ABSTRACT
This book is based on the assumption that school physical education is failing to reach its potential for making an effective educational impact on the lives of the students who experience it. Although paved with good intentions, the road that school physical education has trodden recently has left youngsters with a subject that is largely uncontextual and culturally irrelevant to their future needs as consumers of sport, in all its manifestations. What has become known as traditional physical education is mostly games based and emphasises effort and teamwork in a variety of mostly male-oriented activities. Although Kirk (1992) provides ample evidence that traditional physical education is a fairly recent introduction to the whole school curriculum, the fact remains that the current offerings do not serve the needs of many of our school students. Additionally, our youth is faced with a powerful portrayal of physical culture in all types of media, from computer games to the popular press. Some of these portrayals are designed to promote and sell an ideal of what is desirable in terms of body and lifestyle that is attainable by only a few. Physical education has done little to equip our students to deal with this and to place such pervasive portrayals in perspective. Our students are not encouraged to be critical consumers of sport in any form. They need to be able to make rational judgements about activity choice based on knowledge, ability and inclination; and lifestyle decisions based on knowledge and the recognition of the complex realities, not the portrayal of fiction.
