I struggled for a long time to develop the basic concepts of what I believed for my teaching. Last year however I was inspired by a class of mine, I am now an adamant believer in Teaching for Personal and Social Responsibility. I first read about this method of teaching from the book “Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility Through Physical Activity by Don Helison.
What I learned from this book shifted the way I thought about physical education. The main contents of physical education in my opinion is not teaching students sports or playing games just for the sake of getting them physically active. Physical education teachers obviously should strike to keep their students active and healthy but I believe the main goal of the class should be to teach students personal and social responsibility. Personal responsibility is a trait that guides students to make good choices for themselves, by building their self-confidence, helping them learn to weigh pros and cons of activities and teaching them to act in ways that help them improve themselves. Social responsibility is a trait that guides students to remain conscious of their actions in a social setting and that what they choose to do also has an impact on the people around them, helping them learn skills surrounding teamwork, trust, anger management and relationship building will help them become a person who can act appropriately within society. Physical education to me is the perfect environment to teach those concepts through sports and games, since those activities often rely on teamwork as well as individual efforts. I hope to learn more about this method of teaching and others so that I can further develop my teaching philosophy!