I thought that the ideas discussed in "Sports Skills: A Conceptual Approach to Meaningful Movement" are very valid. In schools today, the education of the mind tends to be the main focus and often takes up the largest proportion of time. The improvement of one's mind is essential, since a well educated person is at an advantage in modern society as compared to someone who is less educated. However, as Glenn A. Olds points out, the mind and body are linked. This in turn means that in order to get a true and whole education, one's mind and body has to be improved. I think this is a very important point because physical activity is in human nature. It is instinctive for people to want to be active. Without indulging this part of our humanity, we can never hope to be complete. In this sense, physical education is important and needs to be taught in schools since "it is the main line of communication between our autonomic animal intelligence and our conscious self." Though i did agree with the general ideas posed by this excerpt, there were some parts that I thought did not belong.
This foreword seemed to be a little to extreme for my liking. First of all, Olds makes it seem like gym teachers are extremely enlightened people who want to help link the mind and body in order to improve the lives of their students. While in some cases this is probably true, I do not think that most gym teachers are as ideal as Olds would make them seem. Also, I thought the foreword as a whole was quite ironic, as its focus was on how there is too much emphasis placed on the education of the mind while the article itself was written in a very complex and advanced manner. I personally believe that physical education is very important, but I do not think it is as glorious or influential as Olds would make it seem.
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Yes, when I think of my high school Phys Ed teacher, it's not the picture of an enlightened "Renaissance woman", and for that matter I did not see the schoolmates who did well at sport as people of especially excellent character. And yet still, like you, and like Olds, I do now believe in physical activity as an important part of personal development and as "teaching" in more effective ways than just "information" can convey.
I think there's something about *action*, even intellectual action, like writing or composing, that *commits* us in ways that just reading, eg. does not. I often wonder though what would have had to be different about my school's physical education program for it to be attractive to myself at the time.
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