CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Temples in Ruin
Cum dignitate otium.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
In the United States over a century ago, many prominent leaders including theologians, philanthropists, social reformers, politicians, educators, psychologists, and biologists believed that physical education, the "new profession," might become an important area of study in the 20th Century (Park, 1989). For a moment in our national history, significant numbers of thinkers and dreamers began to seriously consider physical education a critical one-third of the education formula. This transcultural revelation was brought to the United States by the Turners of Germany, the Sokols of Czechoslovakia, proponents of the Swedish Ling System, numerous Asian body-mind philosophies, and the British tradition of sports and games.
Herbert Spencer wrote:
We do not yet realize the truth that as, in this life of ours, the physical underlies the mental, the mental must not be developed at the expense of the physical . . . . Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorders entailed by disobedience to Nature's dictates, they regard simply as grievances: not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are often as great as those caused by crime; yet they do not think themselves in any degree criminal (Spencer, 1886).
During its formative years, the physical education curriculum in the United States often included pedagogical, medical, and military content. By the 1930s, the focus had shifted primarily to the pedagogical with an emphasis on sports and games. It became fully clear by the 1960s that sports and games alone were failing to promote and sustain a rational physical culture, and many departments of physical education in American institutions of higher learning responded by adopting an academic discipline model that currently dominates the curriculum. This shift toward an emphasis on academic theory has left the physical education profession in chaos while societal interest in physical activity is at an all-time high (Newell, 1990).
Ironically, the current national interest in health and physical fitness has not impacted on the vitality of the masses. Youth and adult physical fitness remain a concern in the United States. Research during the last decade suggests that American youth are generally inactive, unfit (Legwold, 1983), and fatter than those of the 1960s (Gilbert & Montes, 1985; Gilliam, MaConnie, Geenen, Pels, & Freedson, 1982). Kraus (1965) found that American children in the 1950s were suffering from a deterioration of both quality and quantity of human movement. Physical educators are charged with reversing this trend (Simons-Morton, O'Hara, Simons-Morton, & Parcel, 1987), but there remains disagreement within the profession concerning what to teach and why it should be taught (Koslow, 1988; Park, 1991; Pate, 1988).
Current literature indicates that American physical education as a profession is chaotic, fragmented, and unable to constructively impact on the deteriorating fabric of American physical culture. Education plays a key role in the dissemination of cultural wisdom (Barrow, 1983), and the renewal of American physical culture represents a timely and urgent challenge for physical education curriculum scholars and specialists. Central to any reversal of this ominous trend is the emergence of a rational paradigm that will expand the current limits of our national imagination and carry American physical education into a strong and productive 21st Century.
Willgoose (1959) wrote "the noblest thoughts in the minds of men are but wishful thinking in a body physically unable to put the thoughts in action" (p. 32). Warren Bennis (1982) has suggested that good leaders are aware of but less concerned with nuts and bolts and more interested in "purpose, paradigm, and vision" (p. 2). History has often witnessed the decay and destruction of nations that grow sluggish and physically inept. A compelling blueprint for the improvement of American physical culture must be realized if the United States is to prosper and responsibly fulfill its role as a world leader.
Chapter
1.
Introduction
2.
Chaos in the Field
3.
Roots
4.
Modern Fabric
5. Function
6. The
Paradigm
References