Want Smarter, Healthier Kids? Try Physical Education! | Paul Zientarski | TEDxBend

Summary

In his TEDx Talk, Paul Zientarski advocates for a modern approach to physical education, emphasizing its critical role in enhancing both health and academic performance in children. He argues that the current minimization of PE in schools contributes to lower academic standings and increasing health issues among students. By shifting the focus of physical education from sports skills to fitness and wellness, schools can improve academic outcomes, as evidenced by the success of his fitness-based program. Zientarski shares stories, statistics, and insights on how structured exercise, like the Learning Readiness PE program, can significantly enhance academic performance and cognitive function, promoting a healthier, more successful learning environment.

Highlights

• Physical education is crucial for both health and academic success. 🏆
• Switching to a fitness-based PE program improves school performance. 🔄
• Daily exercise promotes better brain activity and cognitive function. 🧠
• Learning Readiness PE enhances students' academic achievement when placed before challenging subjects. 📖
• Feedback from students shows a positive impact of fitness-focused PE initiatives. 💬

Key Takeaways

• Physical education can boost both health and academic performance! 🌟
• A fitness-focused PE program can improve attendance, behavior, and grades. 📈
• Switching from sports-based to fitness-based PE is a game-changer! ⚽➡️🏋️
• Strategically placing PE before academic classes can enhance learning. 📚🤸‍♀️
• Engaging, daily fitness activities are essential for kids' development! 🌈

Overview

Paul Zientarski's TEDx Talk dives into an innovative perspective on physical education, sparking excitement for its potential to enhance both student health and academic performance. Traditional PE focused heavily on sports, leaving fitness by the wayside, but his approach flips the script. By making fitness the core focus, PE classes can turn into a powerhouse hub for cognitive and physical development!

In his fascinating presentation, Zientarski discusses the eye-opening results from schools that embraced a fitness-based physical education program. By integrating technology like heart rate monitors and diversifying activities to include yoga and rock climbing, schools have seen improvements in student fitness levels and academics. Notably, the Learning Readiness PE program strategically places physical activity before demanding classes, resulting in measurable academic improvements!

Engagement is key, and this reimagined PE framework seems to capture the students' attention like never before. By encouraging participation through varied and fun activities, like kickboxing and team-building exercises, schools have reported better attendance, behavior, and scholastic achievements. Zientarski passionately argues for making fitness and health-focused PE a staple, not a side note, in educational curricula.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:30: Introduction to the Importance of Physical Education The chapter titled 'Introduction to the Importance of Physical Education' underscores the necessity of integrating physical activity into our daily routines. The transcript humorously engages readers by encouraging them to get up and move after sitting for too long, emphasizing the importance of regular physical movement. It creates an interactive atmosphere, motivating readers to stretch and move around, thus highlighting physical education's role in promoting health and well-being.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Current Problems in Education and Health The chapter discusses modern approaches to physical education, moving away from traditional methods. With insights from a physical education teacher with 40 years of experience, it introduces a program that is individually focused, engaging, and fitness-based, highlighting current challenges in education and health.
• 03:00 - 05:00: The Decline of Physical Education The chapter titled 'The Decline of Physical Education' discusses the crucial role of physical education in a child's school day. It highlights two main issues facing schools today: the decline in academic performance compared to international peers and the health problems affecting children. The speaker argues that these issues are related to the removal of physical education from school curriculums, emphasizing the importance of maintaining it to address these challenges.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Innovative Approaches to Physical Education The chapter highlights the alarming trend of increasing inactivity among children, which has surpassed smoking as the leading cause of death in the U.S. The text raises concerns about the current generation of children potentially having shorter lifespans than their parents due to a lack of physical activity. It critiques the educational approach of removing physical education (PE) from curriculums, leading to more sedentary behavior among students. The chapter suggests that this shift towards more seated learning time has not been beneficial, as evidenced by poor global rankings in math.
• 07:00 - 11:30: Impact of a Fitness-Based PE Program The chapter discusses a new approach to physical education, proposing that using PE programs focused on fitness can improve educational outcomes. By rethinking how PE is implemented, the suggestion is that it can significantly contribute to improving students' performance in areas such as reading and science, indicating the broader impact that a fitness-based PE program might have on education.
• 11:30 - 13:30: The Scientific Basis for Exercise and Learning The chapter discusses the decline in physical education programs in schools across the country. At Neille Central High School, an example of such a program is shared, highlighting how in some areas, like Ben and Florida, students have minimal requirements for physical education. The concern is raised about the reduced emphasis on physical activity in educational institutions, with some states allowing students to complete these requirements online.
• 13:30 - 16:30: Real-Life Impact and Student Testimonial The chapter titled 'Real-Life Impact and Student Testimonial' discusses the impact of sports education at the high school level. It highlights that the program serves as a break for elementary teachers while focusing on teaching various sports skills to students. The program involves testing students on activities such as making free throws and bumping volleyballs against the wall. It also notes a significant statistic that only 5% of the U.S. population engages in team sports beyond the age of 26 to maintain fitness.
• 16:30 - 18:01: Conclusion: Call to Action for Physical Education In this concluding chapter, the focus is on the diminishing emphasis on physical education in schools across the country. Despite Illinois being the only state that mandates daily physical education for all K-12 students, there is a concern about the relevance of these programs as other regions begin to drop them. This calls for a renewed commitment and action towards maintaining and emphasizing the importance of physical education in schools to avoid becoming obsolete.

Want Smarter, Healthier Kids? Try Physical Education! | Paul Zientarski | TEDxBend Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 get up get up get up get up get up get up you been sitting too long hurry up get up get up get up ready everybody stretch stretch Str stop your feet stop your feet all right drop give me 20 just kidding sit down
• 00:30 - 01:00 relax now doesn't that sound like your fiz head coaches of Old Well I spent 40 years as a physical education teacher so guess what I'm here to talk to you about physical education but not the old school PE that you're used to I'm here to talk to you about a physical education program that is individually focused it's engaging it's fitness-based
• 01:00 - 01:30 and if it's placed correctly in a school day it's the most important aspect of a child's school day now there are two problems facing the world today in our schools one we're lagging behind our International peers scholastically two it's the health issues that our children face well I'm here to tell you why that's occurring I believe it's occurring because physical education is being taken out of the classes you see
• 01:30 - 02:00 inactivity has replaced smoking as the number one cause of death in the United States this generation of children is not expected to have the lifespan of their parents because of inactivity and so what we're doing to resolve this is we're taking kids out of PE and putting them in seats to sit more and there is no research that shows that that helps I'm going to show you this is the result of more sea time we're 36 in the world in math 25th in the world in
• 02:00 - 02:30 reading and 28th in the world of science so what I propose is that we start to think about things a little bit differently and if we use physical education as a way of getting that done then we're going to be in great shape you got it I'm going to talk to you about a physical education program
• 02:30 - 03:00 that is fitness-based and I'm going to talk to you about the program we had at neille Central High School you see across the country they are dropping physical education here in Ben for example an elementary student may have physical education one day a week a high school student only needs one credit of physical education to graduate heck in Florida you need one semester of physical education to graduate high school and get this they can do it online
• 03:00 - 03:30 well we have become the potty break and a coffee break for elementary teachers at the high school level we teach all kinds of sports skills and we spend our time testing our our students with how many free throws they can make how many volleyballs they can bump against the against the wall and we've discovered that beyond the age of 26 only 5% of the US population participates in team sports to stay AC
• 03:30 - 04:00 Ive well no wonder they're dropping physical education we became irrelevant the physical education program in neille and you see it in Illinois we have the only we are the only state that mandates daily physical education for all students K through 12 but as we looked around the country people were dropping physical education we were afraid we were going to become
• 04:00 - 04:30 extinct so the fizet teachers in our area got together and we said look we got to change our emphasis no longer sports-based model we need to concentrate on Fitness and an emphasis on health and wellness and so as we did that we started to get National and international recognition school districts from all over the country started to come to visit us schools entities from around the world had come to visit us I've done presentations in 22 States in school districts in
• 04:30 - 05:00 Illinois and around the country 35 of them have imp implemented parts of our program and here's what they found increase Fitness increase academic performance better attendance and better behavior in their schools entities like China Japan South Korea have come to see us countries who we emulate for their academic performance and they come to see me to learn about our program
• 05:00 - 05:30 as we moved to a fitness-based program we found that technology was important heart rate monitors became a big part of our program it allowed us as teachers to know how hard our students were working it allowed us as teachers to grade our students based on their efforts not on their Sports skills it allowed the students to see how hard they were working and then they could drive the work a little bit better so as we made this transition our
• 05:30 - 06:00 equipment became more complex than just bats and balls we needed stationary bikes we needed ellipticals we needed treadmills we needed weight machines those were going to be the things that were going to help our students into the future besides that then we changed the activities we were teaching them we were giving them all kinds of different activities we did kayaking in the pool we did rock climbing we did yoga we had all kinds of dance classes aerobic
• 06:00 - 06:30 kickboxing team building activities those were going to be the activities that our students were going to need as they became adults well we still get Fitness tests the dreaded fitness test I know but our fitness test our our students are not measured against themsel or their peers they're measured against themselves our students have to own their data because they're tracked from year to year and as a result in our test the
• 06:30 - 07:00 students are put in one of two categories they are either unhealthy or healthy and then it's the job of the physical education teacher to move them from one category to the next now we still we still play sports we have to do that in physical education but we did it with small-sided activities where everybody had to participate this is a scene of four on four playing and you see what was nice is even though
• 07:00 - 07:30 we were playing four and four those who needed the most activity got a lot of activity no scores were set were set it was just about participation so all of a sudden in 2003 I had an aha moment a Harvard researcher by the name of Dr John R had come to visit our program now why would a Harvard researcher come to visit naville Illinois I'm glad you asked you see
• 07:30 - 08:00 he had just recently discovered that we had participated in an international math and science test called the Tim's test TMS and our students finished number one in the world in science number six in the world in mathematics and he was surprised to understand we still maintained our daily physical education program he was on a journey and this is his favorite quote exercise is like fertiliz to the brain it's so good it's like Miracle Grow and the first thing he told me was it is
• 08:00 - 08:30 exercise that builds brain cells not new learning are you ready exercise builds brain cells not new learning so as he was going on his journey of understanding how exercise was affecting the brain and learning I took this information I went back to school I went to my Administration and a great teaching staff and created a program called learning Readiness PE or lrp for short this was going to be a physical education program that was going to f focus on cardiovascular
• 08:30 - 09:00 conditioning and we were going to strategically place students in this class prior to classes that they struggled in well we created an an intervention reading program for our students who were struggling who were reading Bel low grade level and so what you're seeing is from 2005 through 2010 the blue in the blue bar indicat students who are in the same academic class but have physical education afterwards the Red Bar indicates those
• 09:00 - 09:30 students in the class but have lrp just before the difference is about 56% that was over a semester when we measured it over a year you see growth in in years of reading Improvement two years is opposed to three years for those students who were who had physical education after when we included math it became even more dramatic yeah that's what my Administration said too
• 09:30 - 10:00 wow so again when we're comparing students that are in in the lrp class to those who are in the same academic class but have PE afterwards a 93% difference 93% difference well you're all saying okay it's all because of you Mr zenari you're fizzed program not at all not at all you see it was as I was bringing information back to our teachers they
• 10:00 - 10:30 were taking that information that Neuroscience information and they were putting it into practice however I would walk through the Halls like this you need me I build those brain cells it's up to you not to fill them and so they started using movement in the learning process I have two Math teachers who have created and published brain break books Brain Breaks come into
• 10:30 - 11:00 play about halfway through a class when the students's attention starts to wander and so they get the students up out of their desk they participate in an activity and the time spent on the brain break is more than gained with the attention they have with the students coming back now okay you want to know how do you know that this Exercise Works neuroscientist out of the University of Illinois Dr Chuck Hilman does brain scans on students
• 11:00 - 11:30 and so on the left hand side you're looking at a composite of 20 students brain scans where the brain is yellow and white it's lit up it's resolving the issues of the test on the right hand or and I'm sorry and before they took the test they sat quietly on the right hand side it's the same 20 students sitting down taking the same type of test the only difference is they walked for 20 minutes look at the brain activity now with just a 20 minute walk could you imagine what it would
• 11:30 - 12:00 look like after a hard physical education class so how do I know that this program is helping helping our students well it just so happens 5 days ago true story we get a letter from a student who was involved in the program and she's now studying uh physical education at the University of Westchester in Pennsylvania and in her class her professor was going to show a clip on the value of exercise and
• 12:00 - 12:30 learning guess what it was about Neighborville she said hey I was involved in that program and spent an hour and a half talking to her peers about the program it prompted her to write to her lrp teacher and she's given me permission to read that letter to you right now Mr Adams I wanted to mention that in my class freshman year you really gave me the inspiration to teach and my passion to teach students who struggle
• 12:30 - 13:00 in school when I began your class I thought poorly about myself I thought I was in a dumb class the funny thing about lrp it's exactly opposite of being in a dumb class it's a shame that people don't realize that sooner what is dumb about increasing your grades especially in a fun and physical way thank you for believing me in a student and then in the program you and the rest of the physical education Department should be
• 13:00 - 13:30 proud of the impact that you are having I am I have so much hope for this program and pray that it continues to grow your number one student Caitlyn the reason the reason I had you standed as I walked in is because I didn't want you to miss this important piece of information and that is this a quality daily physical education program that is engaging and Fitness spased and
• 13:30 - 14:00 strategically placed in the course of the day is the is is the most important aspect in a child's day our children deserve to be healthier and achieve their academic potential so it's time to blow the whistle on schools who are cutting back on physical education make physical education a core subject so it's in every child's school day thank you every