Josh Toon Teaching Philosophy My philosophy of physical education is that a physical education experience should serve as a transformation for

students. Physical education should transform students into healthy, active, and skilled men or women. A physical educator should do so by exposing his or her students to a plethora of activity and aim to develop self-efficacy in each of these activities. Additionally a physical educator should have the goal of providing students with at least one lifelong activity that they truly enjoy and can be skilled at. The curriculum should include activities similar to ones offered by local community centers. Self-efficacy is a concept suggested by famed psychologist Albert Bandura and lies at the center of his social cognitive theory. According to Bandura, self-efficacy is the belief in ones capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. In common terms, self-efficacy could be defined as selfconfidence in a given situation. Additionally, Bandura would say that one develops selfefficacy through observational learning, social experience, and reciprocal determinism, all of which should be stressed in a physical education lesson. Physical educators should aim to develop self-efficacy in a variety of activities. Ideally, these activities would be ones offered by local organizations so that the students may be active for a lifetime and truly enjoy their physical experiences. For example, if a local YMCA offers summer flag-football leagues, a physical educator should be sure to include flag football in his or her curriculum. If one must travel a great distance to participate in a swim league, perhaps time allotted for swimming should be lessened in the curriculum. Additionally, a physical educator should not aim to stifle a students interest in any activity and should not share poor opinions of an activity.

A physical educator should aim to include all students in his or her class and make each student truly feel welcome. Research has proven that students must feel like they are embraced in a class before a memorable learning experience can occur. Each physical educator has his or her own personal way of including each student in his or her class, however my personal strategy is by taking an interest in each student as a person. This is a daily task in which I attempt to make a connection of interests with each student, so the student feels that I wholeheartedly care about him or her. Ultimately, a physical educator should aim to make students physically active through the utilization of recreational activities. This is done through the development of self-efficacy in each of these activities. Effective physical educators do this by including every student in his or her class and by giving individualized feedback in an effort to improve performance. Effective teachers will find out if they were successful not by average grades of the class but by level of physical activity 5, 10, or 15+ years after graduation.