The concept of Open Gym was developed by the P.E. Dept. at
the Ezra Baker Elementary school Baker School
Within the P.E. Dept. the development of base line skills
and conditioning were identified as a way to track children over the course of
a school year. We have established a base line of specific abilities and are able to track improvement percentages yearly. Our goal this year was to set a goal for each child to improve 25% over the course of the year, which we accomplished.
We also, attempted to make a significant change in the way we attempted to deliver P.E classes to reach children with special needs to maximize their
opportunities to learn skills, benefit from social opportunities and as a way
to integrate all children as a healthy life style was our focus.
Traditionally, children with special needs had their own
block of P.E. time at a certain time of day
and special attention was given to the children. But, the children who participated all had
unique needs and the activities presented were diverse and skill focused, which
was of questionable value now looking back at those classes.
So, in looking at the
those children who all had different learning styles, our thinking went
to “what if” we allowed them to come at a time that was good for each child and
not have a set time. Then, we considered
the benefits of learning a skill and their need for social integration among
all students and the concept started to take shape. Why not have these children with different
learning styles learn what every other child was learning and become part of the
social interaction and fun of being part of a class? It was our opinion that any skill or game
could be modified for any child and so we tried out our concept.
After this trial year, we now believe it is the right
approach. Children attended various P.E.
classes when they felt the opportunity was right for them during the day. Even though they attended a class that was
different than their regular class, we found the children still enjoyed playing
with other children. Games could be
adapted and with the help of their assistants, games became fun, while also
providing the acquisition of a skill and the social contact for all
students. Students learned that adapting
game rules to include all was a fair and caring strategy for inclusion. Children never complained about the
adaptations and in fact allowed themselves to get tagged by slower children who
were using adaptive strategies. We
observed children who had difficulty with social interactions approach other
children with a smile, a huge gain!!!!
Children learned concepts like tagging children, throwing balls, hitting, kicking, using hula hoops etc.,
things that had they tried to use them in their own P.E. class might not have
meant as much. We had many children who
wanted to accompany children with special needs to help them move from class to
class, so this integration had a wonderful caring effect on all children, who
were more than happy to find ways to included different children!
The difficulties we experienced as teachers were: children showing up at any time so we had to
be prepared to teach to any child and be ready to adapt games; Children who had
shouting behaviors were the most difficult because of the distraction to the
class when we gave directions. We solved
that by having the shouting students practice their listening skills for a
duration that fit within their capabilities and or we asked the assistant to
take them for a walk until we could finish our directions and then have the
student join us to participate in the skill and to have fun. At times, we had students come into the gym
to do something different than what the class was doing and we stopped that as
it was to distracting. So, we decided
that anyone could attend but that they had to do whatever the class was doing and
we soon found that to not be a problem.
In conclusion, its more of a challenge for the teacher to
deal with children dropping into a class but it’s the benefits to the children
that make this challenge well worth the time.
The concept of children learning at their best time during the day just
makes sense in the P.E setting.
