Character Building

What:The principal of the local middle school has hired me to create an after school program to give students something to do from when school gets out, to when their parents get home from work. The need for such a program is because of the growing number of after school fights and juvenile delinquency. The principal has informed me that this program is to be a physical activity that helps build character. The principal wants to see more positive sporting behavior and less in-school fighting.

How:Since the principal wants me to create a program that utilizes physical activity as its base, and one that helps build character, I have chosen to use team sports as the program’s primary focus. Aggression can be something very difficult to deal with but something that needs to be controlled at an early age. By targeting aggression in middle school, we can hopefully teach them how to handle situations in a positive way before entering high school where things become even more complicated.
Since I have chosen a team sport to help build character, I have a few main choices to choose from: football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, soccer and hockey. I ruled out football and hockey due to their aggressive nature and I have ruled out baseball because although its technically a team sport, I view baseball as a series of individual plays by individuals that collectively create a team sport. So that leaves basketball, volleyball and soccer. Since I have a much deeper background in basketball I have chosen to use that as my primary focus. Basketball utilizes teamwork, communication, critical thinking and leadership skills, all of which contribute to a person’s character. Using basketball as the programs focus will also provide the students with the necessary physical activity to maintain a healthy body weight.
One of the main theories associated with aggression and this particular case would be the social learning theory. Albert Bandura is one of the main proponents of this theory and believes that aggression is a learned behavior. (Bandura, 1973) I tend to agree with that and that is why we must closely monitor our entire program to make sure that noone is getting too upset and angry. If we can sustain a controlled environment where everyone is having fun, rather than being aggressive, the program should ultimately discourage aggressive behavior and hopefully show people that issues can be resolved with words, not physical altercations.

Conclusion:In conclusion I believe that aggression is a learned behavior, but one that can be controlled and even reversed. If my program is successful, I see a dramatic decrease in after-school fights and general juvenile delinquency. My program will promote healthy alternatives to fighting and show students that solid moral character will get them much farther in life than fighting.

Bibliography



Gill, D., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychology dynamics of sport and exercise. Pg. 267-290.Champaign,    IL:Human Kinetics.Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Multicultural Competence

What:

I am a physical education teacher at the local public school and I am looking to promote the health and well being of young students.  To do that I must be culturally competent and have a program that is inclusive and empowering.  In this case study I will look at various ways to make my agency more culturally competent and create an atmosphere of inclusion and empowerment.

How:

To develop my own multicultural competencies I would first have to understand what multicultural competencies are.  According to Mio, Barker-Hacket and Tumambing, multicultural psychology is the “systematic study of behavior, cognition and affect in many cultures.”  (Mio, Barker-Hacket & Tumambing, 2006, pg.3).  But culture is a difficult thing to assess sometimes and difficult to pinpoint what should be included as culture.  Is it just gender, race and religion, or do values, beliefs and life experiences contribute to one’s culture as well?  I believe it is all of the above and many others as well.  Culture is ultimately what defines us and therefore studying culture should take a look at all aspects of our lives.  And to be multicultural competent, I must be open to all people and really attempt to understand the many differences that people have.  I must also use my education and professionalism to make people from all different cultures feel safe and welcome in my class.  In doing this it should help foster an atmosphere of unity and cohesion.

Since multicultural competencies include three general areas: awareness of one’s own cultural values and biases, understanding of the client’s worldviews, and the development of culturally appropriate intervention strategies; some resources that I would attempt to utilize in order to move up the cultural competence continuum would include: talking to other staff members that may have expertise in different cultures, library resources, the internet and possibly parents to get a better understanding of what the kids might be like and their personal beliefs. (Mio, Barker-Hacket, & Tumambing, 2006).  To move up the cultural competence continuum I would first have to assess where on the continuum my agency lies.  Most agencies I would assume lie in the cultural destructive or incapacity stages.  The reason this is true is because outside of major cities there is not a whole lot of diversity or people educated on different cultures.  A personal example would be my hometown that was 99% white, this didn’t allow for much cultural diversity and therefore college was a bit of an adjustment.  But to move out of these lower stages and into the higher stages, I believe the most important thing is to educate.  I would need to become more educated on different cultures, but I would help educate my students as well.  Because after all, they are the ones participating and the ones that need to function well together.  After being fully educated on different cultures, the next step would be programming.  As the physical education teacher, it s my responsibility to provide inclusive programming for all of my students; regardless of their cultural backgrounds.  This means taking into account religious and spiritual beliefs/guidelines and gender roles.  With the understanding that everyone is different, it is important to understand that differences exist and as a professional I need to be willing to use agile programming, which is the programming style that welcomes change at any moment to help accommodate everyone involved.  If everyone feels welcomed, and part of the group regardless of cultural identity, then I believe you have reached the highest rung on the multicultural competence continuum, cultural proficiency.

To ensure that my agency and my program maintain its inclusion and empowering feeling, I would work with other professions to keep improving and evolving my programs.  I would make sure that all of my employees understand and really believe in what we’re trying to accomplish with understanding and utilizing multicultural competence.  I would also talk with other professions outside of my agency to see what they’re doing to create an inclusive atmosphere.  After all, in the service industry our main goal is to provide a quality service to all who which to participate.

Bibliography

Gill, D., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychology dynamics of sport and exercise. Pg. 267-290.

Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Mio, J.S., Barker-Hacket, L., & Tumambing, J. (2006). Multicultural psychology:

Understanding our diverse communities. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Chapter 15: Dual Cases

Case 1:

Situation:  I am the teacher of a middle school P.E. class and I am looking to try out some team building activities to strengthen the class’s unity.  The reason that I would use team-building techniques is to help unify the students and help them to feel as though they are part of the group.  But what is a group?  Gill and Williams define the term group as a “collection of individuals that are aware of each other, relate to each other in some way and are able to interact with each other through group processes.”  (Gill & Williams, 2008, p. 241-242)  With that said, being part of a group is more than the occasional hi, how are you; it is dynamic in nature and requires effort.  Using team-building techniques will help me to facilitate healthier group discussions and have better class attendance due to a higher sense of comradery.  What I need to address with my team-building techniques would be social loafing.  Latane, Williams and Harkins coined social loafing as the motivational loss in a group setting.  (Latane, Williams & Harkins, 1979)  The technique that I would use is one that I was a part of when I was younger.  My teacher split us into smaller groups of both boys and girls.  Each group was given a scenario to work through but each member of the group was required to add their input.  The way in which this worked was that once someone spoke their mind, they we no longer able to speak until the rest of the group spoke their mind.  And this was repeated until the scenario was completed.  This allowed for everyone to be heard, as well as taught the more talkative students that listening is sometimes better than talking and taught the more reserved kids that their opinion matters and they shouldn’t be embarrassed or afraid to speak in class.  Once all of the small groups completed their task, the entire class got together and this same process was repeated with the entire class.  It allowed everyone to feel a sense of “ownership” when the task was completed as well as promoted an atmosphere of encouragement and understanding.

Case 2:

Situation:  I am the instructor of an older adult exercise program at the senior center and I am looking into using social support to help foster better results and more enjoyment for my participants.  Social support is defined by Shumaker and Brownell as, “an exchange of resources between at least two individuals perceived by the provider or the recipient to be intended to enhance the well being of the recipient.”  (Schumaker & Brownell, 1984, p. 13)  The reason I find social support so important and the reason that I want to use it is because it will help to create more group cohesion.  If I can create a group atmosphere where there is a lot of positive energy and support for one another; my participants will have a much better experience and receive more perceived benefits.  The three techniques/resources that I will look into will be tangible resources, informational resources and emotional resources.  In an exercise setting there is a lot of equipment that is potentially dangerous, therefore I will pair the participants up into groups of two or three so they can help assist each other with the machines and their workouts.  Research shows that when working out with one or more people, there is a sense of obligation to those other people and there is a better chance of people sticking with their workout programs.  Working out with someone of your caliber also helps to motivate you to push yourself and to give more effort than you would if you were alone.  The second resource would be information.  Information is power and as the instructor I have an obligation to my participants to inform them of the benefits of a positive atmosphere.  If I can engrain the benefits of positive talk and support for one-another in their brains, they will be able to foster positive emotions on their own, without my help.  And lastly is using emotion.  As the leader, if I show positive emotion towards each individual no matter their skill level, that characteristic should rub off on each on my participants and eventually all of them will be so supportive of each other and staying positive that I would be able to simply supervise their exercise program rather than instruct them.

In conclusion as either the teacher or the instructor, I feel as though empowering both the students and the participants is the best technique because it helps foster self-confidence; which ultimately leads to better leadership and support skills.

Bibliography:

Gill, D., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychological dynamics of sport and exercise. Pp. 241-

266.  Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Latane, B., Williams, K.D., & Harkins, S.G. (1979). Many hands make light work: The

causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 823-832.

Shumaker, S.A., & Brownell, A. (1984). Toward a theory of social support: Closing

conceptual gaps. Journal of Social Issues, 40 11-36.

Family Programming

What:  A local parks and recreation department is looking to increase family memberships at their recreation center.  The director has asked me to create worthwhile programs that will increase participant performances and foster positive attitudes towards physical activity.

Social facilitation is the idea that people perform better when more than one person if performing the same task, whether in a competitive setting or a team setting.  With that said, if we can get families to come to our recreation center and workout together or play games together, their overall performance should increase.

Another theory to consider would be the social learning theory.  It talks about the situation in which people find themselves in affects their behavior.   For example, people may behave differently in the classroom than they would in the gym or with their parents than they would with their friends.  (Gill & Williams, 2008)

Social influence is the final idea that I will look at as the fitness coordinator and it is defined as, “social influences include family, important others, class leaders, and group cohesion, as well as more traditional social facilitation (coexercisers).” (Carron, Hausenblas, Mack, 1996)  I don’t think there is any denying that difference influences will have different affects on different people and on different situations, but as recreation professionals we need to know which ones will be positive and which ones may be harmful.  Parent influence is typically positive but will have a different affect than their friends or peers would.

Now What:  Since the goal is to increase family memberships, we need to understand what will influence children and their parents to participate and to continue to participate and a regular basis.  Our Families Together and Active Program will strive to bring families together and have them participate in activities together.  This is a good idea and one that will work, but I believe we need to understand the importance of peer influence as well.  It is in children’s nature to be embarrassed by their family and want to be with their friends.  So one way to get the best of both worlds would be to have a variety of programming ideas.  Make it where on certain days it is family competitions, where the whole family competes together and towards one goal.  And on the next day, allow the children to compete with their friends or against their friends.  Using this technique should keep all of the activities fresh, as well as never allowing the participants to get bored because they are only participating with a small portion of other people.  Using variety should increase their positive feeling towards physical activity because they might not even realize that they are participating in physical activity if they are constantly being influenced by other people and other influences/sports/activities.

In conclusion I believe it is important to use a wide variety of programming to keep things "fresh."  This way it should keep negative feelings to a minimum and allow for maximum fun for the entire family.

Bibliography:

Carron, A.V., Hausenblas, H.A., & Mack, D. (1996).  Social influence: A meta-analysis. Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology. 18, 1-16.

Gill, D. L., & Williams, L. (2008). Psychological Dynamics of Sport and Exercise (3rd Ed.). Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.