Abstract:
The 1993 New Zealand Curriculum Framework both reflects and heralds continuing changes in education. This process, driven by similar social and political motivations, echoes that experienced in both Britain and Australia in recent years. The influence of these curriculum reforms on physical education in New Zealand, accompanied by evolving conceptualisations of sport, leisure and health in society, have resulted in the need for ongoing critical redefinition of the content, nature and purposes of the subject.
Sport and physically vigorous recreation have traditionally been valued in New Zealand society as essential constructs of national identity, and this has defined and validated practices within school physical education. Politically driven curriculum reforms in New Zealand have resulted in the combining of physical education and health as one of the seven essential learning areas, and physical education is now posited as an important vehicle to primarily achieve important aims of health and wellbeing. Resulting changes in the content and focus of the curriculum, corresponding new assessment procedures and the construction of the new National Qualifications Framework, mean that physical education teachers are experiencing increasing levels of stress and dissatisfaction as a result of increased workload, and increasing confusion over the "true" nature and purposes of the subject. They feel threatened rather than empowered by the new reforms, and see themselves as having been marginalised rather than centralised in the reform process.
This paper: a) identifies pressures, conflicts and discourses which have shaped physical education practices in New Zealand, b) attempts a meaningful definition of physical education for New Zealand schools for the 21st. Century, identifying realistic purposes and practices, and c) suggests meaningful strategies for teachers development in New Zealand, foregrounding teachers as change agents to effectively implement physical education curriculum reforms in schools.
Sport and physically vigorous recreation have traditionally been valued in New Zealand society as essential constructs of national identity, and this has defined and validated practices within school physical education. Politically driven curriculum reforms in New Zealand have resulted in the combining of physical education and health as one of the seven essential learning areas, and physical education is now posited as an important vehicle to primarily achieve important aims of health and wellbeing. Resulting changes in the content and focus of the curriculum, corresponding new assessment procedures and the construction of the new National Qualifications Framework, mean that physical education teachers are experiencing increasing levels of stress and dissatisfaction as a result of increased workload, and increasing confusion over the "true" nature and purposes of the subject. They feel threatened rather than empowered by the new reforms, and see themselves as having been marginalised rather than centralised in the reform process.
This paper: a) identifies pressures, conflicts and discourses which have shaped physical education practices in New Zealand, b) attempts a meaningful definition of physical education for New Zealand schools for the 21st. Century, identifying realistic purposes and practices, and c) suggests meaningful strategies for teachers development in New Zealand, foregrounding teachers as change agents to effectively implement physical education curriculum reforms in schools.