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TINNING378 CONTENT KNOWLEDGE 379

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JOURNAL OF TEACHING IN PHYSICAL EDUCATION, 2002, 21, 378-391© 2002 HUMAN KINETICS PUBLISHERS, INC.

Engaging Siedentopian Perspectives onContent Knowledge for Physical Education

Richard TinningUniversity of Queensland

Richard Tinning is with the School of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia.

It is November as I write this paper, and about this time of the year 20 years ago I was packing my bags to travel to Columbus, Ohio, and OSU to pursue a doctorate with Daryl Siedentop. The experience of working with Daryl was hugely significant in my professional life and I learned a great deal from him. To be asked to respond to one of his writings in a special issue of this journal is an honor and a privilege.

In one sense it is a little unfair making such an official response to something that Daryl wrote over a decade ago. Many of us might prefer to have our latest work be the subject of critique on the assumption that it represents our current thinking rather than our thinking “back then.” However, I’m not sure that would bother Daryl, and certainly he is not one for jumping on the latest intellectual bandwagon just because it is in vogue. His ideas have a coherent evolution to them, informed as they are by a set of orienting principles, beliefs, and a long history of reading beyond the limits of his immediate field.

The paper “Content Knowledge for Physical Education” was presented as a keynote address and it bears the hallmarks of Daryl’s succinct, powerful, and forthright delivery style. Those who have had the privilege of hearing Daryl talk will recognize that his oration style is formidable and persuasive. But Daryl is not one for form over substance and there is much in this paper to challenge and stimulate professional debate. The essence of his argument is that:

• Physical Education can’t agree on its subject matter content. • Franklin Henry’s discipline model has transformed physical education teacher

education for the worst. • While the discipline (kinesiology) has thrived in universities, physical edu-

cation in schools has suffered. • The reason for this situation is the “general belief that sport performance

coursework is not worthy of academic status.” • We are preparing teachers who are perhaps pedagogically skillful but ignorant

in their content knowledge. • Such teachers will “fail [as teachers] because they have little command of

the content they will need to teach.”


• Teachers certified with kinesiology majors will be better prepared to teach kinesiology than physical education.

• Physical educators will become [merely] arrangers, coordinators, and man-agers of recreational activities.

• Physical education teachers should know about sports intellectually and as performers.

• We need pre-professional degree programs that are based on sport (or other activity forms) performance.

Rather than treat the paper “Content Knowledge for Physical Education” as if it stood with no history, or as if it had captured the “essential” Siedentop, I will attempt to connect this paper with two of his other speeches that were written since 1989: “Curriculum Innovation: Toward the 21st Century,” his keynote address to the 36th ICHPER World Congress, Yokohama, Japan, in 1993 (published in the ICHPER Journal in 1994); and “Physical Activity Cultures for Children and Youth: Redefining Physical Education,” presented as the 13th Annual Oberteuffer Lecture at The Ohio State University in 1995.

I will now slip into academic speak and, to signify an appropriate academic distance (the disinterested intellectual approach), I will henceforth refer to Daryl as Siedentop.

First Things First

Let me say at the outset that, in general, I agree with most of what Siedentop is saying in his 1989 paper. I do have some concerns, however, about his solutions. In order to offer what I hope to be a coherent response to his arguments, I have arranged this paper into a number of subsections dealing with:

• The nature of content knowledge; • Issues of status, professional knowledge, and practical knowledge; • The purposes of physical education; • Disciplines and school subjects; • The contemporary context of knowledge; • Novelty, “new times,” and identity; • A possible way forward.

On Content KnowledgeSiedentop’s task in the paper was broadly to discuss issues related to the

nature of content knowledge for physical education. In the first place, there is a need to tighten up on the language. When Siedentop refers to “content knowledge” he is using Shulman’s (1986) umbrella term to refer more specifically to what Shulman categorized as “subject matter content knowledge.” I think it sharpens the discussion when we use the specific terms as defined by Shulman. I think it also important to recognize that subject matter content knowledge for physical education includes knowledge that is both practical and theoretical.1 The basis of Siedentop’s position is that it is theoretical knowledge that has been privileged over practical knowledge.


Issues of Status, Professional Knowledge, and Practical KnowledgeIn 1989 Siedentop was arguing (in company with Larry Locke) that physi-

cal education teachers are graduating from universities and entering the field of teaching without an adequate knowledge of the physical activity and sports subject matter that they will be required to teach in schools. He sees the problem to be connected with the rise of discipline knowledge in universities. As the discipline-focused knowledge has gained credibility, it has gradually squeezed out practical movement activity. According to Siedentop,

The root problem which has allowed the discipline movement to virtually take over and increasingly define pre-professional curricula in physical edu-cation is, from my view, straightforward. There is a general belief that sport performance coursework is not worthy of academic status, or, even more directly, that sport itself is “academically unpalatable.” (2002, p. 371)

Siedentop was talking specifically to an audience of American colleagues and his comments were, accordingly, USA contextualized. However, in my experience, similar trends have been evident in many countries around the world (e.g., the UK, Canada, Spain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand). Commentary by Dewar (1987), Lawson (1988), Macdonald, Kirk, and Braiuka (1999) and others also attest to this trend. This was obvious in 1989 and has only increased since that time.

Siedentop’s claim that graduates of programs that use kinesiology (or human movement studies or sports science) as the discipline pre-professional knowledge “will be better prepared, from a content point of view, to teach a kinesiology cur-riculum than [they] will be to teach an exercise and sport curriculum” (p. 372) may well be correct. But they will probably be better prepared in kinesiology subject matter content knowledge than in pedagogical content knowledge for teaching kinesiology. Moreover, as Alexander (1987) claimed, in most physical education teacher education programs, pedagogical content knowledge for theoretical subject matter is only covered indirectly in the process of teaching other courses.

Importantly, however, where physical education exists as an examinable school subject in the senior high school, for example in New Zealand and Australia, the subject matter content knowledge for those curricula is kinesiology/human movement studies (see Cassidy, 1995; Macdonald et al., 1999). Accordingly, teacher education in such contexts must prepare teachers with content knowledge, in its broad sense, of both physical activity and kinesiology.

Siedentop is correct in his claim that “sports performance” is generally con-sidered unworthy of academic status. Our field has been replete with arguments over the relative status of academic knowledge and practical knowledge. Wright (2000) gives a coherent account of how “There is a difference in kind, which has long been recognized, between theory and practice of physical education” (p. 273). Specifically she argues that “physical education as a practical subject on an educa-tional curriculum is often undervalued because the concept of practical knowledge is not sufficiently understood.”(p. 273). Wright suggests that the concept “knowing how” is confusing, given that “knowing how” can also be theoretical. Certainly the concept of “intelligent performance in movement” is advocated by some (see Kirk, 1988; Macdonald & Brooker, 1997) as fundamental to physical education defining itself as educational.


However, while there is little doubt that physical activity (especially in the form of sport2) has been considered to be of dubious academic worth, it should be noted that it is now possible to obtain a degree in sports studies at some univer-sities in some countries. This was not the case two decades ago. There are also many scholars from mainstream fields such as history, sociology, psychology, physiology, engineering, and medicine who now consider the subject of sport to be of considerable academic interest. In some ways I think the intellectual worth of studying physical activity as a sociocultural and biophysical phenomenon is now legitimized within the academy.

Of course, the study of sport or physical activity as an intellectual pursuit is not the same as actually performing movement itself and, on balance,3 I think Siedentop’s position with respect to the low academic status of performing physical activity is as valid in 2002 as it was in 1989.

The Purposes of Physical Education Siedentop’s opinion in 1989 was,

If men and women who aspire to be teachers of physical education study, as the core of their content knowledge, the discipline of kinesiology, and have increasingly fewer academic credit hours devoted to developing direct ex-pertise in sport forms, they will fail as teachers of physical education no matter how well they are eventually prepared in the pedagogical domain. They will fail because they have little command of the content they will need to teach, no ability to take students beyond that introductory unit that seemingly gets taught again and again and again. (2002, p. 372, emphasis added)

In this case, the judgment that they will fail is predicated on the notion of what physical education is meant to achieve. In this sense the purposes of physical education are central to this discussion. It is relatively uncontentious that teacher preparation should prepare teachers to fulfill the purposes that the profession sets itself for its subject. Of course we need to recognize that there continues to be conflict over what “the profession” considers as physical education’s major pur-pose. We also need to recognize that there may be others (e.g., the “state”) who have opinions (and policies) regarding what the school subject physical education should achieve.

In a later paper, Siedentop (1994a) offers the following purposes of physical education:

Physical education should be devoted to optimizing the likelihood that people so value physical activity (sport, leisure activity, fitness and dance) that they organize their lives so regular involvement occurs throughout the lifespan. (p. 11)

Physically educated citizens, according to Siedentop, will not only have participation habits but will also demonstrate their valuing of physical activity by being “involved critically in the sport, fitness and leisure culture” (p. 11). Physically educated individuals will be competent (physical performers), literate, and critical. Literate in the sense that they are knowledgable about and activist in preserving, protecting, and improving the practice of their sport, fitness, or leisure


activity. Critical in the sense that they understand structural inequities that may limit access to sport, fitness, and leisure activities based on attributes such as race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status. Siedentop’s (1994a) physically educated citizens would be critical consumers of the sports, fitness, and leisure industries. That is, they would “work to counter or reduce forces that seek to manipulate their (participation) interests for economic or political purposes” (p. 12).

The idea that physical education contributes to the making of certain citizens is certainly not new (see Tinning, 2001a). As Laker (2000) argues, “physical edu-cation has been used for the purposes of survival, social control, military fitness, health, holistic development and citizen education” from the time of the ancient Greeks (p. 14). For example, the current president of the Association of Physical Education in Higher Education (AIESEP), Ron Feingold (2000), made it very clear that he considered the central mission of physical education was to educate future citizens for a lifestyle based on particular health-focused risk management.

It is fair to say that the essence of Siedentop’s physically educated citi-zen—the preparation for lifetime involvement in physical activity—is a reasonable “distillation” of what is included in the purposes of physical education in many curriculum statements at the beginning of the 21st century. However, it is also true that in some countries the articulated purposes of physical education are rather more diverse and complex .

In Australia and New Zealand, for example, a “national curriculum” clearly locates physical education within health. Physical education in public schools in the compulsory years of school, up to and including Year 10 (the end of junior high in the USA), is not only called Health & Physical Education (HPE), it is con-ceived as such. The connection of physical education with notions of the “healthy citizen” is made explicit in curriculum documents in which the state expects HPE to provide…

a foundation for developing active and informed members of society, capable of managing the interactions between themselves and their social, cultural and physical environments in the pursuit of good health. (The Queensland 1999 Health & Physical Education Years 1–10 Syllabus, p. 1; emphasis added)

There are two perspectives embedded in the New Zealand and Australian HPE curricula. First, they claim to provide the opportunity for students to become more intelligent, sensitive, informed participants in physical activity; to become healthy, physically active, informed citizens. Second, they advocate social justice principles and so represent a socially critical curriculum. Macdonald and Kirk (1999) claim that HPE teachers in Australia now have a “responsibility to [teach] the socially critical liberal curriculum as defined by the State” (p. 140). Indeed, much is asked of our HPE teachers.

While I recognize that the integration of physical education and health, either formally or informally, is an important issue that has potentially significant conse-quences for physical education (Tinning, 2001b), space restrictions dictate that this is not the place to debate the issue. In the final analysis, whether or not physical education as a stand-alone subject or as part of HPE can deliver on its long-term goal of “making” healthy, physically active, informed citizens will depend less on the sophistication of its curriculum documents and more on the ability of its teach-


ers to clearly know what they are attempting to do (the major orienting purpose of their work) and what is realistic to achieve (Tinning, 2000).

I am not the only one to argue that sometimes physical education attempts to be too many things for too many people. For example, in discussing the revision of the National Curriculum for Physical Education (NCPE) in England and Wales, Penney and Chandler (2000) “question the adequacy and appropriateness of the ways in which the subject (PE) is currently defined, structured and taught in state schools in England & Wales” (p. 71).

While physical educationists may be in agreement about what the subject ‘is not’ [i.e., sport] the matter of what the core aims of the subject are remains far less clear and a source of apparent tension. (p. 74)

We wish to question the degree to which physical education can legitimately continue to make varied claims and pursue multiple agendas.

They suggest that…

Debate about both the compatibility of these multiple claims and their impli-cations for the content and structure of curricula seems to have been largely overlooked in contemporary times. (p. 75)

Similar sentiments are expressed by two other British curriculum researchers, Armour and Jones (1998), in their discussion of physical education in the UK. They claim that “physical education may be trying to do too much” (p. 85) and that it may have “failed to identify a specific focus within its huge potential” (p. 85). In the context of New Zealand and Australia this is also an issue. A brief scan through the pages of the proceedings of the Education for Life AIESEP World Congress (Feingold, Rees, Barrette, et al., 1998) reveals that similar sentiments are to be found all around the world.

On Disciplines and School SubjectsSiedentop argued that (subject matter) content knowledge in physical edu-

cation is not as easily defined as in some other school subjects such as math, art, music, or English. He suggested the reason is partly because “school curricula in these fields are obviously a developmental version of the mature subject fields of study in the university” (2002, p. 368). In my view, one of the reasons why content knowledge in physical education is difficult to define is largely because we in the profession of physical education have ongoing difficulty in agreeing on what we are trying to achieve (see for example Lawson, 1999). However, understanding the relationship between school subjects and their university namesakes is rather more complex. According to Goodson (1998),

Closer analysis of school subjects uncovers a number of unexplained par-adoxes…. many school subjects are barely disciplines let alone forms of thought…. school subjects are often either divorced from their discipline base or do not have a discipline base. Many school subjects therefore, represent autonomous communities. (p. 164)

Moreover,


Far from being derived from academic disciplines, some school subjects chronologically precede their parent disciplines; in these circumstances, the developing school subject actually brings about the creation of a university base for the ‘discipline’ so that teachers of the subject can be trained. (p. 165)

Kirk (1988) provides a useful précis of Goodson’s three hypotheses regarding subject (curriculum) formation and change: First, “subjects in the school curriculum can be seen to represent, not fixed bodies of knowledge in the ‘traditional’ sense…but the interests and concerns of particular groups” (p. 91). Second, according to Goodson, “subjects evolve over time, [and] interested groups seek to justify the subject on the basis of high status knowledge…and less on the school curriculum or ‘pedagogic’ form of the subject” (p. 92). Third, “In the struggle to promote particular subjects in the curriculum, much of the contestation revolves around attempts to gain status, and thus access to resources such as timetable time, highly qualified staff, good facilities and equipment, and the most able pupils” (p. 92).

We can see this process of subject evolution clearly evident in the case of physical education. Importantly, there is no “right way” for subject evolution, only a history that can be understood as context-specific and contingency-shaped. Rather than lamenting how it might have been otherwise, or how we might compare with other subjects, what seems important now, in 2002, is to attempt to understand how things might evolve from here on. What contextual features of current times, in particular regarding knowledge, might work to influence the direction of physical education in the medium-term future?

The Contemporary Knowledge Context: Knowledge Ain’t What It Used to Be

We all know that knowledge about the world, our place in it, and our effect on it, is increasing at an exponential rate. Yet we also have some analysts, such as English sociologist Anthony Giddens (1991), who claim than in contemporary times there are no permanent structures of knowledge or meaning. Now this is a very challenging concept, especially in a discussion about content knowledge. However, before you dismiss it out of hand, consider this:

When the knowledge developed about people, institutions or activities is applied to them, it reshapes them in a range of intended and unintended ways. This calls into being the need for more knowledge which leads to the repetition of the process. (Kenway, 1998, p. 6)

In this way social reflexivity, as Giddens calls this process, is implicated in destabilizing permanent structures of knowledge or meaning. In the conditions of high, late, or post-modernity—the name might vary depending on who you read—this process of social reflexivity is intensified. Moreover, since there are increasing sources of knowledge created by ever new experts with differing opin-ions, it’s hard to know who and what to believe. In this context we increasingly experience radical doubt.

University professors are “experts” who are charged with providing future teachers with knowledge they will need for working in a constantly changing


information landscape. But exactly what knowledge is needed? In the late 1980s Siedentop argued that more subject matter content knowledge of physical activity was what was needed to address a decline in school physical education. However, with all we know about the changing context of secondary schooling over the past two decades or so, I am unconvinced that the root problem for physical education is teachers’ limited command of the subject matter content knowledge of physical activity. While it might be a concern at one level, I believe that this is not the most significant problem facing the future of school physical education.

In the course of their pre-professional and professional programs, student teachers receive subject matter content knowledge from a variety of disciplinary and professional studies experts. In their attempts to “tell the truth” about physical activity teaching and learning, these experts present PETE students with a bewil-dering array of competing claims (Kelly, Hickey, & Tinning, 2000). However, there is a quest for certainty in the eyes of most student teachers. They have a “Tell me what I need to know” mentality. The paradox here is that the processes (of knowl-edge production and reproduction), which promise some certainty in the face of change, are actually deeply implicated in the manufacturing of further uncertainty (Giddens, 1994). It is this social reflexivity that serves to increase our anxiety and, faced with increased uncertainty, some respond by clinging to traditional ways, others by seeking simplistic solutions in fundamentalism of various kinds.

Of course this is not to say that nothing is useful in terms of the knowledge that is acquired through pre-professional and professional study. That would be a ridiculous assertion. But it is to say that teachers and student teachers who are “pragmatists to the core” (O’Sullivan, Siedentop, & Locke, 1992) might find that seeking certainty in traditional ways of doing things might be an unfulfilling pro-fessional orientation. Indeed, according to Bauman (2001), the most important learnings for the future are those that relate to the capacity of the learner to unlearn and adapt to uncertainty. In other words, we need to learn not to hold on too tightly to traditional practices.

On Novelty, Frisbee, “New Times,” and IdentitySiedentop (1989) used Hoffman’s (1987) rather bleak scenario for physical

education in 2020 as a representation of his own fears for physical education. He argued that if we cannot reach agreement on what should be taught, and if teachers continue to choose content largely on their individual whims, then…

physical educators of the future, if there are such persons, will be arrangers, coordinators, and managers of primarily recreational activities. (p. 373)

It has become increasingly clear that “anything goes” in the name of physical education in schools—units in darts and Frisbee having that same substantive value as volleyball and track, with the added appeal of novelty.” (p. 373)

It is here that I have some concerns with some of Siedentop’s argument. It is clear that he speaks pejoratively about the place of novelty and of nontraditional activities in the physical education curriculum. There is also an assumption that teachers who might choose to include such activities in their curriculum would do so because they were insufficiently knowledgeable about traditional physical


education activities such a track & field (athletics to non-Americans). I would like to offer a different reading.

What if a teacher did help students build competence in Frisbee and they valued the activity, and the social opportunities it generated for them, to such an extent that they sought opportunities to continue the activity beyond the school gate? Would this not be making a contribution to a physically educated citizen? On the other hand, if a teacher spent sufficient curriculum time on developing student competence in a certain traditional activity such as discus throwing, this might have limited potential for life beyond school and for developing a physically educated citizen.

Now I don’t want to engage in the debate over whether only “lifetime” activities should be part of the school curriculum. The fact that there are very few players of rugby or participants in gymnastics who are over the age of 25 does not necessarily mean that these activities have no place in a physical education curriculum. My point here is that traditional physical education activities might contain no more intrinsic “substantive value” (p. 373) than some novelty activities. Remember that jogging and aerobics were once novelty activities.

Siedentop (1994a) claims that we tend to value the things we do well, things we have competence in. Moreover,

Building competence takes time. I am more convinced each year that the standard, multi-activity approach to physical education curriculum is a serious error. Students need time to become competent in whatever activities they are learning. In situations where time is extremely limited, then the number of activities should be severely limited. (1994a, p. 13)

I think he is absolutely right. However, let’s give young people the oppor-tunity to develop competence in some of the physical activities that they identify as reinforcing. I know some young people who would much prefer to develop some competence in skateboarding or in-line skating than in track & field or vol-leyball.

But what if the teacher has had no subject matter content knowledge in such a novel activity? Well there are other ways to arrange for the opportunity for students to learn, say in-line skating, other than the traditional teacher demonstra-tion, explanation, practice model. Indeed, Siedentop’s own Sport Education Model (1994b) could provide such opportunity if there were some students in the class who could do some peer teaching.

If seems to me that the essential ingredient here is not specific subject matter content knowledge but the attitude of the teacher toward the pupils and the activ-ity, and the connection of both with the purposes of physical education. Of course this is not to suggest that more subject matter content knowledge would not be useful in teaching any activity, novel or traditional. However, I think we could all identify some teachers we have known who possess considerable knowledge but who nevertheless still manage to make the experience for their pupils unenjoyable, unrewarding, and possibly even miseducative. Subject matter content knowledge is not a sufficient condition for effective teaching with respect to the development of Siedentop’s physically educated citizen.

According to Siedentop (1994a), “Physical education must be attractive and rewarding… [and] success is the most important factor in making physical education


rewarding.” Moreover, it is “probably counterproductive, even futile, to assume there is only one approach that is most likely to achieve [physical education’s] long term goal” (p. 12). I absolutely agree. And that is why we must be careful about making judgments about the substantive worth of various activities. The meaning that the participants make of the activity seems to be central here. For too long, physical education teachers have expected their charges to find similar meaning, value, and reinforcement in the activities that they themselves know and which have helped shape their own identities as teachers and sportspeople.

In the context of relevance and meaning, for many young people the traditional activities of physical education curriculum have little to offer. In his discussion of “new times” and physical education, Siedentop (1998) suggests that “new times” has had little impact on physical education:

Physical education in many middle and secondary schools is not markedly different than it was in the late 1940s, and in many schools is not relevant to either the school curriculum or the lives of the boys and girls who attend the school…. The impact of the cultural changes…on children and youth sport, however, has been profound. (p. 211)

This is a key issue. I certainly agree that school physical education has be-come largely irrelevant to the lives of many secondary school students (Tinning & Fitzclarence, 1992), and yes, the influence of physical culture (Kirk, 1999)4 beyond the school gate is profound. Here is the significant challenge for physical education: Continue to teach traditional physical activities in traditional ways and the subject will be lost; make connections to the lives of postmodern youth and the significant “players” of physical culture and we might just see relevance and meaning become a central feature of the subject.

A Way Forward?

Foucault (1983) claimed that knowledge makes us its subjects in that it is through knowledge that we come to make sense of the world. Rossi and Cassidy (1999) provide an interesting account of the connection between teachers’ knowl-edge and their self-identity. They argue that the discourses in which one locates oneself are “inextricably linked with a teacher’s identity” (p. 198). They claim that the ways teachers dress, their body shape, their approach to teaching, their expectations of children, these are all connected in ways that cannot be separated from their knowledge in physical education. This is an important understanding for it reveals that subject matter content knowledge is but one part of a complex association of various knowledges that recursively form a teacher’s identity.

This recursive nature of knowledge and teacher identity is important to rec-ognize in considering the possibilities for change in the profession. Siedentop ad-vocates curriculum innovation and experimentation and suggests that “Developing, supporting, and sustaining curricular experiments in schools is the only way we can ensure the future of school-based physical education” (1994a, p. 14). He calls for “physical educators who see their roles in the broader perspective as providers and enhancers of physical activity learning opportunities” (pp. 12-13). However, this conception of their role might conflict with the knowledge they possess about physical education, their discursive histories, and their identity as teachers. Such


conflict might impact upon their sense of ontological security (Giddens, 1991) and, accordingly, they might resist, undermine, or simply ignore attempts at experiment or innovation.

Siedentop (1994a) argues that “School physical education programs need to be reconceptualized as activity enhancing environments” (p. 13, emphasis in original). Also,

While we continue to fight for more curricular space, we must also look anew at non-attached school time and linkages with homes and community programs so that a major focus of school-based physical education is to help children and youth become and stay involved in physical activity programs, both in non-attached school time and out-of-school discretionary time in the community, in the neighborhoods, at home, and with their parents. (Sieden-top, 1995, p. 18)

According to Siedentop (1995), if we look for the characteristics of suc-cessful activity programs for children and youths, we can find answers across a range of literature that includes early childhood education, youth services, exercise adherence, and worksite fitness. Among the commonalities are the following:

• Access is fundamental to program success. Activity programs and facilities must be accessible, safe, and attractive.

• Membership of an inclusive, persisting group. The continuing presence of competent, caring adult leadership is an ingredient in the persisting group.

• The provision of challenging activities that offer active participation which results in real accomplishments, as defined by the participants themselves as well as by significant others in their lives.

So what does all this tell us about the sorts of knowledge that should be in-cluded in our PETE programs? What sort of knowledge and skills will the teachers need who see their mission as producing activity-enhancing environments to facili-tate the development of physically educated citizens in the Siedentopian concept of the term? In addition to subject matter content knowledge, which includes a degree of movement competence across a range of activities, they will need:

• To be adaptable and live with uncertainty; • An interest in the meaning of activity to young people; • Skills in working with people across institutional boundaries; • To be competent leaders; • To know how to engage children and youth in critical ways with the subject

matter.

Certainly many and perhaps most of these skills and knowledges are not high on the agenda of pre-professional studies in kinesiology. I agree with Siedentop that we need a different pre-professional knowledge base for teachers of physical education. This is not to say, however, that all kinesiology courses are irrelevant or inappropriate. While more physical activity subject matter knowledge is definitely needed in some programs, in and of itself it will not be sufficient to help prospective teachers cope with the demands of teaching today’s youth the activities they consider as meaningful in their lives. Of course Siedentop did not claim that more physical


activity subject matter knowledge was all that is needed. However, his “Content Knowledge for Physical Education” does give little attention to the other necessary content knowledge dimensions. You can’t cover everything in 15 pages!

In terms of improving physical education I would suggest that, in addition to making some changes to the content of PETE programs, we might also consider the issue of whom we select into our programs in the first place. We know that there are certain reproducing tendencies at work in the typical recruitment process into PETE, and that the dominant purpose seen by recruits for physical education is learning physical skills and playing sports and games (Placek, Dodds, Doolittle, et al., 1995). Perhaps we would do well to recruit potential physical educators from a wider range of movement and other life experiences. If we take seriously the no-tion that knowledge and identity are recursively connected, then we must consider the significance of all the knowledges the prospective teacher brings to her/his professional practice. In this context, improved subject matter content knowledge of practical physical activity remains a necessary but insufficient ingredient in the improvement of school physical education.

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Notes1 I recognize there is a danger in dichotomizing practice and theory, but the dis-

tinction, while less than tenable in philosophy, has meaning for physical education and lay populations alike.

2 Siedentop is a little unclear in the way he uses the term sport—at times as a generic for physical activity, at other times referring more specifically to organized competitive sports. I prefer to use the term physical activity at all times unless specifically referring to sport.

3 It is worth noting that in some curricula for the senior school, performance in physical activities is part of the formal academic assessment (see for example Macdonald & Brooker’s 1997 account of the Senior Physical Education Syllabus in the Australian state of Queensland).

4 Kirk (1999) uses this term to refer to a range of discursive practices concerned with the maintenance, representation, and regulation of the body and includes the institutionalized forms of physical activity including sport, physical recreation, and exercise.

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