Signature Assignment

Tina Robles

CD25 / ECD 440

FPU /Bakersfield Center

April 5, 2011
April 5, 2011

From: Mrs. Tina Robles

Child Development Teacher
Fairgrounds Child Development Center
931 Belle Terrace Rd.
Bakersfield, CA, 93304

To: Dr. Julie Santos

Assistant Superintendent for Instruction
Sierra Light Unified School District
6162 Ridgeline Road
South Lake Tahoe, CA, 62370

Dear Julie Santos,

I am writing you this let to bring to your attention the lack of physical education time in

the school district in which my children attend. My name is Tina Robles and I currently work for

the K.C.S.O.S. as a preschool teacher were we work on the childrens motor skills daily. My

understanding is that state guide line mandate that children are allotted a required amount of time

per day for physical education, however, the educational system feels there is a bigger need to

emphasize the standards for state testing. Maybe physical education needs to be one of the

standards of state testing, in order to get it put back in the daily schedule of schools across the

country. If physical education was implemented the way it is indented according to the state

standards for physical education, there would be a lot less concern with how well children

perform on state testing. For the known fact that physical activity help with brain development,

the single most important reason for implementing a physical education program. Its important

for children to learn loco motor, non manipulative and manipulative skills, but knowing that all

this elements play a part in the childs over all learning process should be the number one reason

to do their best to implement a quality program for children of all ages.

 I work in a preschool program funded by the state and we have strict guide line to follow

when it comes to physical education and would result in funding cuts if we deviated from the

plan in even the least. It should be the same for all educational programs, and I know that it is.

However, the state needs to invent a new monitoring system.

The benefits are not limited to motor skills and brain development as I mentioned before

about physical scars, children that dont develop an awareness of physical fitness will carry at

with them to adulthood. When children develop a since of wellness and learns what it means to

be physical fit at a young age, it become part of their life style. Which in return will be passed on

to their children and so on and such forth? Another benefit in physical education is cognitive

skills also known as problem solving skills. When a child is able to put together coordination

skills need to move the body in a control manner, to perform a variety of different motor skills,

they are also developing cognitive skills. The brain works in the same exact manner it would if it

were work a math problem as it would put the movements together to move through a physical

activity motion.

I dont plan to change grade levels when I obtain my degree for the very reason that my

current grade level has what I see as a very supportive child based program. That I have seen

very little of in the elementary school system. Child development programs focus on the children

as individuals, with different needs. My view on elementary school curriculum it that children

are grouped together by grade level and there is little to no tolerance for children that dont fit the

ideal profile of learning abilities for that pacific grade level. Perhaps I have worked in the child

development perfection to long, because I firmly believe that children learn at their own pace and

have different ways of learn different skills. Physical education is the only teaching element of
school aged children that Ive heard the words developmentally appropriate mentioned. I could

be wrong but I believe it to be the only subject in which the teacher takes this in to consideration.

Children need to start with the basic skills and build on them to learn new and more

advanced skills. Without these basic skills they cannot move to more advanced skills and

become proficient in them. The five basic skills I would focus on would be balancing, stretching,

twisting, turning, and transferring weight. All other skill the child will learn will need one if

these basic skills to be perform at the pre-controlled or controlled skill level.

Reference:

Books:

George Graham, Shirley Ann Holt, Melissa Parker (2009). Children Moving, Higher Education,
New York.

Websites:

www.ctc.ca.gov/educator-prep/standards/SSMP-Handbook-PE.pdf

www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/pestandards.pdf