Apply the 3 S’s to classroom physical activity

A story from North Dakota and Minnesota

 

SchoolsAlive! is an initiative in North Dakota and Minnesota that encourages every school to design and implement a Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program (CSPAP) as part of the school wellness policy (Read our story about SchoolsAlive! here).

As part of this initiative, schools can receive trainings on active classrooms, active recess, and active PE.  Dr. Kristen Ford from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota and Dr. Jenny Linker from North Dakota State University, who are SchoolsAlive! trainers, spoke to us about the guiding philosophy they developed to ensure that classroom physical activity is appropriate and safe for all students.

Key Takeaways

Apply the 3 S’s to physical activity practices. Across all of their trainings, SchoolsAlive! encourages participants to consider the 3 S’s: Safety, Skills, and Success.  Dr. Ford and Dr. Linker encourage participants to use this philosophy during the trainings and in the real world by asking three “yes” or “no” questions:

  1. Safety: Is this physically and emotionally safe?
  2. Skills: Are we teaching kids skills?
  3. Success: Are we setting kids up for success?

If a participant can’t answer “yes” to all questions, the physical activity should be eliminated or modified until all 3 S’s are met.

Dr. Ford asked us to consider the game of dodgeball, for example:

  1. Is this physically safe? Is it emotionally safe? No.
  2. Are we teaching kids skills? “Sometimes teachers say ‘yes.’ Some will argue that dodging, fleeing, catching, and throwing are skills. But then we’ll talk about the fact that dodgeball is an elimination game and the kids who get out first are the kids who can’t do those skills. In that regard, the answer to this question would be ‘no’.”
  3. Are we setting kids up for success?

Consider the 4th S. Dr. Ford argues that the 4th S is “Standards.” This mostly applies to physical educators and asks, “Is the activity standards-based and based on best practices?”

For Dr. Ford, part of the appeal of the 3 S philosophy is that it is easy for attendees to remember and implement: “The 3 S philosophy: you can hear it in five minutes and implement it forever. We want all our attendees to take that critical eye with them.”