Physical Literacy

British Philosophy of Sport Association

Physical Literacy - A Developing Concept

Margaret Whitehead PhD

De Montfort University Bedford, England

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Abstract

The intention of this paper is to stand back from current physical education practice and take a broad philosophical view of the fundamental goals of all aspects of movement education. The concept of Physical Literacy as currently defined is presented and compared with the notion of being 'physically educated'. The concept of Physical Literacy is justified from an existential and phenomenological viewpoint.

The paper then addresses four questions raised in previous papers on the concept of Physical Literacy. These are:-

1. Is Physical Literacy a universal concept?

2. How can the concept relate to the physically challenged and those with other disabilities?

3. How far should a physically literate individual be able to verbalise/articulate the components of this attribute?

4. Has an understanding of personal health promotion a place in the concept of Physical Literacy?

Finally the implications of the notion of Physical Literacy for the nature of work in physical education throughout schooling are considered.

Introduction

I am a physical educationist.

I am convinced that attention to, and development of, our embodied dimension is profoundly important to us as human beings.

I have long advocated that the perception of physical activity as merely a recuperative pastime, seriously undermines the potential of this practice. In 1988 I wrote an article entitled ‘The Danger of Fun’, which cautioned the profession not to play up the goal of providing FUN as an important constituent in the justification of the subject. In this short article I encouraged the profession to look far deeper than this to argue for a place in the curriculum.

As a life long advocate of physical education, and someone who has, and still is, involved in a range of physical activity, it has always seemed to me that there was more to being physically active than just having fun. I have found my involvement in physical activity profoundly fulfilling and rewarding - although I have never reached the dizzy heights of international sport.

My own experience led me to study our nature as embodied human beings and I was directed to the work of some philosophers who articulate a particular stance towards the nature of our human condition.

These philosophers, existentialists and phenomenologists, hold two very important views, as far as I am concerned. Firstly they reject Cartesian dualism and secondly they are committed to the pivotal role played by our embodiment in life as we know it. For them we do not have a body, rather we are embodied.

Their views are very different to educationalists in the UK who generally hold a Cartesian, dualist view of being, which casts the body as a mere mechanism, essential to 'housing' our intellect but of little value in itself. The outcome of this view is a very low priority for work in the physical domain in education. Any respect shown for this work sees it primarily as a means to an end of achieving and retaining physical fitness.

Not only do these philosophers contest Cartesian dualism, in their different ways they argue cogently in advocating the indispensable contribution made by our embodiment in, for example, self-realisation, perception, concept development, language formulation, rationality, emotion and the development of interpersonal relationships.

However none of these philosophers addresses the implications of these views in respect to how we might so nurture our embodied dimension to further enrich the human attributes mentioned above. This is in no way part of their agenda. However they provided me with the ground from which to develop my position regarding the importance of giving appropriate attention to our embodied dimension in education.

I reasoned:-

firstly – that these views provide unequivocal support for the recognition of the value of our embodied dimension in fully realising our human potential

secondly - that an appreciation of the axial role of our embodiment, should be able to inform how this dimension should be nurtured.

thirdly - that as a common human attribute this nurturing should be effected in respect of all humans

fourthly - that it should be possible to draw up a description of the motile capacities of our embodied dimension, attainable by all, that would ensure that we take full advantage of this human capacity

This last has been my goal – to draw up a description of motile capacities. I have used the concept Physical Literacy to encompass these capacities.

Today I want to share with you:-

some of the key philosophical views that have informed my work

a provisional definition of Physical Literacy

first thoughts on the implications of this for practice in schools

Philosophical background

Views that have supported my thinking can be divided into a number of sections.

These are those that support

a monist view of the human condition

the centrality of our embodiment in existence

our nature as essentially beings-in-the world

I will share with you a sample of these, more are in the full paper and the References provide my principal sources.

With respect to the monist or holistic view of the human condition:-

Strawson (quoted in Gill 2000 p18) argues that the concept of a person is logically primitive and is not derived from mind and body. Gill (p45) himself says that 'We do not, properly speaking, have bodies; we are, in truth, embodied creatures.' Looking at the nature of our monist existence Sartre (1957 p476) says 'for human reality, to be is to act', and Burkitt says (1999 p74) '...prior to the Cartesian 'I think', there is an 'I can...' Lakoff and Johnson (1999 p3) assert that 'The mind is inherently embodied.'

With respect to these philosophers' views on the role of our embodied dimension as playing an essential part in many aspects of existence:-

Merleau Ponty (1962) expresses the view that the perceiving mind is the incarnate mind. He also goes on to argue that in relation to bodily intentionality there is an intimate relationship between perception and movement. They are not separate from each other but function together.

Lakoff and Johnson (1999 p4) hold the view that 'Reason is not disembodied...but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies, and bodily experience.' Importantly they also argue (p495) that concepts '...are not part of a disembodied innate faculty of pure mind.' but are embodied and 'get their meaning through....embodied experience.' Developing this view Johnson (1987 p74) asserts that 'It is crucially important to see that balancing is an activity we learn with our bodies and not by grasping a set of rules or concepts.' It is thought provoking to read Lakoff and Johnson (1999) where they demonstrate the embodied basis of very many of our commonly used concepts.

Gill (2000 p100) supports this in his view that 'Only against the backdrop of embodied experience does propositional knowledge become comprehensible and useful', while Burkitt (1999 p 85) writes 'Thus, the basis of meaning is not to be located in the rules that order cognition, nor in the grammatical structure of linguistic sentences, but in the bodily pattern and order of active perceptions.'

As well as our embodied dimension being critical in respect of perception, reason, the development of concepts and the grasp of propositional knowledge, Burkitt (1999) discusses the role of our embodied nature in emotion. He puts forward the position that embodied involvement in the experience of emotion is not the outcome of a mental state but is an integral part of the emotion itself.

While the attention of these philosophers is often on the totality of embodiment, that is all the senses and all ways we can express ourselves i.e. in language, movement and through art forms, there is no doubt that our motile capacities are absolutely crucial to the contribution made to existence by our embodied nature. Movement is not downplayed or relegated to significance only in the early childhood years.(1) In fact in interrogating their positions these philosophers repeatedly find themselves going back to our embodied motile capacities as they ask the questions 'how' and 'why' in relation to the nature of existence.

Gill (2000 p130) writes 'Embodiment is, after all, the axis or fulcrum of all tacit knowing, which in turn is the matrix of all explicit knowing.' and goes on to show how Polanyi was careful not to refer to involvement of our embodied dimension as a foundation but as the ongoing axis of thought and knowing.

There is no doubt of the huge role that the intellect plays in the way we live our lives, and no one can argue with this, but what is so striking for me is the way that, repeatedly, philosophers refer back to our embodiment as the seat of the intellect. Burkitt has a Chapter entitled 'The Thinking Body'. Here (1999 p12) he explains that

'...what we call 'mind' only exists because we have bodies that give us the potential to be active and animate within the world, exploring, touching, seeing, hearing, wondering, explaining; and we can only become persons and selves because we are located bodily at a particular place in space and time, in relation to other people and things around us.'

On a similar point Burkitt (1999 p 74) includes reference to Hammond et al in explaining that 'Action is therefore the key to understanding human being, for objects are not located in a transcendental spatial framework, but instead are varyingly situated in relation to the agent's specific field of action.'

Clark (p153) picks up this point about the interplay between our embodied being and the world we inhabit in writing ‘…the child’s behaviour patterns are seen not as under the control of a fixed inner resource but rather as emergent out of "a continual dialogue" involving neural, bodily, and environmental factors.'

With respect to our nature as Beings-in-the-world

Our relationship with the environment is critical to the debate as it is as a result of this interaction that the philosophers I have quoted, particularly Existentialists and Phenomenologists, argue that we create ourselves. For these philosophers we are essentially 'beings-in-the-world' We create ourselves from our interaction with the world. The richer this interaction the more fully we will realise our human potential.

It follows that, the nurturing of all the avenues through which we can interact with the world, will provide the ground for our development. As our embodiment and motility are key avenues for interaction, fostering this dimension of our personhood will contribute to the depth and breadth of our life experience.

A number of philosophers express the notion of our nature as beings-in-the-world succinctly. For example Burkitt writes (1999 p74) '...prior to thought and representation, then, there is a primordial coexistence between the body and its world, which grounds the possibility of developing conscious awareness and knowledge.', while Lakoff and Johnson (1999 p 566) express the view that ' The environment is not an "other" to us. It is not a collection of things that we encounter. Rather, it is part of

our being. It is the locus of our existence and identity. We cannot and do not exist apart from it.'

In support of this position Gill (2000 p97) writes that 'Our body is the entry point into the world, the medium through and in which our reality is constituted. This symbiosis between our bodies and social and physical reality not only overcomes the traditional dichotomy between the knower and the known, but simply does not allow it to arise.'

Similarly Johnson (1987 p207) expresses the view that -'It is a mistake, however, to think of an organism and its environment as two entirely independent and unrelated entities; the organism does not exist as an organism apart from its environment. The environment as a whole is as much a part of the identity of the organism as anything "internal" to the organism.' He goes onto quote Levins and Lewontin who write '... the environment and the organism actively codetermine each other.'

Clark (1997 p98) takes a wide view of existence in the world and alludes to evolution in writing 'Adaptive success finally accrues not to brains but to brain-body coalitions embedded in ecologically realistic environments.'

There are also a number of philosophers who put forward the idea that in interacting with the world it is not always our embodiment that leads the liaison, the world itself can initiate action . With respect to this view Clark (1997 p224) says 'The combination of embodiment and embedding provides for persistent informational and physical couplings between John and his world – couplings that leave much of John’s "knowledge" out in the world and available for retrieval, transformation, and use as and when required.'

The information 'held' by the world is called an affordance by Gibson (quoted in Weiss and Haber 1999 p129) Here it is explained that 'Affordances may be defined...as opportunities for action in the environment of an organism.' and 'that things in our experience are not just neutral lumps to which we cognitively attach meaning. The things we experience "tell us what to do with them."' Johnson (1987 p204) expresses the same idea by saying that '"Things" outside us talk back to us,...'.

Wider (1997 p131) quotes Sartre's view that 'Thus the world from the moment of the upsurge of my For-itself is revealed as the indication of acts to be performed'. while Merleau-Ponty refers to our intimate attachment to the world as the 'intentional arc'.

Weiss and Haber (1999 p111) refer to our being in a state of equilibrium with the world and write 'One's body is simply solicited by the situation to get into equilibrium with it.' and Gill (2000 p52) explains Polanyi's position with respect to tacit knowledge and writes 'tacit knowing is accomplished through what Polanyi calls

"indwelling", the process of immersing oneself in the particulars of subsidiary awareness by means of embodied activity until these particulars come together as a meaningful whole in an "integrative act." '

With respect to interaction with the world, views are also expressed concerning the way that the more we interact with the world and come to know it, the more we know

of ourselves. Burkitt (1999 p 76) writes 'The original sense of 'I' is the 'I can', a practical sense of the body's active possibilities, and therefore the sense of identity possessed by humans is not based on disembodied thought, nor in early visual representation of the self. Instead, the sense of self we develop is primarily based on the feel we have of our body and the way it connects us to the world.'

This follows from the view that we create ourselves from the interaction with our surroundings. From the standpoint of the physical dimension it is surely true that the richer the range of environments with which we interact the better we will 'know' ourselves as embodied. Allied to this is the self confidence that results from self realisation particularly where success is experienced.

Concept of Physical Literacy

From these readings it became clear that there was considerable support for the notion of our embodied dimension playing a vital role in human life. The dimension is not seen purely as a passive vehicle for ‘housing’ our intellect but as an active player in existence.

I have tried to describe the characteristics of our embodied dimension that would enable each individual to enhance their quality of life via this contact they have with the world. To this end I used the concept of Physical Literacy, a choice I could expand on in detail (2) and drew up a provisional definition (Whitehead 2001):-

An individual who is physically literate moves with poise, economy and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations.(3) Furthermore the individual is perceptive in ‘reading’ all aspects of the physical environment, anticipating movement needs or possibilities and responding appropriately to these, with intelligence and imagination.

Following from this early definition, its publication and the ensuing debate I formulated a number of questions that would seem to need answers. (See Whitehead 2001b) Further study of these questions has resulted in the development of the concept.

Today I will share with you the background to developments in relation to the following questions:-

Is physical literacy a universal concept?

How can the concept relate to the physically challenged and those with other disabilities?

How far should a physically literate individual be able to verbalise/articulate the components of this attribute?

Has an understanding of personal health promotion a place in the concept of physical literacy?

Questions 1 and 2 both come under the head of Universality while Questions 3 and 4 can be looked at together under the heading of the Role of Propositional Knowledge.

Universality

Is physical literacy a universal concept? That is, does it refer to every human, and would the manifestation of physical literacy be the same in whatever period of history or place in the world in which the person lived.

Reading the work of those holding broadly Existential and Phenomenological views, citing the centrality of our embodied nature to human perception, reason , knowledge and emotion, the answer would have to be, that, as humans, we all experience the world from an embodied perspective and that physical literacy would attract one definition. The concept would need to be applicable to all human beings no matter when or where they lived.

However further reading of Burkitt (1999) who comes to the issue from a sociological position, indicates that while he would agree that embodiment and therefore possibly physical literacy, plays a key role in the life of all humans, he argues that the specific role of the embodiment differs markedly depending on the culture within which we live. For example he would put forward the case that C21st physical literacy in England would include the ability firstly to interact with the wide range of artifacts such as cars and computers, which we have created, and secondly to operate effectively in the context of established social practices, including the particular form of inter-personal relationships that are seen to be acceptable in our culture. Burkitt writes (1999 p 25) 'However, as far as human beings are concerned, it is not just the interaction between organism and environment that defines our being, for these 'movements' of life are also interrelated with, and affected by, our history as social and cultural groups.' His book, Bodies of Thought,(1999) is well worth reading and includes some thought provoking sections on attitudes to the body through history.

It would seem that my provisional definition of physical literacy would need to include reference both to common characteristics and to specific culturally grounded characteristics of the concept.

The issue of the physically challenged opens up the whole area of how far the capacity to be physically literate will be characterised not only by being human and by living in a particular culture but by a person's unique motile potential. It could be argued that each person has a different motile potential and in our discussion we should widen the debate to embrace all of us, from the physically challenged to the able bodied, each with our own unique embodiment.

To be fully human we are all reliant on the motile capacities with which we are endowed. However to accept that we are all motile is not the issue here - what I am looking for is an ability to capitalise on our embodied state or motility to reap the rich rewards available from this form of interaction with the world.(2) The ability to use our motility to the greatest effect is what I have called physical literacy.

Perhaps we are approaching the answer here in relation to people's very different physical endowments.

If physical literacy is the ability to use our motility to the greatest effect and we accept that everyone's motile potential will be specific to him/herself, then physical literacy itself will differ in nature for each individual.

What is at issue here is to capitalise to the full on our motile potential - be we young, old, able bodied or physically challenged. All can achieve physical literacy but the scope of this will differ for each individual. I would argue that there is much to be gained from nurturing this capacity to the full - as indicated above, by the way our embodiment enriches many facets of life.

I would contend that our physical literacy is markedly under-developed in western culture and, in this situation, life is less fulfilled and our knowledge of the world the poorer.

So the answer to the first two questions is:- that physical literacy is universal in as far as we are all similarly embodied and rely on this dimension of ourself for realising a range of human capacities. However the scope of any individual's physical literacy will be influenced by the culture within which s/he lives and the motile capacities with which the individual is endowed. This answers the second question in that the physically challenged can achieve physical literacy in capitalising to the full on whatever range of capacities they have.

In the light of these considerations I added this paragraph to the working definition:-

Physical literacy could therefore be described as the ability to capitalise on motile potential. As humans we all exhibit this potential, however its specific expression will be particular to the culture in which we live and the motile capacities with which we are endowed.

The Role of Propositional Knowledge in Physical Literacy.

Questions 3 and 4:- 'How far should a physically literate individual be able to verbalise/articulate the components of this attribute?' and 'Has an understanding of personal health promotion a place in the concept of Physical Literacy?' beg the question about how far articulated, propositional knowledge related to motility and our embodied nature is part of physical literacy.

In some senses I might be tempted to follow the ideas of Polanyi and others who talk a great deal about tacit knowledge, pre-reflective awareness and preconscious motor response of the knowing body. For example Neitzsche (1969 p69) writes, 'Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, stands a mighty commander, an unknown sage – he is called self. He lives in your body, he is your body.' and Polanyi referred to in Gill (2000 p 54) argues 'that because tacit knowledge is the anchor or tether for explicit knowing, it necessarily follows that we always know more than we can tell.' The corollary of these views is that motile capacities are pre-conscious and non-conceptual and therefore in order to capitalise on our embodied potential we need to do more than just 'do'. Propositional knowledge would not form part of a concept of physical literacy.

There is an intriguing anecdote referred to by Csordas (in Weiss and Haber 1999 p 143) which refers to a discussion between a western anthropologist and a philosopher

from New Caledonia, in which the latter indicated that before their primitive tribe had contact with the west, his people had not formed a concept of the body-object, living life in a totally holistic mode. In fact they did not have a word for the body as a separate entity. On enquiring what western thought had brought to his people the philosopher replied 'What you've brought us is the body.'

This is a fascinating example and one that could be seen to support the notion that while physical literacy is, at root, universal in respect of both time and place, its specific manifestation will depend on the parent culture. An individual living in a culture that had not developed language to identify the body as a separate entity could well achieve physical literacy without articulating any aspect of this capacity.

Burkitt(1999 p46/47) devotes considerable space to the way that events in medieval times altered attitudes to the body. He discusses the work of Foucault and Elias and explores how the body was seen as 'a universal, lived phenomenon, represented in everyone. The material body of the individual (was) part of the collective, ancestral body of the people.' This changed in medieval times when, he explains, (57) '...the constitutive subject becomes more central and is seen to be distinct from the body as spirit or essence, the body itself comes to be understood as matter and as a mechanism, or as Descartes put it, an automaton.'

It is of interest that it was Sartre (1957) who first engaged in serious debate as to different ways in which we can view our embodiment. He asserted that to understand existence we have to appreciate that there are three ways in which we can conceptualise our embodiment. For Sartre we have a body-for self, a body-for-others and a body-for-others-as-perceived-by-the-self. The body-for-self is the mode of our embodiment that enables us to interact with the world on a pre-reflective level and is the fundamental axis of much of our cognitive capacities, not least the development of concepts. The body-for-others is how we are seen by observers and the final perspective is our awareness of how others view our embodiment. This last perspective on our embodiment is the realisation of our being able to take 'an outsiders' view' on this aspect of ourselves. This perspective also plays a major role in the creation of self confidence and self-esteem and has taken on somewhat disproportionate importance in cultures where role models are everywhere to be seen in the media.

There has been considerable debate about the relationship between the body-for-self and the body-for-others-as-perceived-by-the self which is of considerable interest to those in the movement/physical education world. In his writing Sartre indicates both that there is absolutely no relationship between the body-for-self or lived body and the body-as-object, and he also puts forward a strong case in respect of the notion that any reflection on our body-as-object will result in our alienation from this aspect of our being. Both these views will need detailed examination in the context of the work of the profession..

However to return to the issue of propositional knowledge and physical literacy, and taking Burkitt's advice that the nature of existence is inescapably related to the culture within we live, it has to be acknowledged that the body-as-object is an established part of contemporary discourse. We have moved a long way from this pre-medieval culture. We are acutely aware of our body-as-object and, in fact, this has made it hard for people to appreciate that there is more to the body than just a machine to be managed. We are undoubtedly locked into a culture in which articulated knowledge of the body is integral to existence. Knowledge and understanding has increased and reference to the body-as-object permeates much of our language.

Sadly, it is the fact that we can and do objectify our embodiment, and this has been the stumbling block for the appreciation of the multi-dimensional role of embodiment in existence. It is the case that this dualist approach and habitual reference to our embodiment only as an object, in the mode of the body-for-others-as perceived-by-the-self, has made acceptance of the approach I and others are taking, almost impossible. Whenever we talk about 'the body' we are in one breath objectifying, mechanising and devaluing this dimension of ourselves - hence my effort to use the word embodiment rather than body. Burkitt has both pessimistic and optimistic views of the situation. Pessimistically he writes (1999 p 146):-

It appears that modernity has created the division between mind and body, cognition and emotion, rationality and irrationality, and that we are forced to jump one way or the other at various times and places. The basic dualistic notion of the body as the seat of irrational, emotional and pre-social forces (as opposed to the orderly mind) also seems to be accepted.

While optimistically he says (1999p 145):- 'The body is becoming an issue because, in an increasingly fragmentary world, there is a growing desire for wholeness, for integration and for healing'. He continues 'the body becomes a point of focus because it is around the body, as it is located in relational networks, that individuals can integrate the various aspects of themselves into a whole person, and can demand to be treated as such'.

And so while I do not want to up-play the role of propositional knowledge in a concept of physical literacy, the articulation of this understanding of our body-as-object forms an integral part of contemporary attitudes to physical activity. There is

much debate about, for example, the amount of exercise we should take, the nature of the food we should eat and the types of medication we should use.

And so to ignore this aspect of embodied existence, notwithstanding my monist commitment, is out of the question in our culture. I think it is perhaps easier to answer question 4 than question 3. In relation to question 4, I would propose that to be physically literate in our culture, with its sophisticated knowledge of all aspects of health, would include an understanding of the principles of embodied health with respect to such basic aspects as exercise, sleep and nutrition. Question 3 is more difficult as it begins to confront the relationship between the body-for-self and the-body-for-others-as-perceived-by-the-self, as alluded to above. How far is it an essential component of physical literacy to be able to articulate embodied capacities? The NCPE (DfEE 1999) Strands:-

Selecting and applying skills, tactics and compositional ideas

Evaluating and improving performance

would indicate that it is important and valuable to stand back from one's engagement in an activity and reflect on the nature of one's performance. This seems to point to an effort to describe embodied experience in order to enhance or improve it. It is very much our role as teachers to be able to articulate all aspects of movement to guide our pupils. This is surely essential if we are to promote learning. It would follow from this that if we want our pupils to take responsibility for their own learning, both within our lessons and outside the educational setting, we would want them to be able to employ an approach similar to ours. This would enable them to identify why they are more or less successful and to take steps to improve their performance - at whatever level they are working.

To be physically literate therefore would need to include reference to a basic ability to appreciate the nature of ones embodied activity, an ability to identify aspects of movement that enable a particular end to be achieved and elements that need attention for the skill to be more effective. This might be expressed as an ability to identify the essential qualities that influence the effectiveness of his/her own movement performance. Relevant here is proprioception.

Following from this I added the following to the provisional definition:-

In addition the individual has the ability to identify the essential qualities that influence the effectiveness of his/her own movement performance and has an understanding of the principles of embodied health with respect to basic aspects such as exercise, sleep and nutrition.

Having looked briefly at the four questions the definition of physical literacy could be re-defined in the following way:-

An individual who is physically literate moves with poise, economy and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations. Furthermore the individual is perceptive in ‘reading’ all aspects of the physical environment, anticipating

movement needs or possibilities and responding appropriately to these, with intelligence and imagination.

Physical literacy can be described as the ability to capitalise on our motile potential to make a significant contribution to the quality of life. As humans we all exhibit this potential, however its specific expression will be particular to the culture in which we live and the motile capacities with which we are endowed.

Points relating to further work on the concept can be found in Note (4)

Implication for the practice of Physical Education

Following from reading a range of these philosophical works - which is enormously reassuring to someone who has spent their life advocating the value, in itself, of work in the physical domain and seemed to be getting little support from elsewhere than in the profession - there seemed to be a need to review the purpose of what is currently called physical education.

The focus in education should be on developing a capacity, a potential in this area. This motile capacity would provide the launching ground for a life-long experience in which our embodied nature was able to make a significant contribution to the quality of life.

I have chosen to call the extent of our ability to capitalise on our embodied dimension Physical Literacy (or literacy of the human embodied dimension) and would argue that debating this concept will give us the opportunity to re-evaluate work in the physical domain in education. The goal in education would not be to produce physically educated young people but to ensure that every pupil left compulsory education having acquired literacy in respect of their embodied dimension.

I want to advocate a move from Physical Education or becoming physically educated to a goal of enabling all to achieve physical literacy.

Currently work in physical education lessons has the overarching goal to produce ‘physically educated’ young people. This would suggest that what is desired is a particular end state, often being the mastery of a prescribed set of skills. These skills are usually realised within a narrowly defined set of activities. The intent and reality of physical education therefore becomes to produce able gymnasts, games players, dancers and swimmers. In many cases teachers are teaching, for example, gymnastics or swimming, rather than teaching young people.

With the intent of physical education as the nurturing of physical literacy there would need to be a move away from a prescribed activity-centred performance model, to a person centred participation model. Experience within this aspect of the curriculum would be focused on becoming physically literate through a realisation of embodiment in its widest experiential sense.

The constituents of the definition of physical literacy should be addressed with the goal of all young people having the motivation to continue with physical activity – a motivation founded on the enhanced self confidence and self realisation they have experienced in physical activity settings in their childhood and youth.

Content will need to

A. enable all to realise motile aspects of physical literacy as indicated above

that would include coverage of, inter alia:-

i) body management itself with only gravity to contend with

ii) moving in different environments

iii) moving in relation to fixed obstacles, manipulating objects during movement, moving in response to moving objects

iii) moving in relation to others

B. include work that helps pupils to understand the nature of movement and its contribution to health

C. be broad to cater for all and be relevant to opportunities for physical activity throughout life

While the content and the organisation of the content are of key importance nothing will be gained, Physical Literacy will not be developed unless the teaching methods used and the approach adopted by the teacher, are sensitive to the needs of the embodied pupils with whom they are working.

I would argue that while the capacity to find physical activity profoundly rewarding is common to all, attention directed to this dimension of an individual has the potential to be experienced as embarrassing and humiliating.

Methods will need to:-

be inclusive/individualised
be clearly planned/focused
offer opportunities for all to experience success/satisfaction/pleasure/enjoyment

The teacher will need to be:-

sensitive, appreciative and encouraging. He/she must be patient, caring and empathetic, but at the same time challenging, demanding and set high standards.

Overall work in the physical area must be carried out in lessons where enjoyment comes from success and from the actual experience of mastery, maybe at a modest level. The sheer joy of successfully managing one's embodied dimension is hugely rewarding. It is an experience open to all. Progress and achievement are available to all, at every level. The development of self-confidence and self-respect are palpable in such lessons. These sessions do not encourage truancy but promote participation.

We have set up a Physical Literacy website and we plan to keep those interested up to date with our thinking in the field of curricular recommendations.

To conclude.

Activity centred on our embodied dimension is a powerful holistic experience, taking us back to our roots.

Developing Physical Literacy is a crucial aspect of education, and some would advocate that there should be life-long opportunity for this element of education. The goal of movement work in school must be to develop the physical literacy of all young people.

We are as we are, because we are embodied, and to respect this human characteristic in all young people is a right for every pupil.

Margaret Whitehead

May 2005

Correspondence whitehead67@aol.com

Website www.physical-literacy.org.uk

Notes

1. Motor Development. Much has been written about the ways in which motor development underpins many aspects of young people's development (e.g. Maude 2001). Indeed there is accumulating evidence that this is the case. My reading in relation to physical literacy provides uniquivocal support for the key role that motor capacities play in realising human life as we know it. For example Johnson (in Weiss and Haber 1999 p93) writes

The point in all of this so far is that the infant makes sense of and reasons about her world via structures that emerge in her embodied experience, and these are neither propositional nor linguistic in their first appearance. These patterns of her corporeal logic are schematic, cross-modal, and blended with affect contours that depend on the nature of our bodies and brains. When the child begins to use language, these embodied modes of understanding do not simply cease to exist; on the contrary, they are what situate, make possible, and give meaning to what we call our higher-level propositional operations and linguistic performances. Without this embodied meaning, there would be no propositional contents or propositional attitudes.

Similarly Clark (1997 p 36) expresses the view that

Cognitive development, it is concluded, cannot be usefully treated in isolation from issues concerning the child’s physical embedding in, and interactions with, the world. A better image of child cognition (indeed of all cognition) depicts perception, action, and thought as bound together in a variety of complex and interpenetrating ways.

2. I have drawn comparisons before to Literacy understood as the ability to read and write. Briefly this form of Literacy opens the door to so much e.g. understanding, knowledge and aesthetic appreciation and activity. To be Literate in this sense makes a huge difference to the quality of our lives in the C21st. Similarly I would want to maintain that physical literacy is an attribute that has the potential to make a beneficial and significant difference to a person's ability to take advantage of the many opportunities life offers. These opportunities include both the contributions our embodiment makes to perception, reason, emotion and knowledge and to the rich rewards there are to be gained from realising our embodied potential per se.

The way in which the achievement of Physical Literacy can enhance the quality of life can be simply expressed through considering it alongside the aural ability. The basic level of human ability to interact physically with the environment can be compared to the basic ability to hear. Physically, most humans readily acquire the basic abilities to, for example, walk, sit, grasp and reach. In respect of hearing at a basic level an individual can simply pick up sounds and hear speech. However for those individuals fortunate to have good hearing, it is generally accepted that the fulfilment achieved in differentiating between a wide range of subtly different sounds is profound. This would include, for example recognition of many types of music and bird song. This experience would add hugely to the quality of a life, previously lived only using hearing to pick up the most mundane of sounds. In a sense individuals can manage without developing their physical capacities, as individuals can manage without refining their sense of hearing, but this denies the enormous potential all individuals have of realising aspects of human nature and appreciating facets of the world.

3.With respect to embodied capacities I began to tease out the initial concepts of poise, economy and confidence. I elaborated on these by citing further motile capacities such as balance, co-ordination, flexibility, agility, control, precision, strength, power, endurance and the ability to move at different speeds – that is explosively, right through to sustaining a movement over a long period of time. I might add to this list core stability, perceptual-motor acuity e.g. hand/foot-eye co-ordination and spatial awareness and also rhythm. These capacities would enable the individual to interact with a wide variety of environmental situations.

In discussing environmental situations I have considered two categories.

The first category of situations should surely be those that are given in the natural world. To engage fully with the world effective interaction should be achieved with such phenomena as gravity, gradient, fixed and moving objects and water. This would seem to involve for example, walking, running, jumping, climbing, swinging, turning and propelling oneself through water.

The second category might be located in man-made situations. These could demand the application of the first category engagements to specific features such as using a ladder or an escalator or driving a car.

This second category might also include engagement in those man made situations created simply to challenge and celebrate embodied capacities. These situations might demand specific types of running, jumping, propelling oneself through water as well as the manipulation of implements and missiles. A development of this second category, might be those man-made situations that involve interplay between individuals, together interacting with a specific aspect of the environment.

4. I am currently working on two further questions being:- what is the role of Physical Literacy in self expression including non-verbal communication and what is the role of Physical Literacy in the development of self awareness, self confidence and self esteem.

Answers to these questions will support the addition of ‘motivation’ in Section 1 of the working definition of Physical Literacy set out below and the inclusion of Section 3 below.

Physical literacy can be described as the ability and motivation to capitalise on our motile potential to make a significant contribution to the quality of life. As humans we all exhibit this potential, however its specific expression will be particular to the culture in which we live and the motile capacities with which we are endowed.

I want to argue that it is a universal concept, but I have to recognise the influence - both of the social practices which surround an individual, and the fact that everyone’s embodiment is different.

I would want to include here not just movement in a PE/Sport/Dance context, but also all movement involved in daily life.

The physically literate individual will interact with sensitivity and ease with others in group situations, appreciating the expressive quality of movement in her/himself and in others.

Again, I do not want to limit this to the PE/Sport/Dance context, but would want to encompass sensitive inter personal skills in everyday life. For example an awareness of the many aspects of non-verbal communication.

In addition the individual has the ability to identify and articulate the essential qualities that influence the effectiveness of his/her own movement performance, and has an understanding of the principles of embodied health, with respect to basic aspects such as exercise, sleep and nutrition.

Physical literacy, I argue, must incorporate a rational, informed grasp of our human situation.

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