and kinesiological methodic with the

present contents of grading it is possible to cover all objectively measurable features, skills,
motoric skills, motoric achievements and educational variables that are know to be influenced
through physical education (Findak, 2004).

For the needs of physical education it is necessary to include the state of health,
anthropological features, motoric skills, motorc achievements and educational effects of work.

Through its basic program physical education has great possibilities of educational action.
The complexity of education demands from educators and teachers to be creative with every
subject in the teaching process individually. Much was said about education in professional
literature, but the main condition for successful educational influence on children and pupils,
is for pedagogues to like children and pupils.

Educational effects need to be assessed by monitoring and testing with the help of following
variables: a) activity of pupils in the physical education, b) participation of pupils in after
school activities in physical education, c) acquired health-hygienic habits, d) theoretical
knowledge. All the above parameters are monitored and tested during the whole school year
(Delija and Pleša , 2004 ).

As we can see there are only four variables for monitoring and evaluating the obtained
results of educational effects. The recommendation is to write them in the „group list of the
class“using certain symbols, signs or descriptive grades. That way in class, for monitoring and
testing the activities of the pupils during class you can find marks like SO= stands out, or S=
satisfies. In participation of pupils in after school activities the symbol for being successful is
PU, and if health-hygienic habits are good we will put the mark „+“. The level of theoretical
knowledge we can grade with G= great or with W= weak.
 With grading the situation is also quite vague (unclear). With motoric skills and motoric
achievements we have motoric tests in which with every teaching topic it is explicitly
explained what pupil needs to do for each grade. How a motoric structure needs to look like to
get an excellent grade, or what time, or height needs to be achieved to get a very good grade.
When graded, pupils are introduced with the criteria, and every pupil can find himself at the
scale from 1-5, depending on the result, or on the preformed motorist movement. With
educational tasks that is not the case. There is no suggested model for most of the teachers to
accept and use. The grade depends exclusively on knowing the educational tasks of each
individual professor, and of his subjective grading of the same. Even in talking with teachers
most of them will tell you that educational tasks make up for the half of the grade in physical
education and that it is not important for someone to be motoricly superior to get an excellent
grade. So in practice we find following situations:

 Activity in class is graded by the attendance, so if a pupil doesn't participate in class

he gets lower grade at the end of the month.
 Member of a school team ,regardless of other components of grading and his other
moral values, has an excellent final grade just because he is good at ,for example,
football.
 Health-hygienic habits are reduced to checking the exercise equipment, so do the
pupils have white t-shirts and blue shorts.
 Theoretical knowledge is not defined at all, what level should be achieved and what
terminology should they be able to use in a certain period.

Some authors went a bit further ( Šimić, 2007) so they divided separate educational effects
in several parts, and for each activity of the pupils they gave a certain ponder or heaviness that
was added or subtracted form the final grade in educational tasks. That way an absence with
no excuse was marked with “Z” and -0,60 is subtracted from the educational component. If
the pupil is in class but does not have an equipment the symbol is „O“, and -0,20 is
subtracted. For performance in after school activities and competitions for his school pupil
can be awarded with 0,10 to 0,80 points which is the 1. place in a state school championship.

Every pupil starts classes with the grade 5,00. During the school year the grade can go up
or down, by using the system of rating. The pupil who gains a negative balance because of his
actions ( and that is if he is absent from class without excuse for 9 times, or 13 % of the total
classes), gets a negative grade regardless of his grades in motoric achievements and motoric
skills. The pupil who gains -3,40 with his actions ( if he is absent from class without excuse
for 14 times, or 20 % of the total classes) stays without a grade. Coefficient of stimulation for
regular attendance is 1,30.

As we can see, using this system of evaluation again does not give us values for health-
hygienic habits and theoretical knowledge, the elements that according to the basic
classification belong to educational effects. In the opinion of the author of this paper these
four components cover very small percentage off all those educational tasks listed through
seven developmental periods.

One of the ways to evaluate the activities and involvement in physical education could be
by using and constructing scales (Mraković, 1982). That way consists of constructing the test
with verbal stimuli which will in direct or indirect way associate a certain attitude of an
individual towards each statement. The constructed scale allows each individual to decide
which statement suits him the most, whether he practices sports or not, and regardless of what
sport is in question. All the questions were classified in 11 groups, where the first group
represented the smallest, or none connection of the individual with physical workout, and the
eleventh group, the strongest connection, or the intensity of the workout. In that way fairly
reliable information’s were gained, and the examples of some statements are listed here:

1. I can not understand people who find anything useful in physical workout
2. I do physical workout (physical exercises) when I have nothing „smarter“ to do
3. I am in contact with sports only through press, radio and television
4. Only sometimes I get the urge to do some physical workout (exercises)
5. I never wanted to be a world record holder
6. I am not a member of a sports organization, but I regularly exercise two-three hours a
week
7. I have participated in all the competitions organized by my school in over three years
8. I competed in a club championship
9. Even when I am not in a position to do physical workout, I always think about sports
10. My biggest success in sport is participating in a state championship
11. I trained 5 or more times a week during more then two years

Conclusions

Today’s' youth is often said to be prone to hooliganism, asocial behavior, and has no
manners. Critics are attributed to the different views between adults and young people,
conflict of generations, and not understanding the youth.

We noticed that education in our schools and in the society was neglected, that theoretical
elaboration and its practical realization were ignored. Social importance of educational work
has not been noticed enough. In schools educational tasks were suppressed by the pedagogical
ones. It has been said that teachers are not interested enough to achieve educational tasks.
There were no scientific research for a long time.

This paper is based on the research of educational tasks in physical education in order to
establish actual state, and structure and relation of educational space.

 The purpose of this work is to introduce the experts from the field of kinesiology with
previous research from the field of educational tasks, to identify the problems and to
indicate the guidelines in which direction to move. We will state only some of the
important and unsolved questions: Besides participation in class, after school
activities, theoretical knowledge, health-hygienic habits we should include additional
educational elements which will give us a clearer image of our pupils. Do even these
four elements belong to educational tasks, or can we for example ascribe theoretical
knowledge to pedagogical component? Include moral characteristics in the component
of grading educational tasks. Discipline in doing tasks, respecting the rules of the
game, persistence, fighting spirit, courage and other traits are something pupils need
not only in physical education, but also later in life.
  It is necessary to scientifically research the elements of educational process. Making
the appropriate instruments and methodology which would make it possible to get
exact results, and not „descriptive“ones like so far. The lack of that kind of instrument
for research of educational process has as a consequence the lack of exact data, no
defined educational process and its effects and a small number of scientific researches
from that area. E should start improving the evaluation of the results of educational
work.
 Kinesiologist should be motivated, and enhance their interests for educational
questions and by offering the instruments and explaining the actions to ensure fair
monitoring, evaluation and grading of educational tasks. Better education of
kinesiologist , not just in the professional sense, but also in the original pedagogical
sense, and it would include detailed exploration, detailed defined goals, contents,
methods and means of educational influences. Giving information of that kind would
not mean only to accept them, but also to develop the ability to use them effectively
and in an appropriate way.

The author is convinced that this paper can be useful for everyone who uses the
interpretation and the ways of forming educational values in their work. If we start
researching the definition, term, goals and tasks of education, very soon we will get to the
operationalization of educational process. Educational component is as important as
anthropological and motoric, and it should not be neglected.

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