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| Feature | No.65 October 2013 |

What is the Value of Physical Literacy and why is Physical Literacy valuable?

Len Almond

Abstract

In Margaret Whitehead’s more recent and updated definition of physical literacy (Whitehead, 2013), she uses the words ‘understand’ and ‘value’. These words represent key terms that underpin how her definition is interpreted and how it is translated into practical steps that enable teachers and practitioners to implement it diligently and steadfastly.

The starting point for this article is to pose two questions (1) what is the value of physical literacy? and (2) why is it valuable? In this article I propose to answer these questions in order to illuminate the significance of physical literacy and put them in the context of what there is to understand.

What is the Value of Physical Literacy?

Our assessment of the value of physical literacy needs to be addressed in two ways (1) on a personal level – of the young person or adult, and (2) professional level.

On a personal level physical literacy has value because it fosters a fundamental human capability:

- a capability that has the potential to enhance and enrich the quality of lives

- a capability without which we could not develop as human beings

- a capability which operates in concert with our other capabilities

Purposeful physical pursuits represent a range of activities that can have great significance and value that affect people in a very pervasive manner. A key aspect is that the individual comes to understand the benefits of regular engagement in purposeful physical pursuits. They have the power to enrich and transform lives, becoming an absorbing interest that rewards and fulfils and also provides avenues for the enhancement of human potential. When purposeful physical pursuits become part of an individuals’ life pattern they can enrich lives. When people are engaged in something they consider valuable and worthwhile they become aware of how participation can enable them to flourish and enhance their wellbeing. As a consequence, they see physical activity as an important priority in their lives and take steps to embed it within their life pattern. This commitment enables them to access purposeful physical pursuits that have become a fundamental and important part of our human heritage and cultural life. A life devoid of participation in purposeful physical pursuits is a life less lived fully - a life without the exhilaration of realising our embodied potential and the wide range of benefits this brings. In other words these pursuits become crucial IN our lives.

Purposeful physical pursuits have a significant role to play in promoting the health and wellbeing of individuals (CMO, 2011). By engaging in a variety of purposeful physical pursuits on a regular basis, young people ensure the development of the complex inter-related systems of their body to an optimal level of functioning that enables them to energise their lives. In achieving this, young people are building a wellbeing resource and reserve that provides the conditions for enriching their lives in other ways, develop other capabilities and enables them to feel good and flourish well. In the same way, certain forms of exercise can help to restore people’s physical capacity and aid recovery following ill-health, an operation or a condition that inhibits a person’s normal life.

Participation in a range of purposeful physical pursuits provides the opportunity for individuals to develop a variety of human capabilities. For example these pursuits can foster appropriate interpersonal skills. The collaboration required in many purposeful physical pursuits requires participants to develop co-operative skills such as empathy, reciprocity and sensitivity. In addition, engagement in purposeful physical pursuits takes place within a context of different social networks in which others can contribute to a person’s flourishing and they in turn contribute to the flourishing of their friends and contacts. Participation provides situations that rely on trust and respect for others. Similarly personal skills are called on such as the adoption of conduct that reflects fairness, an appreciation of rules and conventions and the willingness to take responsibility. Effective participation also often depends on unselfishness and consideration for others. Engagement in purposeful physical pursuits is important FOR our lives. It needs to be stressed, however, that participation should NOT be seen just as a means to develop such desirable social and personal ends but rather a medium in which, if there is interaction and commitment, these additional benefits are possible outcomes.

On a professional level, an understanding of physical literacy enables the practitioner or teacher to acquire an inspirational model for putting in place a more informed vision of what can be achieved in physical education. At the same time, this understanding provides teachers with guiding principles that inform what needs to be addressed in the promotion of purposeful physical pursuits and how engaging with young people and adults is a crucial part of this process. These are significant values that give physical education, educational validity, not least in preparation for life beyond school.

By fostering physical literacy we are working to help people get on the inside of different purposeful physical pursuits. We are striving to open the minds and hearts of young people to the satisfactions that can be generated and the needs fulfilled by participation in purposeful physical pursuits. As a result we need to go beyond ‘just engagement’ in school-chosen activities; young people need to learn from their involvement and begin to appreciate the characteristics and values of different activities. This will necessitate putting in place appropriate purposeful physical pursuits and ensuring access to all young people as well as monitoring one’s practice to match expectations with the realities of schooling.

We must enthuse our learners so that they develop a commitment to participation and in addition are appropriately informed and empowered to take responsibility for the choices they make. These choices include both the adoption of an active lifestyle and decisions about in which purposeful physical pursuits they will engage. In other words, we need to help our learners to develop a commitment to participation, and recognise it is up to them to make choices. A person’s wellbeing can only be realised in full if they accept that it is their responsibility to do all they can to enhance it: no-one else can do this for them. Thus, we need teachers with the skills to cultivate, nurture and help people to cherish their vitality, dynamism, energy and wellbeing and avoid squandering them.

In order to take these ideas on board, teachers and practitioners may need to address the following:

- Free their minds from narrow tradition, custom or habit.

- Have the capacity to connect with other ways of thinking.

- Develop imagination to decipher alternative interpretations in a meaningful and sympathetic way.

Why is Physical Literacy valuable

Finally, I need to turn to ‘understanding’ physical literacy. The National Curriculum in England uses the word ‘understanding’ in all the areas of learning: ‘knowledge, skills and understanding’ required in each subject. However, there is no explanation of what these words mean or what they imply. If understanding is an important part of children’s learning in schools and in physical education why has so little time been spent in articulating how teachers can organise learning and provide informed guidance on how to achieve understanding? There appears to be no guidance.

Almond and Ayers (2013) made an attempt to unravel what ‘understanding’ in the context of teaching games meant. They reviewed papers by Grimm (2006; 2010; 2012) to highlight the following key characteristics:

- Grasping and seeing

- Making sense of something

- Coming to understand is primarily attributable to the abilities of the student

- Understanding as an accomplishment

In order to ‘understand’, our students need to grasp how the different aspects of a game depend upon one another and to anticipate how changes in one part of the game will lead (or fail to lead) to changes in another part. Seeing is also an ability to anticipate or see what things could be like. In other words we need to find ways in which we can help our students to make sense of what can happen in a game. Underpinning these characteristics, is the recognition that understanding is an accomplishment and an ability of the student. This implies that learning to be independent is central.

In respect of physical literacy there are two dimensions to understanding, one relates to what we would hope learners understand as they make progress on their physical literacy journey, the other is the understanding that the teacher needs concerning how they can foster this capacity in learners.

It is not expected that learners will understand the concept of physical literacy, its philosophical underpinning, its justification, its elements and attributes. However we would hope that learners acquire the ‘understanding’ that is associated with learning to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activities throughout one’s life-course.

It is hoped that learners will grasp:

- that they need to develop their physical potential to experience the satisfaction of progress and success in purposeful physical pursuits

- that they need to exercise their ability to make choices and to control the procedures needed to achieve goals that the person values

- the importance of taking responsibility for their own well being

That they will see that:

- participation in physical pursuits can enhance sense of vitality, dynamism, energy and wellbeing

- being active can be rewarding and pleasurable and develop a commitment to an active lifestyle

That they will make sense of:

- the need to explore participation in a wide range of purposeful physical pursuits and thus widen their life choices

- the notion that regular participation in purposeful physical pursuits develops a resource that enhances all round health and well being and that this will be of benefit to them throughout the life-course and into old age.

These goals for the learner to achieve in respect of physical literacy are very ambitious. As will be appreciated from the list above they demand independent thinking and commitment, not to mention strength of character and vision.

In a very challenging book, Taylor (1991) highlights the need to define oneself actively, to ‘exist in what he calls a horizon of important questions’. For Taylor does not believe that commitment to one’s idiosyncrasies trump all because there are some idiosyncratic pursuits that are meaningful and those that are not. His question becomes one of differentiation and qualification. Which are the worthwhile idiosyncratic pursuits? Taylor objects to things taking on importance because people privately decide or feel that something is important. Things need to take on significance against a background of intelligibility or what he calls ‘the horizon of significance’. This is where physical literacy can provide this sense of intelligibility but this represents a major challenge for all teachers and practitioners: if they don’t understand what it is or entails they will be unable to promote it.

Taylor speaks of ‘authenticity’ which requires individuals to be purposeful, to know what one wants to make of oneself, what one intends to identify with and then craft a consistent project from within one self, to accomplish something. To achieve this, it is necessary to take active care of oneself, to decide what needs to be added to his horizon of significance by engaging in specific projects that have meaning for the individual.

In addition, Taylor (1991) makes the point that an individual becomes a full human agent capable of ‘understanding’ and defining themselves through interactions with one’s surroundings, communicating with others and exploring one’s opinions with significant others and in some instances through struggling against pressure from others to be something else.

Nevertheless, this portrayal of ‘understanding’ is incomplete because there is one feature that has not been addressed; teachers need to ‘understand’ HOW to put their initial understanding into practice and demonstrate ‘intelligent performance.’ Jerome Bruner makes the point “ I've become increasingly convinced that the powers of mind reach their fullness not simply in accumulation -- in what we come to know -- but rather in what we can do with what we know, how we are enabled to frame possibilities beyond the conventions of the present” (Bruner, 2007: p.2). This is the ingredient that we tend to ignore, how do we help all young people?

Conclusion

The most recent definition of physical literacy contains the words value and understanding. These are extremely important words because they have implications for how physical literacy is interpreted and how it guides the practice of promoting purposeful physical pursuits across the life-course. In this short paper I have addressed some issues concerning what it means to value physical literacy and I have made an attempt to introduce the idea of understanding.

Engagement in purposeful physical pursuits has the capacity to enrich lives in significant ways and can enable people to energise their lives and reduce their risk to a number of chronic diseases. An understanding of physical literacy brings to the forefront the significance of helping people to make informed choices, acquire a sense of empowerment and agency together with realising the importance of responsibility for their wellbeing. These are important capacities that should have a significant role in the education of young people as well as adults. How we achieve this should be a major concern for all us.

Allied to this concern, is the need to establish ‘horizons of significance’ (Taylor (1991) and what he calls a background of intelligibility. I believe that physical literacy can provide such a background of intelligibility, a task worthy of all our efforts in the quest to develop more understanding of what a commitment to physical literacy entails and how it can influence the lives of young people and adults.

Finally, it is somewhat narrow to use the word teacher in the context of physical literacy so I have used practitioner as a way of acknowledging that we are concerned with the life-course. Thus adults and older adults need to be considered.

References

1. Almond, L. and Ayres, M. (2013) An exploration of the meaning of understanding in physical education: taking the first steps.

2. Almond, L. and Whitehead, M. (2012) The Value of Physical of Physical Literacy? Physical Education Matters Summer p.61-63.

3. Bruner, J. (2007) Cultivating the Possible. Address at the Oxford dedication of the Jerome Bruner Building 13th March 2007. This can be access on http://www.education.ox.ac.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Transcript-Cultivating-the-Possible.pdf

4. CMO (2011) Start active, stay active: a report on physical activity from the four home countries' Chief Medical Officers. Department of Health.

5. Grimm, S.R. (2006) Is Understanding a Species of Knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 57: 515-535.

6. Grimm, S. R. (2010) Understanding. In The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Eds. Duncan Pritchard and Sven Berneker. New York: Routledge.

7. Grimm, S.R. (2012) The Value of Understanding.” Philosophy Compass 7: 103-117

8. Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Boston: Harvard University Press

9. Whitehead, M. (2013) The definition of Physical Literacy (July 2013). This can be accessed at

Contact

Len Almond
6 Cottesmore Drive
Loughborough
LE11 2RL
E-mail:len.almond@btinternet.com

http://www.icsspe.org/