Nonlinear Pedagogy and the Athletic Skills Model

The Importance of Play in Supporting Physical Literacy

James Rudd, Ian Renshaw, Geert Savelsbergh, Jia Yi Chow, Will Roberts, Daniel Newcombe, Keith Davids

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367894610
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000402452
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Counseling

This book offers an ecological conceptualisation of physical literacy. Re-embracing our ancestry as hunter gatherers we gain a new appreciation and understanding of the importance of play, not only in terms of how children learn, but also in showing us as educators how we can lay the foundations for lifelong physical activity. The concept of physical literacy has been recognised and understood throughout history by different communities across the globe. Today, as governments grapple with the multiple challenges of urban life in the 21st century, we can learn from our forebears how to put play at the centre of children's learning in order to build a more enduring physically active society.

This book examines contemporary pedagogical approaches, such as constraints-led teaching, nonlinear pedagogy and the athletic skills model, which are underpinned by the theoretical framework of Ecological Dynamics. It is suggested that through careful design, these models, aimed at children, as well as young athletes, can (i) encourage play and facilitate physical activity and motor learning in children of different ages, providing them with the foundational skills needed for leading active lives; and (ii), develop young athletes in elite sports programmes in an ethical, enriching and supportive manner.

Through this text, scientists, academics and practitioners in the sub-disciplines of motor learning and motor development, physical education, sports pedagogy and physical activity and exercise domains will better understand how to design programmes that encourage play and thereby develop the movement skills, self-regulating capacities, motivation and proficiency of people, so that they can move skilfully, effectively and efficiently while negotiating changes throughout the human lifespan.

SECTION I

Theoretical Positioning of Physical Literacy

Section 1: Introduction

Physical literacy is not new, nor indeed is it a well-understood term. The main aims of this book are to revisit the original intentions behind the term physical literacy and explore its links with contemporary models of performance and learning in physical activity and sport. Whilst the concept of physical literacy has thrived throughout academic discourse and educational policy across the globe, the original intentions behind the term physical literacy have become obscured (Bailey, 2020). Margaret Whitehead set out the idea of physical literacy at a conference in Australia in 1993, arguing that in order to support ongoing physical activity, and ensure the healthy development of children, we need to ensure that their movement experiences are meaningful. She expressed concern that children's play opportunities were being diminished and that the activities available to young people were too often over-organised, structured and professionalised, that is, led (coached, instructed, taught) by adults with a performance agenda. Whitehead believed that this untimely professionalisation of children's play activities diminished, or removed, the meaning of the physical activity experience and, with it, the chances of children engaging in a lifetime of physical activity. The authors of this book embrace the concept of physical literacy. We are, of course, not the first to do so, since academic discussion on this topic has flourished over the last two decades (see Figure 0.1).

FIGURE 0.1Physical literacy publications by year of publication from 2001 to 2020

It is disappointing that this long-running discourse has not led to more innovative methods of creating meaningful play and movement experiences for children through, for example, better pedagogical design, infrastructure or social interaction, or more engagement and exploration of the child's voice to understand what meaningful movement experiences might be for them. Instead, the literature is full of endless academic debate over the interpretation of what physical literacy is and how it should be defined. Indeed, Whitehead herself has changed her definition of physical literacy multiple times since the original introduction in 2001 (see Table 0.1).

TABLE 0.1 Revisions of Whitehead's physical literacy definitions between 2001 and 2017

2001	The characteristics of a physically literate individual are that the person moves with poise, economy and confidence in a wide variety of physically challenging situations. In addition, the individual is perceptive in reading all aspects of the physical environment, anticipating movement needs or possibilities and responding appropriately to these, with intelligence and imagination. Physical literacy requires a holistic engagement that encompasses physical capacities embedded in perception, experience, memory, anticipation and decision-making (Whitehead, 2001, p. 136).
2007	The motivation, confidence, physical competence, understanding and knowledge to maintain physical activity at an individually appropriate level, throughout life course(Whitehead, 2007, p. 2).
2010	As appropriate to each individual endowment, physical literacy can be described as the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to maintain physical activity throughout the life course (Whitehead, 2010, p. 11).
2013	The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activities throughout the life course (Whitehead, 2013, p. 29).
2017	The motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and engage in physical activity for life (IPLA, 2017).

Notwithstanding these shortcomings, the academic literature has been influential, leading to the integration of physical literacy into policy across the globe, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation International Charter of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport. As we enter the 2020s, the promises made by academics, and reflected in policy documents, are starting to be questioned as governments are seen to be failing to deliver on their pledges to engage millennials. Generation Z is no more active or healthy than their predecessors, Generations X and Y, and indeed evidence suggests a further decline. The question that we are left with is: Has the prioritisation and adoption of physical literacy been nothing more than a vogue concept lacking in conceptual substance and depth which is destined to fall out of fashion to be replaced by something else that is shiny and new?

This book is a collaboration between seven academics within the field of human movement and sport sciences (motor development, motor learning, pedagogical design and practitioner education). Together, we revisit the nature of physical literacy – a term which was used to describe the movement quality of tribes indigenous to America in 1884 – and we examine physical literacy through the lens of the contemporary theory of Ecological Dynamics which is a transdisciplinary space that blends ideas from ecological psychology, constraints on dynamical systems, the complexity sciences, social anthropology and evolutionary biology. In Section 1, we seek to understand why the concept of physical literacy is still needed today and explore physical literacy from two different scales of analysis: at an individual level and at a community level. In Chapter 1, we explore the scale of the socio-cultural constraints that we faced in the 2020s and seek to understand why current physical activity interventions and traditional pedagogical delivery models are inadequate in developing meaningful movement experiences for children. In Chapter 2, we consider the hunter-gatherer origins of physical literacy as well as exploring Whitehead's original definition of physical literacy. Moving beyond this, we introduce three key principles to understand physical literacy: wayfinding, value and meaning and functional movement skills when conceived through an Ecological Dynamics framework. In Chapter 3, we again explore physical literacy from an Ecological Dynamics rational, focusing on the analytic scale at the higher community level and observe how local-global self-organisation tendencies supporting physical literacy to thrive through spontaneous play in the most unexpected places.

In Section 2 our examination of physical literacy moves beyond the current academic discourse as we begin to explore how we might operationalise this concept to create meaningful movement experiences for learners (children, youth and elite athletes, and recreational sportsmen and women across the lifespan). This may seem like a bold ambition; however, we are enabled to make this leap because, whilst each individual is on their own dynamic and individual journey, the fundamental principles, or mechanisms for how we learn to move, are the same for everyone, regardless of performance levels and needs. In Chapter 4 we explore how motor learning theory has influenced pedagogical approaches right across the sporting landscape. Our aim in this chapter is, through the introduction of a Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) and representative co-design, to offer a contemporary approach which positions the learner at the core of the educational experience within physical education, youth sport and high-performance sport. In Chapter 5 we introduce a powerful pedagogical framework called Nonlinear Pedagogy (NLP) and show how adopting this approach can enable practitioners to reevaluate how they plan and design sessions, activities and lessons to support the learner on their physical literacy journey. In Chapter 6 we continue to explore contemporary approaches as we consider the concepts of practitioners as Environment Architects and Environment Design Principles (EDP) and explore how these might be used to support physical literacy. In Chapter 7 we introduce the Athletics Skills Model (ASM), which has been implemented successfully across football academies in the Netherlands and is being introduced into the United Kingdom to support the physical literacy of current and future generations.

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In Section 3, Chapter 8, we consider how physical literacy can be measured and suggest how an ecological conceptualisation can help unpick the complexity of measuring something that is, in essence, a process. The final chapter in Section 3 provides a summary of what has been covered and explores possibilities for practice to support physical literacy. Section 4, the final section of this book provides series of practical case studies from physical education to high-performance sport where researchers are beginning to explore new avenues of research to understand physical literacy through an Ecological Dynamics rationale.

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TIME FOR A RETHINK

Why a New Approach to Physical Literacy Is Needed

Keith Davids and James Rudd

1.1 Introduction

Play is considered to be essential for optimal child development (Ginsburg, 2007). The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights states that play is a right of every child, and yet, opportunities for children to play have diminished. Whitehead was not the only academic back in the early 1990s who was concerned with children's declining opportunities for play and a lack of meaningful movement experiences that were not under the guidance of adults. In 1991, Kaplan predicted that, in the year 2000, the child would need adults to defend their right to play, for society would evolve to provide children with less time to play and increasingly value ‘more structure, more work and more adult-directed activity, even for young children (p. 398)’. Kaplan went on to state:

The child in the year 2000 will be subjected to greater pressures towards beginning academic work early and will be asked to submit more and more to adult-led activities. It is doubtful that television time will be reduced [this was prescient even though the emergence of the smart phone, PC and associated online games were not on Kaplan's radar]. The child may thus have less opportunity to play and less opportunity to direct his or her own play. (p. 398).

Today, we see evidence all around us that confirms Kaplan's prediction, such as the significant decline in children's walking or cycling to school over the past 30 years, which was nearly 50% in the 1970s but had declined to 13% by 2009 in the United States, with similar downward trends across the globe (e.g., Canada, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand). Equally, there has been a shift with children's top ten preferred play spaces transitioning from outdoors to indoors between 1950 and 2000 (Active Healthy Kids, 2014). Whilst the extent and exact reasons for this may be more complex than Kaplan imagined, the explanation he put forward was certainly on the money.

Notwithstanding, the benefits and importance of play are well understood today as shown by a clinical report produced by the American Academy of Paediatrics (AAP) (White et al., 2018) which discusses the ‘power of play’ to transform children's lives by helping them to combat stressors of modern life and enhance their capacity for learning. The AAP report committee advocates that general practitioners should be empowered to prescribe play activities for children in need of psychological, mental, physical, intellectual and social enrichment (Yogman et al., 2018). Going further, movements like the US Coalition for Play (https://usplaycoalition.org/) promote the health, well-being and social benefits of inter-generational opportunities for play throughout the life course, recognising it as a vital activity for healthy development and the long-term functioning of humans.

A key challenge intern...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Authors
• Section I Theoretical Positioning of Physical Literacy
• Section II Contemporary Approaches for Operationalising Physical Literacy
• Section III Further Considerations and Future Direction of Research and Practice in Physical Literacy
• Section IV Exploring New Avenues of Research to Understand Physical Literacy
• Index