The Importance of the Overweight, Unathletic PE Teacher

PE teachers have a lot in common.  They were the sensational sporting heroes of their own school careers.  In every team.  Leading goalscorer.  Able to run 100m in a time that is good for 100m, or bowl a leg break, or drag flick.  Parading round school in the trophy kit of all the important teams they played in.  And their friends were the PE teachers.  Many iconic performers credit the influence of their teachers in inspiring and supporting them.  PE teachers do an amazing job in stimulating pupils and opening their eyes to the lifelong possibilities of sport.  Especially the really able ones.

People like people who are like them.  PE teachers see themselves in their star performers.  They can understand them, empathise with their issues, share their triumphs.  Athletic pupils value their PE teachers, to the extent of considering the same career for themselves.  It is a self amplifying advantage, and a self perpetuating system.

Is there an unintended consequence?  The unathletic kids can't identify with this picture.  The sporty kids and the PE teachers create a community that they can't penetrate - and as they get older, they don't want to.  And the teachers have no experience of how these kids feel about the prospect of games. For the youngest, it is the terror of incompetence, the futility of low standard games and skills that can't be mastered, the embarrassment of undressing and the uninspiring outdoor environment of the English winter.  As teenagers, they simply reject the system.  The badge of being "non-sporty" loses the disgrace that it carried for pre-teenagers.  They abandon the futile aspiration of sporting approval, and find other areas of endeavour that provide the same interest that their peers continue to find in games.  From everyone wanting to be in the team, schools struggle to raise enough teams.

In USA, 36 million children play youth sports each year.  70% of them have given up by the age of 13.  Team sports participation in UK peaks at age 12.  Over one third of American adults are obese.  In Britain, over 60% of adults are overweight. What the figures don't show is the correlation between these populations and levels of (dis)engagement with physical activity in schools.  When primary schools select the same kids for every competition, and announce their triumphs in assembly, they are giving the clear message to those left behind that sport is for the most able.  Typically, they will be the children born early in the school year, and with sporty parents.

All schools and sports organisations are concerned about the health impacts of declining activity levels.  Women in Sport research acknowledges that traditional games engage a minority of pupils, and that inactive teenagers are highly likely to become sedentary adults.  As a result, most schools offer ever wider programmes to those pupils who have proven beyond reasonable doubt that they have rejected outdoor games.  And those whose incompetence is indisputable.  But, at this stage, they often part company with the PE teachers. Whilst the latter continue to coach school teams composed of the able and willing, games refusers are provided with peripatetic exercise instructors, visits to sports centres or supervision by non specialist teachers.  Or the specialist teachers hand out the badminton rackets and let them get on with it. Both sides embark upon a trial separation, that often ends in divorce.

The irony is that - occasionally - middle aged PE teachers can end up overweight and unathletic.  But only in their bodies, never in their minds.  Physical decline is not accompanied by a new empathy with the least able: in their heads they are still athletic heroes of yesteryear - they do not always have a better understanding of the kid who can't get round the cross country in the mud - and who doesn't see any point in it.

Maybe schools who are keen to understand and engage the least athletic children in lifelong physical activity should seek to appoint PE teachers who can relate to them.  Who were never in school teams, didn't like their own PE teachers, and struggled with self esteem, body image and motivation. Who might empathise with the majority of kids. 

The industry of PE does a sensational job of stimulating a love of sport, and works tirelessly to deploy considerable resources to provide opportunities for participation and competition.  It inspires generations of children to become active adults.  But its impact is historically skewed in favour of the able and enthusiastic. To have wider effectiveness, the industry needs a better understanding of the mindset of physical illiterates.  And empathy with them.  People like people who are like them.