HISTORY OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION The history of physical education reflects people's attitudes about physical activity. From prehistoric times, because survival was related to physical stamina and to people's ability to find food, no separate physical fitness programs were needed. Gradually, ancient societies in China, Egypt, Greece, and Rome adopted physical education as part of military training. As the more developed societies came to value the scholarly life, physical education lost favor. Many developed countries have had to strike a balance between physical and intellectual interests. The history of physical education frequently shows a pattern of military, social, and political influence. In one high point of ancient history, Athenian Greeks came to the forefront in the era 700 to 600 B.C. with their quest for physical and intellectual perfection. In numerous festivals, Athenians celebrated the beauty of the human form in dance, art, religious rites, and athletics. Athenians honored the gods of Olympus, especially Zeus, with the first Olympic Games. The Olympic Games offered a civilizing influence, with social class disregarded and all citizens judged on athletic competition. If a war was being fought,it was halted during the Olympic Games. Many historians regard Athenian culture as the height of early physical education, but like their Chinese predecessors, the Athenians felt the competing influence of intellectualism. The Middle Ages saw the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity, and the Christian influence brought about a denial of physical activity for anything other than manual labor. Christians saw sports and physical play as immoral, and in 394 they halted the Olympic Games. This trend was not reversed until the medieval societies grew and sought power through military expansion. During the Renaissance, the pendulum swung once again as artists showed the human body as an object of admiration. The humanist faction, centered in Italy, valued education in sports such as fencing, archery, swimming, running, and ball games. The moralist faction, influenced by the Protestant Reformation, saw physical activity only as a way for carrying out work. During this period, much of Europe was still Catholic, and Catholics favored recreational physical activity with the view that care should be taken of the body
as the vessel that held the soul. The other major Renaissance faction was realism, which favored physical education as part of a sound mind in a sound body. In 19th-century Europe, Sweden and Germany developed systems of gymnastics that were adopted internationally with Germany building the first indoor gymnasium. In Finland, which also built a gymnasium, exercise was for the first time seen as a way to achieve physical rehabilitation. Scholars began to study anatomy and physiology in relation to exercise. Denmark was among the first countries to require physical education in schools. Physical education fulfilled a political role in early-20th-century Russia after the rise of communism. Physical fitness helped insure military strength, productivity, and nationalism. Sports were viewed as a way of achieving international fame. The United States followed other countries in its approach to physical education. During the Colonial period, the sheer physical demands of survival made physical education unnecessary. War required physical training as a part of military preparation. Between the Revolution War and the Civil War, Americans followed some recreational activities such as riding, hunting, dancing, swimming, and early forms of golf and tennis. By the 1820s, some American schools offered gymnasia and physical education. Instruction included the development and care of the body, and training in hygiene. Students learned calisthenics’ exercises, gymnastics, and the performance and management of athletic games. Women's colleges offered exercise and dance classes. The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) opened its first American chapter in 1851. Many sports gained in popularity around this time, including baseball. After the American Civil War, large school systems began to adopt physical education programs and many states passed laws requiring that physical education programs be taught. For the first time, specialized training was offered for physical education instructors. In another first, colleges offered intercollegiate sports such as rowing, football, and track and field. In keeping with this wave of interest in physical education, the Olympic Games were restore din 1896, after a 1,400-year interlude. Surprisingly, many Americans were not physically fit for military service during World War I, and there were many postwar efforts to add physical education at all levels of
schooling. During World War II, physical fitness was again required of soldiers--but it was also required of many others, particularly women, since the war effort required manual labor. Soldiers once again came up short in physical fitness requirements, so after the war, schools instituted more rigorous physical education requirements, and there was greater interest in the teaching of physical education. By 1950, there were over 400 United States colleges and universities offering majors in physical education and there was increasing recognition of the scientific foundation of physical education. The fitness of the military in the Korean War again fell short of expectations, and the federal government set up the President's Council on Physical Fitness, which helped to raise fitness standards in schools across the country. A series of 1970s and 1980s recessions brought about cutbacks in many school programs, including physical education. By the 1970s, interest in the President's Council had waned and physical education courses began to emphasize lifetime sports such as golf, badminton, tennis, and bowling. In another swing of the pendulum, the American public spontaneously developed an intense interest in fitness in the late 1970s. One of the most significant shifts of the 1970s was the Title IX amendment to the Federal Education Act, which stipulated that no federally funded education programs could discriminate on the basis of gender. Enforcement of Title IX opened up many new opportunities for women in competitive athletics, both at the high school and collegiate levels. In a continuation of 1980s trends, during the 1990s many school districts have limited the amount of time students spend in physical education or have even dropped the program in response to economic problems or concerns about poor curriculum. Some reformers in the field are turning to sports education as away of reengaging the students. The ancient Greek emphasis on anatomy, physical achievement and abilities was for the first time in the ancient world blended with a humanistic and scientific approach to balancing one's life. The first known literary reference to an athletic competition is preserved in the ancient Greek text, the Iliad, by Homer, and the ancient Greek tradition of the Olympic Games, which originated in the early eighth century B.C.E. The Japanese tradition of physical exercise integrated into daily life derived from Bushido ("the way of the warrior").
The father of modern physical education as we know it today was Friedrich Ludwig Jahn. During the nineteenth century, Jahn established the first gymnastic school for children in Germany. A fervent German nationalist, Jahn believed that the best kind of society was one that had established standards of physical strength and abilities.[2] The first Turnplatz, or open-air gymnasium, was opened by Jahn in Berlin in 1811, and the Turnverein (gymnastics association) movement spread rapidly. Around the same time, but independent of Jahn's developments, the Swedish teacher Pehr Henrik Ling started to see the benefits of gymnastics. In 1813 he was successful in developing the Royal Gymnastic Central Institute with the cooperation of the Swedish government, which went far to advance physical conditioning. Soon, many European nations followed suit, first with private schools mostly for gymnastics. In the early twentieth century, with the advent of organized sports, public schools around the world started to develop physical education curricula. Before physical education became popular in school systems, private gyms started to crop up in Europe and America. The first indoor gymnasium in Germany was probably the one built in Hesse in 1852 by Adolph Spiess, an enthusiast for boys' and girls' gymnastics in the schools. In the United States, the Turner movement thrived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first Turners group was formed in Cincinnati in 1848. The Turners built gymnasia in several cities, including Cincinnati and St. Louis which had large German American populations. Adults and youth utilized these gyms. In the Meiji period (late nineteenth century), Japan imported many foreign sports. Nationwide sports competitions were instituted, particularly in the middle school level, which continue in the form of national school tournaments. However, an absolutist ideology of winning became established, particularly among middle school students who were being prepared for military service, boosting nationalistic ideas and supporting the development of military power. During the last decades of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, John Dewey and his colleagues promoted progressive education ideas, challenging traditional education and leading to reforms that included the introduction of physical education. Educational psychologists, including Stanley G. Hall and Edward Thorndike supported Dewey's focus on activity in learning, suggesting that children's play be recognized as an important aspect of their development. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to seriously consider a nationwide physical fitness program in the U.S. However, his well-intended President's Council on Youth
Fitness never fully materialized, and it was left up to the succeeding President John F. Kennedy to introduce and encourage public school systems to adopt physical fitness programs in their curricula. Phases of Physical Education Phase 1 - General development of strength, mobility, endurance and basic technique Phase 2 - Development of specific fitness and advanced technical skills Phase 3 - Competition experience - achievement of qualification times for main competition Phase 4 - Adjustment of technical model, preparation for the main competition Phase 5 - Competition experience and achievement of outdoor objectives Phase 6 - Active recovery - planning preparation for next season OBJECTIVES OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION 1. To instill in the students the values and skills of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Daily physical activity promotes an awareness of health and well being among students. It boosts them to engage in physical activities on a daily basis. It promotes them to lead a healthy life in adulthood. ->Physical education classes constitute programs to promote physical fitness in students, train them in sports, help them understand rules and strategies in playing and teach them to work as a team. A very vital factor in physical education is to develop interpersonal skills in children. Sports aim at making them team players, developing a sportsman spirit in them and enhancing their competitive spirit. Sports that form a part of physical education classes help the students invest time in fruitful and competitive activities. 2. To inculcate in the minds of the students, the importance of personal hygiene and cleanliness. Physical education classes aim at teaching the students, the habits of personal cleanliness and the importance of the maintenance of personal hygiene in life. Physical education classes also impart sex-education to the students, help them clarify their doubts and find answers to all the questions that occur to their minds. ->The sports, which are a part of the physical education class, help in developing motor skills in children. The ability to hold a racket or a bat, the ability to catch a ball and the ability to swing a bat are some examples of the motor abilities that can develop with the help of sports. The physical activity that is involved in physical education helps the students in bringing discipline to body posture and body movements. Hitting a ball with a bat or a shuttle with a racket as also aiming a ball for a goal or catching it to get the opponent team out, are some of the commonly observed actions in sports and are extremely beneficial in improving hand-eye coordination. 3. To encourage the upcoming sportsmen and women of the crowd. Physical education gives the budding sports people a platform to exhibit their talents. Those with a flair for sports get an opportunity to display their talent. Their small step on the school playground can eventually turn into a huge leap in the field of sports. 1. Movement Education
1. Body/Space Awareness 2. Basic Movement 3. Rhythmic Movement 2. Manipulative Skills Development A. Manipulative Skills B. Sending Skills C. Receiving Skills 3. Fitness D. Health Related Fitness E. Sports Related Fitness 4. Games and Sports A. Attitudes B. Knowledge C. Skill
