Life skills cannot be the next shield for PE.

In attempting to move away from the id² of PE-as-sports-techniques which is the molecularisation of teaching and learning it has been unintentionally replaced by an id² of PE-as-employment-skills which is the abstractification of life skills linked to performing well academically and in the workplace. Neither in my mind are truly personally relevant to children, do not provide the time and depth required for learning to occur or lead to developing a positive relationship with movement.
- https://drowningintheshallow.wordpress.com/2023/06/11/more-of-the-same/

As always, this blogger's post sparked interesting thoughts regarding issues in PE. I used to just read and awe it but this time, I decided to add my thoughts here.

This blog post argues the new approach is not a new approach, pointing out focus changes in PE like More of the same. He started with the famous book by Kirk (2010), Physical education futures, which suggested three routes: the darkest (demise as of a school subject), the most likely but more of the same, and the radical change. The main point of this book is to criticize the dominant PE practices which are the most likely to practice, what he calls 'PE-as-sports-techniques.' Letting alone Kirk's book, multi-activity approaches for sport skill development have been under attack for a long time by almost all PE practitioners and researchers. Just as the number of researchers, the following approaches to overcoming the issues varied. One of the major approaches was to focus on teaching generic life skills (or common competencies) in PE. This blog post doesn't agree with the idea as well, arguing that the focus on generic life skills could be more of the same as 'PE-as-sports-techniques', even calling this approach 'PE-as-employment-skills.' He mentioned this approach is also not personally relevant to students and has a deficit to lead to developing a positive relationship with movement. The post unfortunately only provides a hint of his approach though, I believe it is worthwhile to think about competency-based approach back in South Korea.

I concur with his idea that focusing on life skills and common competencies should not be the main goal of PE. South Korea where I came from and have my major teaching background revised a national curriculum in 2015 placing life skills (or core competencies) centered on goals of all subjects. I as a teacher had no problem with sympathizing because of my precious and effective experiences with regard to learning important life skills from participating in sports activities. My class started to mention and discuss what students can learn by doing physical activities. Sometimes, a growth mindset was focused or conflict resolution was also dealt with. As time goes by, I began to ponder my teachings if I have been going on the right track. There were some questions that cannot be answered easily as follows. 1) Competencies and life skills are extrinsic goals that every educational aspect wants to achieve. Since those life skills were the center of the national curriculum, students heard those things many times from many other activities, which made students feel redundant or less meaningful. As a result, the time or deviated energy to talk about competencies or life skills hampered focusing to learn movement in and of itself. 2) Life skills and competencies were not entities that can be easily assessed or evaluated because of their context-specific nature. Even though a student was good at an activity, that doesn't explain the student will present effective skills in other themes and settings. The context that students face, such as team members, prior knowledge, or supportive environment, can influence their performance. Students' competencies are not only easily transferrable but also conclusive results of specific learning. 3) Skills and competencies are everywhere and whatever. It only depends on a teacher's perception, which can be taught in different ways that other people don't expect. There is no clear attainable goal for teaching and learning life skills and competencies, which makes both students and teachers confused.
(FYI 1, this is another well-written Korean blog that criticizes a competency-based curriculum in Korea. https://21erick.org/column/5524/?ckattempt=1)

(FYI 2, this is written by an English PE teacher and a blogger in order to question and criticize around assumptions underpinning teaching transferable life skills. https://blog.mimoveapp.com/en/milearning/the-questionable-rise-of-pe-as-life-coaching)

So then, what should be the next approach for the bright future of PE? My doctoral life should be a way to find my own approach by studying different approaches. Just as the post put revealing its approach behind, I do that as well while hoping I can suggest in the near future.