Professor of Education and Child Development Anne Sebanc, and Professor of Kinesiology and Nutrition Science Kathy Barlow have been hard at work for more than three years to establish strong relationships between Whittier College and local elementary schools. They have done so by providing physical education classes to schools with a lower socioeconomic status.These classes were taught by their own Whittier College students.
An article that describes their partnership experience was recently featured by the Community Works Journal.
Sebanc and Barlow taught their college students to always put the school children first as this related to a variety of topics in the class starting with safety in physical education and ending with ethics in research. Whittier College students were able to see how these were not just abstract concepts taught in a book but that teachers, principals and college faculty have to make ethical calls in the field when a child says they cannot do a certain movement or it’s too hot to play.
In fact, in addition to rainy days, they had PE classes canceled when the weather was too hot or too windy. Whittier students still went to the children’s classrooms and taught a “rainy day” lesson and therefore, learned how to handle these events to show they cared more about the children than their lesson plans or their research projects. At the end of the class, students bound their lesson plans and gave them to the elementary school teachers. Whether the teachers use them or not, all the games, lessons and rainy day activities were provided so that the teachers and substitute teachers could pull them out and set up the lesson developed by Whittier students.
Read the entire article as well as a student reflection on the Community Works Journal website.
