Laying the Foundation for Kids to Be Physically Active for Life[Podcast Series]
[:54] Dr. Bantham introduces her guest, Dr. Jayne Greenberg
Dr. Jayne Greenberg is North American Chair of the International Sport & Culture Association.
She spent 22 years as the District Director of Physical Education and Health Literacy for Miami-Dade County Public Schools.
[1:38] Career focus on physical education
“I always had a penchant for being physically active. And that just stayed with me as I became a varsity athlete moving through middle school, high school, and college sports. So physical education, I always said I never worked a day in my life, I live my passion.”
[2:24] Physical education and equity
“Physical education is the only equitable place where all children, children with disabilities, children from the general population, children from various cultures and communities, underserved populations. It's the only place where there's an equitable opportunity to learn every type of sport and be physically active throughout the school day.”
[4:56] Partnering successfully
“This is how partnerships work. You don't get anything unless you ask. And you have to have a need. And once you find the need, then the community steps up. So it's the same formula, have a need approach a partner, don't always take no for an answer. Sometimes it's hard, no, but it's a reciprocal process. You have to recognize the partners in your programs, keep them updated on newsletters, invite them to ceremonies. And then it works. But it's a reciprocal process. And it's available in every community.”
[9:06] Empowering physical education teachers
“Because as a district leader, I could have done anything. But if I didn't have the 650 phys ed teachers behind me, it would not have worked. I couldn't stand alone. I needed to stand actually on the, on the shoulders of our teachers. And I would say we had the best group of physical education teachers in Miami Dade County Public Schools.”
[10:46] Local advocacy
“And we saw in the state of Florida, what we call the recess moms, how they got recess mandated during the school day, but not at the expense of eliminating the daily physical education that's a mandate in the state of Florida at the elementary school. So empowering parents and empowering your community and let them run with it, they get it.”
[13:44] Collective impact
“[C]ollective impact makes a difference. And let's not forget the voice of the kids, kids’ voices also. And we scratch our head with the same thing. When we saw math scores go down, they added more math, they added more money for tutoring, they extended the school day. When reading scores went down, they did the same thing. Extended the school, they added more reading specialists, gave more money into tutoring. When the health of children goes down and children are unfit, we cut programs. It's a reverse dichotomy that I just can’t wrap my head around that.”
[18:32] Finding school champions
“So just as we talked about finding the champion that's the physical education administrator, you also need to find the champion on the school board and the champion in the community that has a contact with school board members.”
[23:04] Quality physical education
“Quality physical education, in my eyes, was always active teaching. Teachers making the environment where kids want to be there. Teachers monitoring what the kids are doing, seeing who may need a little extra help, giving constructive criticism so that the child improves on what they're doing. When there's quality and active teaching and it's a fun environment where kids want to be there, that’s what people look for.”
[25:43] Promoting quality physical education
“But if you ask a classroom teacher to teach 100 kids a period and get results, you'll get a are you kidding me type of response. So kudos to the physical education teachers that know how to toot their own horn. But we have to do a better job of that.”
[27:26] Linking physical education and healthcare costs
“You know, the latest numbers are only 19% of high school students take physical education daily, and in the last 10 years have dropped from 29% to 19%. That's not a trend that we want to see continue, and then wonder why we have such large healthcare costs, and an unfit generation moving forward.”
[30:25] Collective goal
“So collectively, we need to say one, we need to get kids moving two we need to get back into schools where every single child has an opportunity to be physically active during the five days throughout the school year.”
