This discussion is part of a research project that focuses on understanding ways of engaging girls in physical education. The data in the blog below has been drawn from girls’ tweets around either ‘Love PE’ or ‘Hate PE’. Ashley Casey, Vicky Goodyear and Joanne Hill (University of Bedfordshire) have created an anonymous girl to represent over 800 tweets that were gathered from posts made to Twitter. We ask you to help us to understand ways of engaging girls in physical education by responding to how you would engage our blogger (see the blog below this statement) in physical education. However, by posting to this blog you are consenting to your comments being used for research. In other words, the comments made will be analysed and presented in a book chapter, a conference presentation and a research paper, to inform the wider physical education community. Since the comments are already in the public domain, we aim to use your names, although we ask you not to identify your school, colleagues or the names of your students. If you would not like to have your name identified you can create an anonymous profile on PEPRN and still engage with the discussion. Alternatively, if you make a post and then decide that you would not like to be involved in the project, or if you would like to engage in the discussion but your post or name not to be used for research, then please contact Ashley Casey via: ashley.casey@beds.ac.uk, who will remove any information about yourself from the study. If you have any concerns about the project you can speak to Toni O’Donovan, who is independent contact from the research team and would be happy to help with your queries. Toni’s contact address is: toni.odonovan@beds.ac.uk .
 

Thanks for reading this - below we present our fictional blog (constructed from our analysis of over 1600 tweets)


PE doesn’t stand for physical education it stands for public embarrassment

After today I’ve decided to write a blog about the joke of a subject we have to take at school. I hate PE! I hate PE! I hate PE!

OMG, we had to run the bleachers for the whole lesson! One hour and Ms B still forgot to write my score down. Or chose not to. Just like she forgot to record my standing jump the other day. Gave me a big ZERO for participation. I do actually try sometimes so I can see my improvements, but she never notices. So now I have to do it again! WTH! Sally hates PE as well…perhaps we should form the “I hate PE club”, I know half the class would be members! Sally said that when she asked Mr S if she could play in goal he said that only the boys could do that…what a sexist! There’s no reason for that. He might see she’s really good if he gave her a chance. She plays at the weekend. I said that Sally should go to the principal about it but it would be just her word against his. It’s a joke.

Anyway, my legs are like jelly now after all that running but Ms B said that it hurt because I lack the energy to do well in PE and that I need to be careful not to get unfit…as if! She’s making me do another fitness test so that I have a score to record and she says it will be good for me. Pointless. I hate exercise so why would I want to do that again. AND I’ve got a great big bruise on my knee from tripping and all I got was a snide comment for being immature. I bet I tripped because of the uniform we have to wear for PE. What Muppet designed this crime against fashion? I’ve started wearing my own swag because of the shorts they expect us to buy. Bruises, horrible shorts, and I was properly sweating after my hour-long bleacher farce…you can imagine the state of me. I was sweating so much that my make up was running down my face and then we had to shower – what a public ordeal that is and just before the school photo. Mum said she wanted to buy one this year but that will be going missing well before I get home so no one else can ever see it.

It might be better if we didn’t have to do team games nearly every lesson. In fact that should be team game, singular, because we seem to do basketball every single lesson. That and swimming, that has to be the worst. Oh, and running. Will my legs ever recover?  On that note, I must confess that I used to like Carly until today. How can she be so good at PE? It’s not nice to be good, people make comments. She tried to do badly last year but Ms B just hassled her until she did her best. She says she can’t win. Still, she’s better than Irina. Her Dad spoke to the counsellor and now she doesn’t have to do PE anymore. FML! How unfair is that…lucky cow. She says she’s really upset about it but I don’t understand that. Extra English lessons instead of PE! Anyway…no PE for me until lesson five next Friday…perhaps I could get a migraine then…still…after the one I got the week before last I am not sure that pain is better than PE. Not sure though.

It’s not that I don’t know that I’m supposed to do exercise, but I already ride my bike to school. Carrying my heavy PE bag around with me, wobbling everywhere – it’s really embarrassing. Before we got out onto the bleachers Asha was screaming in the changing room “I’m going to kill someone! Then they can’t make me do PE because I’ll be banged up!” So funny. But maybe I agree with her. Could I get out of it like that? Seriously, why does it have to hurt so much? I think Ms B likes it to hurt. Still, it would be bearable if I didn’t have to do it with Carly…or Ms B. Wish we had that relief teacher because then you get the easiest lessons ever. I think I might skip off school every Friday. Then I don’t have to do PE.

 

Now you have read the blog we ask that you help us to develop a pracitioner's response to the concerns expressd by in our imaginary girl's blog. How would you respond to her concerns if you were her teacher or indeed how might you change your own practice (or those of a colleague) if you read this blog. What are the difficulties that she expresses and how might we manage them as a profession and how might we help other teachers (old and new) to enagage with these concerns. Please respond below and/or via twitter using the hashtag #PEPRN (or use the promts provided).