Sherri Spelic

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In your experience, what works best with students who take losing very hard?

Lots of students worry about the prospect of losing. What I try to offer in my classes are varied opportunities for students to build some degree of skill confidence before entering into any sort of competitive environment. At the same time, the activities on which we spend more of our time are rarely tied to a win-loss structure, because there are plenty of other means to play outside of that binary.

We practice throwing, catching, kicking, dodging, etc. first individually, then with partners or in small groups. Even the most basic practice situations can be fun if students are given time, a bit of choice (i.e., type of equipment, or of partner), and options for building on the initial task. Small challenges for a group become building blocks for larger group games. We’re applying the basic skills in more dynamic settings such as a tagging or dodging game. But very few of the large group games we play involve clearly winning or losing. Rather, the group completes the challenge or succeeds in improving their outcome. Success is not necessarily tied to someone else’s loss or defeat.

Several of the games I offer are continuous: tagging games where anyone can pick up a ball and become a tagger (and also be tagged) or that are only over because time runs out. Also most games in class tend to be brief: in a 40 minute lesson rarely longer than 10 minutes. That means, students are often eager to play, enjoy the game while it lasts and once it’s over, are also used to moving on to the next activity or class.

 If we have team games, we talk about what kind of game students want to have and how we can go about achieving that. We talk about strategies for creating fair teams, or what it means for everyone to respect the rules, or what to do when that is not the case. I spend a lot of time emphasizing that the games we have are made up in large part by the hundreds of individual decisions each player makes while playing. Kids may get tired of hearing me lean on this horn, yes, and over the course of the year, they get better at managing themselves during competitive and other game situations.

 How do you work with students with special needs who struggle with group games and may even have a meltdown when they lose — ideally without excluding them from the group?

Students reveal a lot about their preferences in the physical education space. It is usually very clear which kids crave a soccer match, or want to mostly climb, swing and flip. Other kids are less concerned about which activity is on offer and are more interested in being close to a special friend. 

Children with special needs who may have movement or sensory challenges may find aspects of class that feel overwhelming or stressful. My first impulse is to observe and get to know the children and put their responses to different situations in context. Where and when do they seem to experience joy or fun? What are noticeable strengths and areas of specific interests that could be highlighted? Which stimuli seem to upset or disturb them?

It’s also vital to be in conversation with other partners in these children’s school and home lives. What information might I be missing? Which strategies are beneficial for the student when they are feeling upset? What steps can I take in advance to lessen the likelihood of a meltdown in our classroom community? How do I help peers learn to work with students who are more sensitive to the demands of group games?

The primary question is always: how do I create the best learning conditions for all students? 

I really want to select games where everyone can feel comfortable, competent and needed. I also want to offer students opportunities to expand their repertoire over time, to develop their own sense of how to make games interesting for themselves and others. Kids are excellent resources in these conversations, so I ask them, too!

How can we make play fair for quieter or less confident students without controlling it so much that it stops being fun?

Again, I think the key is paying attention to the types of activities we are offering. In the course of a year, I hope that every student recognizes a skill or activity that gets them excited to practice. It might be jumping on a pogo stick, skipping rope, organizing others into groups, creating a dance, being a referee. That’s why for me it’s important to include as many different types of movement experiences as possible which highlight and call for different types of strengths and acknowledge those strengths when they occur.

There is also much to be said for how we as educators demonstrate what we value. I will often remind students that my interest is not which team threw more balls (or got more runs, etc), rather I’m interested in how well they applied the correct techniques and how they interacted with each other during the game. What’s really important is whether we got better at “the thing” or not and what we learned in the process. Quiet students and kids who have less movement confidence, need to know that their efforts to engage and improve are seen and that they matter. 

What kids consider to be fun will vary and while it may not be possible to please everyone all the time, I think we can do a lot to create supportive and nourishing play environments where students are in the habit of sorting out how to value play that is inclusive, challenging and rewarding. The fun will be there, too!

When should teachers step in when students bend the rules? Is the teacher the one who sets the bar for what is fair, or is it the students?

At recess where children presumably have free choice within basic safety parameters, I think adults need to be observant, curious and conversational. That is, prepared to ask children about their choices in how they are playing and to actually listen to the children’s responses. Students often have reasons that might not occur to us. We can then have a conversation about the safety and also social implications of those choices that might need adapting but the game remains in the children’s hands.

In PE class, I, as the instructor, set the agenda for our lessons in pursuit of certain learning goals. To that end, I present students with different tasks, usually in varied formats (individual practice, pair work, small group games or whole group games). That means my choices are deliberate and ideally steering the group toward useful insights.

Given that, we have a basis for discussing what is and is not working in a game. What were the instructions? What did students (mis)understand? What needs clarification? Then we try and try again. It’s more practice and with each new attempt we learn a little more and the games, over time, get better. We, as a learning community, also learn a lot about each other in these processes. We’re playing and growing together.