The effect of COVID-19 brought a massive adjustment in our everyday lives. Those changes often occurred suddenly and unexpectedly. Perhaps for some people, these changes in the new normal are easy, while others find it extremely difficult.
There are people who were accustomed riding to the supermarket and handing over the payment to the counter. Few people were fine purchasing online. However, there are still people who cannot refute the reality that they rather go to the store so they can personally see what they would like to order. Similarly, there are teachers who would rather see their students perform the physical activity given rather make it as an assignment especially in Physical Education subject.
Physical Education, on the other hand, encourages students to move and develop sports etiquette through participation. Student are compelled to participate in a variety of sports and physical activities. Students were able to sprint long distances, jump high, dribble the ball, and smash the shuttlecock, among other things. We spend our lives knowing that the essence of Physical Education is to stay active and to preserve health through physical activities.
Physical Education, as part of MAPEH, plays an important role in the education curriculum. It provides every student with an opportunity to secure and maintain a healthy and desired fitness level through participating in a variety of games, sports, and activities.
Students in online classes frequently do not have adequate area to participate in physical exercise and have inadequate access to the resources and equipment required to attend online physical education lessons. As a result, the students used readily available equipment at home, which reduced the students’ opportunity to learn various activities in the physical education subject. Hence, being healthy takes precedence in distance learning, while being competitive, which is crucial in school, takes a back seat.
Imagine those students who are accustomed to playing badminton or any outdoor sports activity, even those who were school athletes; every day in their lives they played after school, or practiced at least once a week. However, with the coronavirus, they were confined to their houses, and instead of being active, they sat at home and watched sports on the television. They are mugged with an opportunity to train themselves and be active on the sports they preferred.
Furthermore, students are not the only ones who are in a difficult situation; their teachers have also been in a challenging situation. The abrupt transition to online classrooms left teachers unprepared and coping with new teaching methods, requiring them to rely on experimental approach; trying to test which techniques are suitable. Inadequate online teaching practices, weak internet as well as a lack of teacher and student preparation for online classrooms, impacted the transition. Further, teachers use online platforms when assigning their students to perform certain physical activity, even in limited spaces, which allows students to be creative in preparing for their sports equipment.
On the other hand, a few teachers who have adjusted to the new normal, still having problems preparing their online classes because they lack the essential equipment, such as technical equipment, online educational resources, and so on.
Moreover, the Department of Education are doing their best to help teachers achieve quality education in delivering their PE lesson such as providing internet allowance, providing seminar-workshops, converting the instructional materials into scripts for TV or Radio based Instruction and so on.
“We will not allow COVID-19 to destroy our children’s education and their future,” Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said.
Indeed, together with the Department of Education, the school and its teachers never cease coming up with new ways to promote physical education in the new normal. Even if ideas are uncommon, teachers are still working hard to provide students with adequate knowledge to understand Physical Education.
By: Aldrin John T. Bustamante
