HISTORY OF P.E.

GERMAN, NORDIC AND ENGLAND SCHOOLS

Didactics of Physical Education

Students name & surname: Meritxell Guigó, Carolina Braband, Leonor Arrufat, Katerina
Stastna and Ignacio Andrés.
INDEX

1) German School
- Description and main characteristics
- Genders at physical education
- Application of their ideas nowadays on Primary school

2) Nordic School
- Description and main characteristics
- Genders at physical education
- Application of their ideas nowadays on Primary school

3) England School
- Description and main characteristics
- Genders at physical education
- Application of their ideas nowadays on Primary school

4) Benefits of this activity

5) Q&A for our classmates

6) Bibliography
GERMAN SCHOOL

Health education as a part of physical education in schools has a long history in Germany.
They focus on monitoring systems for motor and health development and social well-being of
children. The first roots of German physical education were marked by the publication of J.
C. F. GutsMuths' book Gymnastics for Youth in 1793. GutsMuth is called the "grandfather of
gymnastics". He was the first German Professor of Pedagogy, and he introduced systematic
physical exercise into the school curriculum. His book was based on various contributions of
GutsMuths´ students from Austria, France, Denmark etc. And including formulation of a
collection of gymnastic exercises with running, jumping, playing, dancing, swimming, etc.

The first principle of an education in gymnastics for him was that it might fully develop the
abilities of the physical individual and achieve the body's potential beauty and perfect
usefulness. After, F. L. Jahn, the “father of gymnastics” began to develop his more patriotic
system of German gymnastics (Turnen) with students in the open area of the Berlin suburb,
the Hasenheide grounds (Turnplatz),which quickly superseded GutsMuths' gymnastics in
popularity. He invented the parallel bars, the rings, the balance beam, the horse, and the
horizontal bar, which became standard equipment for gymnastics.

GENDER ROLES

Though the author of the report does not deal with the gender role, it is important to save a
gap to talk about it because of its importance and relevance in our society and within sports.
In the german school, physical education is considered as a really important part of health
education. This gets extra significance when it is known that young boys are more likely than
young girls to believe they are good at sports. Furthermore, boys are more likely than girls to
enjoy sports.

It is also demonstrated that most sports-related activities are likely to be perceived as

masculine. Is here where GutsMuths and Jahn, who were mentioned before, have something
to say. They talked about gymnastics which is a sport with a high load of gender roles. First
because being a sport, is seen as an activity for the male gender. But that was at the
beginning, in the first steps of gymnastics as a sport. Nowadays, gymnastics still has a
noticeable gender role, but a bit different as it was.

Now, gymnastics are seen as a sport mostly practised by the female gender because we think
in rhythmic gymnastics and because it is unusual to see a man playing that gymnastics. But
the truth is that gymnastics are mainly practised by men. It also depends on the type and the
category of gymnastics.

APPLYING ACTIVITIES ON PRIMARY SCHOOL

As GutsMuths said, part of gymnastics is also jumping, running or dancing. So for example if
we will work with 10-12 years old children and we would like to improve them in jumping,
we can divide them into small groups. Each group will do different exercises and after 10
minutes they will switch their places.
Exercises:
1- jumps on one leg
2- jump from one place
3- jump over obstacles
4- jump on the obstacle
5- jump start

Every group has to do all 5 exercises. They will be improving their skills, their muscles will
get stronger and they will also be more concentrated for the exercise, because of changing the
activity every 10 minutes, so they will not get bored.

For me, It's really important to know how all sports and physical education developed in
history, what was the first idea of PE and also who came up with it. It's interesting that
everything they made in the past is still “alive” and after more than hundred years we are still
learning the same thing.

NORDIC SCHOOL

The type of school that was formed in Northern Europe was quite the base of the
development of the other schools because specifically this one had the objective of training
the skills for good body health.

Taking into account that we are talking about the 19th century, educators put the focus on
physical and motor skills. Indeed, in that time there was no development of sports as we
know them so their activities were completely related to gymnastics. Unlike nowadays,
physical education was only focused on the improvement of physical skills and abilities, but,
in this school, started to create a system of physical education related to care about the body
and the perfectionism with the body expressions in competitions. Representing emotions and
creating contests about different gymnastic practises were the objectives that the educators
tried to improve through an analytic method of exercises.

Although, in the line of evolution initiated by Hjalmar Ling, new manifestations were later
developed in the Neo Sweden Current. One of them ended up developing a system mixing
techniques and pedagogies. This was one of the revolutionary things for physical education;
introducing a methodology where the educator was trying to teach through the movement and
the skills more so it wasn’t just a thing for training.

GENDER ROLES

In this school the main gender is the male one, and it was related to strength and force
(fortalice arms, legs and back) in gymnastics. The focus was on the male development in
general because of the analytical system that tried to improve the body health through
practicing repeated sequences of different exercises.

The female role on the other hand, did not participate in it until the development of the ideas
from this school. After the analytic system, the Sweden school created a technical
pedagogical manifestation related to improve not only skills in gymnastics but also how to
express emotions. This was a crucial change because the female took an important role on the
first team of rhythmic gymnastics.

APPLYING ACTIVITIES ON PRIMARY SCHOOL

Nordic school can be a bit difficult to apply at current elementary school nowadays.
In that time they were teaching with any methodology, just doing the activities without any
motivation besides to improve your body’s strength and health. The teacher is an authority
figure with knowledge, but nowadays we think about the student as an equal, he or she is a
knowledge receiver.

Nowadays, we are more conscious that not every student is able to do any exercise. In class,
we try to apply different methodologies thinking in the students' situations for developing as
many things as we can.

We have thought about three activities based on this Nordic school that we can apply to
primary school nowadays.
- The first exercise we thought about stretching. Stretching is an important activity to
do before doing a hard exercise. We can stretch our arms, legs, neck and back.
- The second exercise is about juggling with balls made with balloons filled with rice.
You can throw the first one ball to make it easy and then throw two balls with your
hands.
- The last exercise is about playing with jugging cariocas and practicing coordination
and the synchronisation.
First, with one arm you can do circles around you and then cross in front of you. Then
with the other arm, and finally you can do every movement together to practice your
synchronisation and coordination.

ENGLAND SCHOOL

The English school followed, like many other schools at that time, the development of
student’s skills for gymnastics. But, once the most relevant image of the English school was
found in Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), this changed drastically. He, unlike other authors that
added changes to develop the physical education, didn’t want to work on gymnastics but on
games and athletic activities. T. Arnold was the headmaster of the school of Rugby from
1827 to 1842 when he introduced great changes in the English educational system developing
the athletic activities and especially the collaborative sport games. With these, T. Arnold
wanted to teach his students to be honest and clean, important factors of the common English
fair play. He described his educational aims as being the cure of souls first, moral
development second, and intellectual development third. With all of his actions, he achieved
to spread the importance of practicing sport at schools.

Physical Education was included as a Foundation Subject through the compulsory years of
school attendance over four key-stages, which were: 5-7 years; 7-11 years; 11-14 years; and
14-16 years. And these were visible at Programmes of Study activity areas, that counted with
Athletics, Dance, Games, Gymnastics, Outdoor and Adventurous Activities and Swimming.
Even though all these activities were offered, the most important activity, Games, was around
40% of the physical education curriculum. Competitive sport, especially team games, was
given prominence because the Government believed in fair play, self-discipline and respect
for others.

GENDER ROLES

In the first decade of this century, female Physical Education was established in a formal
way, developing contents such as gymnastics, swimming, outdoor games and dance.
Although this decision seemed an advance towards educational equality, this was not the
case, obtaining the first differences in the sports teachings. The sports that were destined to
boys were to become men, bein sports that require decision-making, an active role, initiative
and leadership ability, the girls in contrast practiced sports games that did not involve
physical contact, performing sports activities using an implement such as hockey, lacrosse or
divided court such as the volleyball giving priority in these types of sports to the development
of moral conscience through the acceptance of the rules of these games (Scraton, 1995).

APPLYING ACTIVITIES ON PRIMARY SCHOOL

The main activities of the English school are the games. The reason for this is the belief in
the fair play and through these games students are taught this and many other values, such as
respect, partnership and self-discipline.

The activity that could be done is volleyball. This game is for kids of all ages but we could
get better results if we practised it with students of minimum 6 years old because they’ll be
able to understand the rules correctly. However, it’d be important to do this activity as soon
as possible and as young as possible so that way the students will be able to learn the values
that we want to transmit sooner and they will be able to apply them in their everyday lives.
Furthermore, the outcomes of this activity are what the students learn thanks to it, like the
values previously explained but also the development of the physical skills of the children,
which they also need for them to reach their academic goal is the correct way.

DESCRIBE HOW DID YOU BENEFIT FROM THIS ACTIVITY

From our personal point of view, this activity is very useful for my future teaching training
course to know things about the evolution of P.E. It's really important to know how all sports
and physical education developed in history, what was the first idea of PE and also who came
up with it. It's interesting that everything they made in the past is still “alive” and after more
than hundred years we are still learning the same thing.

Because of this, we can rely on it to understand it and look for useful activities to help our
students and not only put them through theoretical lessons where they don’t get to express
themselves and stimulate their brain, and they need that to be able to develop into complete
human beings.

QUESTIONS FOR THE CLASSMATES

- Do you remember the names of the two main characters from german school? Who was
first?
- Do you know about some actual sports that have their beginning in this first gymnastics? Go
further, do you know any famous athlete from one of these sports?
- For you, the most important value to teach the students would be the fair play, as they
thought and think in the English school?
- Do you think that the games they performed in the English school really taught the students
to play in a fair way?
- What other activities could be done during a lesson that would show the students to respect
each other and useful values?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

● Harrison, L. A., & Lynch, A. B. (2005). Social role theory and the perceived gender role
orientation of athletes. Sex roles, 52(3-4), 227-236.
● Donovan, M., Jones, G. and Hardman, K.: PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND SPORT IN
ENGLAND: DUALISM, PARTNERSHIP AND DELIVERY PROVISION.
https://www.efdeportes.com/efd227/los-estereotipos-de-genero-en-educacion-
fisica.htm
● Gonzalez, R. B., Madrera, E. M., Salguero, A. V. (2004). “Las escuelas gimnásticas y su
relación con la actividad física y educación física actuales”
https://www.efdeportes.com/efd73/gimn.htm
● Perez, C. R. (1993). “Evolució històrica de l’educació física”