#3: Sustainable education, sustainable Physical Education, Part 2

The teachers at Queensway Secondary school (QSS) embarked on a journey on equity pedagogy (Banks & Banks, 1995). Through exploration and reflection, students were guided to first ask themselves and then others challenging questions about their thoughts and actions during lessons. Because these teachers wanted to become the teacher they were not in the beginning (Foucault, 1982 as cited in Taylor, 2014), their students similarly became learners they were not in the beginning – albeit for the better. 

What it means to teach and learn@Queensway Secondary School

Increasingly, students entering Queensway Secondary would come with a plethora of PE experiences. These sets of PE experiences from their primary schools would be dependent on the manner in which their respective schools had taken them through the primary school PE syllabus. What Ms Teo Yong Chin and Mr Yeo Choon Hwa at Queensway wanted to ascertain was this – P.S PE matters, which stood for Primary School PE matters. How would knowledge of the diverse PE experiences in primary school help to truly make a difference to their PE experience, albeit the Queensway way? How would the Queensway PE experience look, feel and be to the students? With these questions in mind, both teachers embarked on a multicultural PE experience, rich in exploration and trial and error. The end result of that? The obliteration of rank and hierarchy in their classes and the fruition of a reciprocal and egalitarian relationship (Ng, 2004); students did not simply learn from one another and their teachers, their teachers learnt from them in tandem. 

Changing the teacher's identity

All that did not come easily. It required a huge shift in teaching styles and pedagogies. As both teachers took time to learn about their students’ past experiences, they came to realise something. Not only were their lessons changing, the way their students learnt and interacted with one another changed too. When both teachers interacted differently with the students, getting them to explore problems in game-play and come up with possible solutions tailored to their individual needs, their identities in PE began to change. 

Slowly but surely, PE lessons were constructed and deconstructed and the Queensway PE experience became a different one. There was diversity in learning, made possible only by diversity in teaching. No longer were teachers the only source of knowledge. Instead, each student now bore responsibility for aspects of their learning and representation of it, without disempowering others (Hackman, 2005; Hawkins, 2014).

Beauty in simplicity

COVID-19 came about in a timely manner. The necessary restrictions required teachers to truly return to the drawing board and return to the fundamentals of learning; learning takes place anytime, anywhere, with anyone. 

The first thing that needed to be done was to allow students to have varied exploratory experiences. Everything returned to the basics. No longer would students learn by going through the same activities repeatedly. Instead, there was repetition without repetition. A whole mix-mash of equipment in Net-Barrier games like Badminton and Volleyball were introduced to students to allow them to ascertain what was best for their progress group. Unwittingly, students were being exposed to repetition, without repetition. The TREE Approach was also leveraged to allow students to engage in different activities according to their level of readiness. Depending on where they were at different junctures of the lesson, teaching instructions, rules and regulations, equipment and the environment (TREE) changed accordingly. The guiding principles for that approach – where are you now? Where would you like to be? How can you get there? Those were the principles constantly espoused by Yong Chin and Choon Hwa. 

You – the difference

With both teachers taking an active approach to learn from their students as well as to understand what needed to be done for them to move to the next level, the students themselves soon modelled after their teachers.  Banks’s (2015) equity pedagogy came into play with both teachers supporting the learning of all students. Along the same vein, students began to generate knowledge and new understandings in how they wanted to present their learning. Beyond taking up a host of roles in their assigned groups, they were creating activities of their own that would help them to improve in game-plays. Harnessing the affordances of technology, students were recording themselves in action, giving feedback to one another and sharing ideas online. The restrictions on the physicality of sharing were circumvented by online affordances. The students were no longer reliant on the teachers to plan and execute everything for them. Instead, those traditional classes of Queensway Secondary School had given way to student-centred learning. 

Instead of a single, traditional teacher analysing the needs of the entire class and determining what needed to be done for each lesson, multiple analysts now harnessed one another’s analytical powers on the necessary improvements. In short, every individual in the class now played critical roles in how and what others learned. 

Bronfenbrenner (1977) espoused the virtues of leveraging the classroom, creating a positive classroom culture that would help students to become more self-determined and engaged in their learning. That has been the modus operandi at Queensway since their quest to redesign PE experiences for their students. 

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going

Returning the learning to students in no way suggests a free-falling, free-for-all learning, whereby students simply do what they want in order to be free from governance (Ng, 2004). Instead in the face of COVID-19, the Queensway team sought to foray into previously unchartered territories to take PE experiences to new heights. Availing meaningful PE experiences morphed from exploratory experiences in the different physical activities from Badminton to Volleyball and later football, to that of creating activities to make games purposeful for a diverse group of learners. Eventually, that settled into introducing students to different platforms for and of learning – e.g. Padlet and Peardeck to name a few. 

When students see the efforts of their teachers to create meaningful PE experiences for them to better identify with themselves, they start viewing PE differently. Washed away are the old images of teacher directing, competitive game-plays and drill and practice physicality as norms of PE. They became vestiges of a past, replaced by one with a solid foundation on relationship building, recognising the individuality and diversity in learners and the fundamental belief that every child wants to and can learn. 

Key Learnings

Yong Chin and Choon Hwa are humbled by the beauty and simplicity exploratory experiences in PE bring to Secondary School learners. They have experienced first-hand that rethinking and reinventing PE experiences for students simply require a small mind-set shift, a curiosity to better understand their learners to bring about great dividends. Simply asking students for feedback on lessons creates a sense of trust and faith between teachers and students – all in the name of bettering teaching and learning for both teachers and students. Collectively, a win-win situation for both. 

The heart of teaching and learning

Change never comes easy. But like the ebb and flow of tides, there are ups and downs to change. For Queensway Secondary and CHIJ (Kellock), the “heart-ware” of a select group of teachers was what first ignited that desire to reinvent and innovate the way PE presented itself in their respective schools. The power teachers have in the classroom, regardless of the circumstances, must never be underestimated. In each school, the intentionality of the power each teacher had in their daily interactions was manifested in its effects – what the students and teachers eventually did and not what they had intended for them (Gallagher, 2008). Even if the future of PE is fraught with ambiguity, creativity and happiness in learning can be seeded and blossomed, no matter how challenging the education environment is. All it takes – “heart-ware” to being. Ultimately, the team at both schools were cognisant of the fact that students were not one-dimensional (Banks, 2015) and could not be expected to be cut from the same cookie-cutter. The PE classrooms they envisioned, aimed to help their students become more self-determined and engaged in their learning (Deci & Ryan, 2000 as cited in Ng & Smith, 2004). 

Article contributed by

Queensway Secondary School

SH PE LS & Outdoor Education - Ms Teo Yong Chin

Assistant Year Head, Upper Sec - Mr Yeo Choon Hwa

PESTA

Senior Academy Officer - Ms Kwok Hui Min

References

Banks, J. A. (2001) Diversity Within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society.

Banks, M. & Banks, J. A. (1995). Equity pedagogy: An essential component of multicultural education. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 152–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405849509543674

Banks, J. A. (2015) Cultural diversity and education: Foundations, curriculum, and teaching. Routledge.

Ng, A. K. (2004). Liberating the creative spirit in Asian students. Singapore: Prentice-Hall.

Ng, A. K., & Smith, I. (2004). The Paradox of Promoting Creativity in the Asian Classroom: An Empirical Investigation. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 130(4), 307–332.

https://doi.org/10.3200/MONO.130.4.307-332.