Reevaluating Physical Education
If you ask anyone from my school days—elementary or secondary— I am sure they would all tell you how much I enjoy running. I am not sure where this started, but it is something I love to do and miss now that I am older. I have thought about joining a Track and Field team, but that has its own challenges and is a blog for another time. Regardless of my love for running and pumping up my heart beat, my experience with Physical Education was anything but something I'd describe as "love".
In elementary school, PE classes consisted of running laps around the gym or field followed by games such as dodge ball. Often times for me, though, this meant a slow meander around the perimeter of the gym or field followed by wandering around as everyone else participated in the game. Sometimes I would be with the PE teacher as they kept watch, or sometimes I might be partnered with another student. This pattern continued into middle school, but the sidelines began to become more apparent to me.
I would still do a slow walk around the perimeter of the field, but other than that, I was sitting on the edge listening to music or participating in a mindless activity while the other students got to play games like soccer and baseball. Sometimes my role would just be to sit on a base as students came by. I think the most embarrassing one for me was playing pass with students. Sometimes, the teacher would ask for student volunteers to come forward, and of course, everyone was always super excited to offer as they would be getting out of the actual PE class. We would end up playing pass with each other which was extremely degrading. I am surprised no one said anything, but then again maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. It is a common misconception that someone with a physical limitation such as blindness is automatically unable to participate in physical activities and needs to be protected so that they don’t get injured. Every child, every student, is always at risk of injury when partaking in these types of activities, so why should it be any different for me? Rather than protecting me, should we not be teaching students how to make games and sports more equitable for everyone?
High school was the worst for this, in my opinion. Rather than being put in Girls’ PE like I would have wanted, I was put into a weight training class. I had older students sign up to be volunteers with me during the class, though which was its own struggle. Something about another student receiving credit for helping “the blind girl” felt weird to me. In my opinion this taught students that there was a power difference between us. If two sighted students were paired up together I am sure that they would goof off and rarely work out, but for me, the student was in charge and privy to medical info such as discussing my weight with the teacher that made me uncomfortable.
I think we had Goalball demonstrations once or twice in my classes during the entirety of my K to 12 years, and though I recognize the value of this, I think that it further alienated me from my peers rather than demonstrate inclusion. I think it’s valuable to bring this into the class, but I also think that it is more valuable to adapt the exact sports that everyone else is enjoying to keep things relevant. This wouldn’t have made me feel as if I was standing out from my peers. There were many times I wanted to partake in mainstream sports like soccer rather than Goalball. Just because there is a particular thing made for people with disabilities does not mean that all of us are into it and that it is all we can relate or associate with. Most of us enjoy the same things that others our age do.
I urge parents to be more relaxed when it comes to letting their blind child run around and scrape up their knees, and I plead to teachers to reevaluate their PE classes, especially if they have any students with disabilities in the mix.
by Harjinder “Jinnie” Saran