1

Shape Reflection & Position Paper

Shape Reflection & Position Paper

Joseph A. Cuccia, SUNY Cortland

Before we are able to connect the dots between motor development, physical activity, and

motor competence, we must first have to be able to understand what each component is. Motor

development is continuous process of change in movement in which these movements interact

with constraints that change such movements. It’s also important to note that motor development

is age related and not age dependent. Children progress through these movements at their own

pace and factors such as the development of their nervous system or growth of their limbs, may

help them in developing quicker or slower. Physical activity can simply be defined as movement

of the body that uses energy. This can be simple movements like running, jogging, or even

playing basketball. Finally, motor competence is “proficiency in a fundamental movement skill

that enables participation in everyday activities.” (Haywood & Getchell, 2019, p.240) In order

for an individual to be able to develop their motor development skills, they must mature in a

variety of ways. Most of the factors that are dependent on developing and maturing to be able to

perform the skill fall underneath the individual constraint category, or more specifically

structural constraints. Structural constraints are “constraints that relate to the body’s physical

structure.” These can include height, weight, limb length, development of the child’s nervous,

skeletal, and muscular systems. (Haywood & Getchell, 2019, p.7) Without the proper maturation

of any of these factors, children are likely to develop their motor development skills at a much

slower rate. The development of these systems may influence the activity level of an individual

when they are younger. For example, let’s say we have an individual whose balance and

coordination hasn’t matured at the right level yet and is lagging behind. Their lack of motor

competence may affect their ability to properly run, jump, and hop. This may limit their
2
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

interactions trying to develop that skill because they are embarrassed or frustrated that they can’t

properly perform that skill and other children can. In terms of physical activity, the lack of

maturation in balance and coordination may affect their want or determination in participating in

any form of physical activity, whether it be in youth leagues or in physical education classes. A

lack of participating in physical education class or outside sports leagues may then prevent the

child from participating in the recommended amount of physical activity a day, 60 minutes. (The

Essential Components of Physical Education, p.2) This downward trend of a lack of physical

activity because their balance and coordination aren’t developed then leads to a lack of motor

development for those skills because the child is not practicing them since they are not being

physically active. In this scenario, the individual factor of the development of a body system

contributed to low physical activity level, which lead to slow motor development skill learning

and no or very little motor competence of these skills. Let’s look at it from the other side of the

spectrum. Let’s say an individual is really developed in terms of his nervous and muscular

system as well as coordination and balance. Because the child is really competent at performing

certain skills in physical education class, he loves physical activity. He wants to be more active

and show off his skills, so he joins a basketball team. Because he joins the basketball team, he

gets more physical activity time throughout the week and more time to practice many

fundamental movement skills like running, jumping, catching, dribbling, etc. Due to the fact that

he is already highly matured, and that he is now being more physically active, this child’s motor

development skills quickly develop even more. In this scenario, this child’s body systems

developed at a much quicker rate than most children, which made them feel more superior and

want to practice and show off their skills. This then led to more time being physically active and

more practice of the fundamental movement skills which then led to mastery of these skills. In
3
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

this scenario, this child perceived himself as motor competent which aided him in wanting to be

more physically active. This is extremely important as if you believe you are good at something,

you will continue to do it. But if you believe that you aren’t competent at a skill, then you won’t

continue on. “A study done by Figueroa and An in 2017 showed the significant relationship

between motor competence and physical activity.” (Haywood & Getchell, p.253) Furthermore, a

study done in 2016 by Henrique also found that “children between the ages of 3-5 who had

locomotor skill competence and sports participation also participated in sports two years later.”

(Haywood & Getchell, p.253) Even at a young age, children can tell if they are competent in a

skill by comparing themselves to their peers. The connection between motor development,

physical activity, and motor competence is a continuous cycle. A factor affecting just one

component will completely change the course of the other two. For example, an increase in

physical activity could increase one’s motor development skill. Or possibly a decrease in

perceived motor competence will decrease one’s physical activity and thus decrease the

developmental rate of their motor skills.

The CSPAP model recognizes and tries to take away these instances of physical activity neglect

or non-determination through its five components: physical education, physical activity before

and after school, family and community engagement, staff involvement, and physical activity

during school. (What is CSPAP?, p.1) For example, the model strives on implementing physical

activity not just throughout the school day, but before school and after school, and even when at

home. The model also recognizes that some children need more practice then other and tries to

emphasize the importance of creating time and opportunities for children to practice these skills

to help them develop. For instance, for before school activity, the model suggests students to ride

their bike or walk to school. Although it may sound silly, biking and walking to school and back
4
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

could add up to half an hour or more of physical activity, and are also great ways to strengthen

your leg strength and increase your balance and coordination. By doing this simple activity to get

to school, the child is helping speed up the process of developing their skills. Furthermore,

something that many schools don’t do is connect the students to community opportunities. The

CSPAP model wants schools to provide a resource where kids can go to and practice and be

active. A possible example in this scenario is for the school to use some tax money to allow all of

their students to get into the local YMCA for free no matter the time of day or day of the week.

The school needs to encourage students to be physically active. The more opportunities the

school provides, the more students will likely take advantage of these, especially if they don’t

have to pay as many students could be in financial burdens. The CSPAP model pushes students

to be physically active, the main component in gaining motor competence and developing your

motor skills.

As a future educator, I believe it’s important to stress the core value of positivity and

confidence. The more likely one believes they are successful at something, the more likely they

will continue to do that activity. However, the more one believes they are bad at something, they

more likely they will stop doing that activity because it brings disappointment. The number one

reason why kids quit participating in sports or any sort of physical activity is because they

believe it’s not fun anymore. In a study done George Washington University in 2014, 90% of

children stated that they dropped out of a sport because they weren’t having fun. (O’Sullivan,

2015) Now this can be contributed to a number of reasons, but I believe it is a combination of

these two factors. Children are simply not having fun because they believe they are not good and

children not having fun because they aren’t being provided positive reinforcement. From my

own experience I have witnessed these factors. As a youth junior football coach for 2 years,
5
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

children that I’ve coached that constantly get berated seem to lose interest, not put in much

effort, and talk like they have no confidence. However, those who always got positive treatment

seemed to get better as a player, loved playing even if they didn’t get a lot of playing time, and

always had a positive mindset. All too often you hear athletes like Michael Jordan and Yogi

Berra state that the game is 90% mental. This is true. If one doesn’t have a positive mindset and

confidence that they can accomplish something, then they will more than likely not do it. That’s

why as a future educator, I want to surround my students with a positive environment and want

to be able to provide the most opportunities for my students to practice and instill confidence in

themselves. I will strive to provide opportunities for my students during physical education class,

during club activities, and create before and after school programs where children can run around

and learn their body’s more to better be able to learn how they move and how they can improve.

The first component of the CSPAP model includes having a quality physical education program.

The sole purpose of a physical education program is to develop physically literate individuals

and teach them the knowledge, skills, and confidence to enjoy physical activity throughout their

entire lifetime. (Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: Helping All Students Log

60 Minutes of Physical Activity Each Day, p.3) In order to have a quality program one must

address all four essential components. These components consist of policy and environment,

curriculum, appropriate instruction, and student assessment. (The Essential Components of

Physical Education, p.4) As a future educator, it’s important to make sure you have a clear and

precise policy, one that is easy for all to understand. If you don’t have a straightforward policy,

issues will arise. A proper policy should stress the importance of requiring every single student

to participate in a physical education class. Elementary students are recommended to get 150

minutes of physical activity a week with middle and high school students recommend getting
6
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

225 minutes of physical activity per week. (Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs:

A Guide for Schools, p.8) Why exactly are elementary school students recommended 75 minutes

less a week? It’s essential for young students to move around and understand and develop their

body physically. A policy should stress a district wide mandatory physical activity time of 225

minutes per week. It’s important as one is younger to get in as much physical activity time as

possible in order to develop one’s muscular, nervous, and skeletal systems. The more one

practices and spends time on it, the faster they will mature, leading to an increase in perceived

motor competence and more likely a higher increase in sport participation. The policy should

also include a strict dismissal program that only excludes children from participating in extreme

circumstances. Physical education class is not just for running around and sweating, merely it’s a

time to both physically and mentally develop yourself as a person. According to an article by the

Chester College of International School, by participating in physical education classes, one’s

attention and concentration span is much longer and more effective. One is likely to do better in

class and academically evolve better simply by getting exercise. The article also states how

physical education classes are vital in fighting against obesity as it helps lower the rates of

getting the cardiovascular diseases associated with being overweight. It’s well known that the

less one is physically active, the more likely they are to be overweight which leads to many

complicated health problems. Such problems that could arise are Pulmonary disease, cancer,

stroke, gallbladder disease, diabetes, amongst many more serious diseases. (What is Physical

Activity? p.1) Children in the United States are becoming obese at an extremely scary and sharp

rate. By forcing children to be active, we can try to combat this problem as best as we can.

Physical education and activity also have a tremendous contribution towards limiting one’s stress

and anxiety and improving the quality of their sleep. (10 reasons why Physical Education is so
7
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

important in schools, 2019) Having a policy that stresses the participation in activity will be fully

beneficial for the health of all my students, both on the physical plane as well as the mental

plane. Lastly, a good policy should stress having a class size similar to other classes, likely in the

20 to 25 student range. A class size that is in this range makes it easy to provide help towards

these individuals and allows these students to have more participation time in class. A big

problem many physical education classes have is that the size of the class is like 45 students, and

half of those students play one pickup game of basketball for instance, so you are only running

around and dribbling and driving to the basket so many times during the short class period that

you have. Next up is addressing the curriculum aspect. Many schools, including the one I had

attended severely lacked this aspect. They never had a written, precise plan of what children

were learning and a lesson plan to teach them. Instead it was more along the lines of introducing

a sport briefly and then sending us to go play it. That’s not very effective. Having a set

curriculum which outlines a lesson plan step by step is crucial in properly teaching and

developing a physically literate individual. Therefore, it should be your goal as a future educator

to provide specific and detailed lesson plans based on the NY standards and national grade level

outcomes. I also lacked the aspects of assessing the knowledge that you learned. Through the use

of quizzes, assignments, tests, and projects, it’s important to make sure your students become

knowledgeable and literate about the physical activity movements that they do. The third

essential component is appropriate instruction. Appropriate instruction means taking into account

your diverse classroom environment and creating an instructional plan that takes into account all

your diversity. As a future educator, you need to assess your class for diversity and stress your

points through visual aids, verbal cues, and practice demonstrations in order to account for the

different learning environments that one may be successful towards. It’s also essential to create
8
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

an environment where children can maximize their physical education time by having them work

in small groups or in games that encourage movement throughout the entire class period. This

can be done by implementing activities into your lesson plan that are physically appropriate for

the student. For example, describing and explaining how the heart is a muscle that gets stronger

will exercise is something that younger students will take seriously and hopefully may make

them want to be more physically active. (Appropriate and Inappropriate Practices Related to

Fitness, p.9) Appropriate practices also relates to the activities that you have your child

participate in while in your physical education class. It’s appropriate to make sure your students

maximize their opportunity by encouraging activities of 3v3 basketball, or tennis, or running

around the track instead of activities like 5v5 basketball, dodgeball, or softball in which students

just stand around for the majority of this time. The last component that has to be accounted for is

student assessment. Student assessment is the gathering of evidence about your students’

achievements and make conclusions based on their progress. (The Essential Components of

Physical Education, p.7) In order to achieve this component, having a student portfolio that

keeps track of pre-assessment, formal assessment, and summative assessment to track students’

progress throughout the year. (The Essential Components of Physical Education ,p.7) Having a

fitness test could be a sort of measure that tracks progress throughout the year and then year by

year. Having this process allows you as the teacher to determine whether your instruction

methods are effective in developing a physically literate individual and also allows one to review

and see if they have effectively followed the grade level outcome standards.

The second component of the CSPAP model includes school based physical activity

opportunities. As in many school districts including my own, one generally has physical

education class 2-3 times per week for about 50 minutes each class. This isn’t nearly enough
9
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

time to develop one’s motor skills and does not come close to meeting the national physical

activity time standard. Thus, it’s important to come up with a plan to meet these physical activity

requirements during the school day. One easy possibility is to make physical education a daily

class like math or science. This makes is so every day students have 50 minutes of physical

education. Now between getting changing before and after classes as well as having an

instruction period before the activity, students may only have 35 minutes to actually move

around. So, we have about 25 minutes that we need to account for throughout the rest of the

school day. Splitting lunch into 25 minutes of physical activity and 25 minutes to eat is one

scenario that I think is easy to do without interrupting the rest of the school day. Having students

pick between a variety of exercises like running around the track, doing jump rope, running

through an obstacle course is something that could be done during this time. All we are doing is

simply implementing a recess period into the middle school and high school lunch period.

Another possible alternative is to implement a 10 minute period before school starts and right

before it ends to allow for students to be physically active. Whether this is by doing jumping

jacks, or burpees, or pushups, it allows more time for students to be active and develop.

The third component of the CSPAP model includes school employee and wellness

opportunities. As a school employee, one may get very stressed out whether it be to do their

students attitudes, or grades, or preparing them for a state example. It’s important to make sure

your employees and co-workers are in a positive state of mind because it will rub off on the

students. Many teachers and school personnel are role models for students, so it’s essential that

our teachers and personnel evoke positivity and helpfulness. Making sure that your teachers have

the opportunity to be active after school and have a stress free lifestyle, making sure that there is

opportunities for employees maximize on outside support to optimize their health and well-
10
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

being, and making sure that you encourage your employees to be active as well due to the

scientifically proven benefits that exerciser emits such as increasing dopamine levels, making

you more happy. In order to provide opportunities for this, teachers could be given some periods

off to either work out, do yoga, or even explore nature. The school could also partner with local

mental health professionals in order to provide a resource and help teachers get mental help if

they may need it. Another great idea would be to partner with a local massage parlor in order to

help with relaxation amongst the employees. There are several benefits to making sure your

employees wellness levels are good. For instance, factors like obesity, smoking, and depression

are linked to employees being less productive. Moreover, employees are more likely to be absent

if their wellness levels aren’t doing good. (Supporting the Implementation of School-Based

Employee Wellness Programs, p.3) A lack of productivity and being absent is not good for

students’ academic levels. It’s important want to make sure you build a strong future and

foundation of future adults who are knowledgeable and successful. In order to do this, we need to

put them in the best situation possible and that all starts with making sure that their teachers and

their role models are in a positive mindset.

The last component of the CSPAP model has to do with family and community

involvement. This component is an extremely important one. As an educator, you can do all that

you can within the school day, but as soon as a child goes home, you have no control about the

physical activity that they do. This is why it’s important to provide a strong base and foundation

within the community and at home to encourage students to be physically active outside of

school. This is why it’s a necessity to connect to community members that want to provide

opportunities for children to be active. Whether it’s a town YMCA, or local gym, or even a

corporation like Safety Swim, it’s important to be able to communicate with the town and allow
11
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

students to participate in this establishments. This is something that needs to be communicated

through the school board. Whether tax money goes to this, it’s really important to build a strong

community bond that establishes the importance of being physically active and developing one’s

body physically. In order to establish family involvement, it’s important to have several annual

parent meetings in which you try to encourage parents to make their children go outside and run

around or go on a bike ride to get exercise. Parents have such a big influence on being physically

active. If parents didn’t push students to play sports, many students would not be playing sports

right now. By getting parents to be a source that helps with physical activity, it’ll overall help the

student develop.
12
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

Action Statements

 Quality Physical Education: I would implement a policy that mandates daily participation

and maximizing opportunity, and implementing a strict plan which allows students to sit

out only in extenuating circumstances.

 School Based Physical Activity Opportunities: I would enforce the making of physical

education to become a daily class and enforce a period of recess that would split with a

period of lunch in order to maximize time spent being physically active throughout the

day.

 School Employee and Wellness Opportunities: I would help implement a plan that would

dedicate time and resources for my employees to allow themselves to be physically and

mentally active both throughout the day and before and after the school day.

 Family and Community Involvement: I would strive to create a strong school and

community bond that allows students to enter and participate in forms of physical activity
13
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

for free, as well as creating a bond with the parents in which they influence and support

physical activity amongst their children.

References

Advanced Solutions International, I. (n.d.). What is CSPAP? Retrieved December 09, 2020, from

https://www.shapeamerica.org/cspap/what.aspx

Appropriate and Inappropriate Practices Related to Fitness ... (n.d.). Retrieved December 10,

2020, from https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/positionstatements/pe/upload/

Appropriate-and-Inappropriate-Uses-of-Fitness-Testing-FINAL-3-6-17.pdf

College, C. (2019, October 01). 10 reasons why Physical Education is so important in schools.

Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.chestercollege.org/blog/10-reasons-why-

physical-education-is-so-important-in-schools/

Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: A Guide for Schools. (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/professional_development/e-learning/cspap/_assets/

FullCourseContent-CSPAP.pdf

Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs: Helping All Students Log 60 minutes of

Physical Activity Each Day. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.shapeamerica.org/

Advocacy/positionstatements/pa/upload/Comprehensive-School-Physical-Activity

Programs-Helping-All-Students-Log-60-Minutes-of-Physical-Activity-Each-Day.pdf

Haywood, K., & Getchell, N. (2019). Life span motor development. Champaign, IL: Human

Kinetics.
15
Shape Reflection & Position Paper

O'Sullivan, J. (2015, September 17). Why Kids Quit Sports. Retrieved from

https://changingthegameproject.com/why-kids-quit-sports/

Supporting the Implementation of School-Based Employee Wellness Programs. (2018).

Retrieved from

https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/positionstatements/health/upload/School-

Based_Employee_Wellness_final_2.pdf

The Essential Components of Physical Education. (2015). Retrieved from

https://www.shapeamerica.org/upload/TheEssentialComponentsOfPhysicalEducation.pdf

What is Physical Activity? (n.d.). Retrieved from

https://www.hhs.k-state.edu/kines/kineseducation/whatispa.html
16
Shape Reflection & Position Paper