Y Health
Y Health
Rethinking Physical Education with Dr. Keven Prusak
Most US adults struggle to fit exercise into their lifestyle, while children seem to do so naturally. Dr. Keven Prusak explains why the “Western lifestyle” alters our approach to physical activity and how we can reframe our thinking. He also stresses the value of a good physical education program and the unexpected learning outcomes it provides.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Keven Prusak is BYU’s elementary physical education program director of 10 years and has been an associate BYU professor since 2002. After receiving his master’s degree in physical education from Utah State University, he earned a PhD in Physical Education-Pedagogy from Arizona State University. He focuses his research on motivation in physical education, video self-analysis in teaching, and systematic success in physical education programs.
Click here for more on Dr. Prusak and his research.
Recorded, Edited & Produced by Christy Gonzalez, Harper Xinyu Zhang, and Tanya Gale
But Dr. Keven Prusak, thank you for joining How are you doing?
Keven :I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the invitation.
Cougar :I really look forward to this discussion. I think you and I, we have a lot of shared interest and shared background. You're a recovering high school teacher, 11 years and a coach. And you're a veteran there, right?
Keven :Yeah, I'm recovering, but I don't know that
Cougar :I don't know that I will either. Would you mind just taking a few minutes and introducing yourself, your your background, where you come from and how you wind up here at BYU?
Keven :Well, I'm the all Canadian kid. I grew up in southern Alberta, and in my teenage years I experienced some. Some successes, I suppose, with within the sporting world and and thought that that would be a good career pursuit. And so I attended the University of Lethbridge, took a break, went out and served a mission in Italy for two years, and then came back and transferred to BYU. That was. The recommendation of the other missionaries. And so I said, okay, BYU is the place for me, and I came down here in 1982. And then completed a bachelor's degree with physical education and coaching and and then went out into the public school, started out in Union High School in Eastern Utah, Roosevelt, and then moved to Bear River High School up in Fremont, in Utah. All the time. Those 11 years I was teaching and coaching taught math, taught physical education, and and then coached football, basketball, tennis and track.
Cougar :Oh, my.
Keven :So, yeah. Kind of a jack of all trades and master of none. But my coaching years probably taught me as much about pedagogy as did all my schooling in physical education as a teaching major. And so I've always sought to kind of cross those two worlds and find where those intersections made coaching better or made teaching better. In 1997, I returned to to my school pursuits, went down to Arizona State, completed a doctoral degree down there, and and then went from the frying pan, that is Arizona to the freezer of Minot, North Dakota, North Dakota. There's a funny thing about Minot, North Dakota. Why not Minot? And the answer, of course, is freezing is the reason.
Cougar :So I love it. So.
Keven :So then in 2002, there was an opening at BYU, interested. And I said yes. And and so I came here in 2002 and I'll be this is my 21st year here now, so. Very cool. Yeah, that's a that's the shortened.
Cougar :I love.
Keven :It version of it all.
Cougar :What are your primary responsibilities here
Keven :Well, so I work in the Physical Education teachers for K through 12 physical education and and also with a coaching emphasis. So so we prepare them to be teachers and coaches. We have a major, we have a minor. We are in the we used to be in the former Health and Human Performances college, which we were both in. Yeah. When it came to an end where they moved us to Teacher Education Department in the Mackay School of Education. They moved you into the life sciences? Yeah. So when I came, I began working with the secondary program, but very quickly moved into training the elementary Ed majors to teach physical education because in some states, including Utah, there are no trained physical education teachers that deliver physical education to Utah children. There are a few places in one district in particular granite, that does hire trained physical educators. But by and large, physical education falls to the elementary head teachers, so they have to fit physical education into all the other subject areas that they're teaching. And and so that's where I primarily do my work. I also teach for the majors exercise physiology and and healthy and active lifestyle management course, which is a bit of a new idea. And we've enjoyed doing that. And then I have some other responsibilities. We've pioneered some use of technology primarily. Primarily, we crossed over my skills and abilities, learned as a coach to break down game film. Cool. And we've we've begun using that in the classroom to watch our new teachers and to break down how they teach. So we do film study, an idea from coaching to analyze the skills and abilities and help help them address their deficiencies in the classroom as they teach performance. Teaching is a performance art. Yeah, and there's a skill set that is well defined and and so it's a really nice marriage. So that's those are my primary responsibilities here at BYU.
Cougar :I love it. Thank you. You know, we actually share quite a number of students because so many of our students, they're they're majoring in physical education, teacher education and minoring in school health education. Our students at BYU are amazing. I think you would agree. And they're they're terrific teachers. And yet what I've heard you just say is we have a problem in Utah schools. I hope it's okay to say it that way. This is a problem in that in that we're not always hiring those that are qualified and trained and endorsed in physical education to lead physical education programs and elementary schools. So really, I have two questions here. One, how can we encourage schools? So I'm a parent and I just happened to be really familiar, Kevin, with Mountains of Data that shows that healthy students are better students. And I do care about writing and arithmetic. I do care about STEM, but I, I absolutely recognize there are diminishing returns. The more and more a school focuses on STEM at the expense of some of these other programs music, education, physical education, health, education. It's it's a fool's errand. It really is. So how can I promote with schools, with with the local school administrator the importance of hiring a highly qualified physical education teacher to actually have a program, not a piecemeal? Well, yeah, know, we let the kids go outside for 20 minutes last Wednesday. No, I'm talking about actual physical education program.
Keven :I think, first of all, we need to educate By and large, they do not value physical education and perhaps in part that's our fault. I think that we need to have quality physical education that they actually recognize does deliver some unique learning outcomes. And physical education, as it turns out, really does offer. A whole list of unique learning outcomes and and that are accomplished. Nowhere else in the school. Schools without a quality physical education program and a commitment to such are emphasizing math and and science and technology and and engineering, the STEM kinds of sorts of things. If that's the if they go after those outcomes, they they often overlook the value of the creative part of each student. And and physical education makes a claim and I think a good claim that we don't just teach the minds of the children, which would be cognitive learning outcomes, but that we also teach to the physical or psychomotor. Outcomes, and that we also teach to the affective outcomes and psychomotor, you know, the ability to move with with competence and affective has a lot to do with attitudes. And so if you suddenly take away two out of the three major learning components, the psychomotor and the affective, what you're left with is cognitive, without really a place to express all of that cognitive learning. And so I think if we kind of re conceptualize physical education for its unique contributions to the learning of children, I think that's a first good step. And then I think you have to recognize that physical education isn't just something you do if you have time to do it. But it is it is often the place where where a lot of the concepts being taught in the classroom in those STEM topics are actually put in practice. So we consider physical education to be the lab experience for all of all of their classroom learning. Think about it this way. If we were to talk about social studies and and and some of the hot topics that are out there today about getting along with others and being inclusive and and and finding a place for all people to to belong, where do we practice that? It's nice to hear the ideas, but where do we actually practice that? Well, if you put 35 kids into a gymnasium and you start saying, well, let's let's work together and and you form partners with people no matter who they are. Well, know, you've you've taught inclusion. And if you have some students who want to form cliques, we have ways to break those up and teach them about. Let's make sure that everybody has a place to belong and that everybody has a role to play, a voice to hear. And so there's probably no better place where we practice those ideas of equity, inclusion, equality, belonging and all of those social, social ideas that are plaguing our society right now. What's the best place to practice those fairness, fair mindedness being helpful to others? And then then if you think about science, is there any science that undergirds physical education? Only a mountain of it. You know, everything from biology to physiology to. Mathematics that go into understanding movement and movement patterns. And. And the nature of our gameplay is often riddled with with scoring and scoring schemes and that sort of thing. So so I very much look at this as we have to look at physical education for the unique contributions that it makes and for the complementary role that it plays for classroom subjects to then be put into practice immediately. And and with a little bit of collaboration between the PE folks and and the classroom teachers, that's easily done and very successfully done.
Cougar :Really well said. I can imagine that there are some listeners out there maybe my age who are thinking back and saying, Yeah, I love what Kevin's saying about physical education and that is not the experience I had. The teacher rolled the ball out. It was a free for all. There was little supervision or we all had to run a mile and a half and 8 minutes or you didn't get an A. That is old school gym. We always talk about new math. You know, I think I've gone through about four versions of new math. I would love for our listeners to realize we have new physical education and what you and your colleagues have done here at BYU in the 15 years I've been here and transforming this program and having a high level of accountability for our students and really teaching them the pedagogy of physical education. It's remarkable. I, I wish everyone could see what your students are capable of and what they do at a in a K through 12 setting. It's remarkable.
Keven :Well, I appreciate the compliment. We do try very hard. We have looked at the the past and present. We've written actually a paper. It's called a critical Look at physical education. And it was meant to be a critique of our own practices. And and and I mentioned right at the beginning of my last answer that part of the problem has been ours. And it remains to be ours. We have we have physical educators who who find that there is a lack of accountability for their job performance, and largely because the principals look at physical education as a bit of a dumping ground and it's okay to have 75 kids in a classroom. Well, if you're a teacher and you're serious about your teaching and passionate about individuals learning, how are you going to accomplish that? With 75 kids in every classroom? It's impossible. And and so, you know, the administration has to understand that, that our learning outcomes are as important as anything that happens in the classroom and and make sure that classroom sizes are smaller. But then if you do get those kinds of classes that you can work with, you need to do your job as a physical educator. And we we make kind of a strong argument in that paper that kind of calls out the physical educators or those that we say, roll out the ball.
Cougar :Right.
Keven :It, roll out the ball and let the kids just And and there really isn't a lot of accountability towards that.
Cougar :So here's my question. Finally, Kevin, is for for a parent, what's the best way to go about encouraging young people, their children in their home, to be physically active so they can benefit from those those. Those healthy choices and decisions.
Keven :Well, going back to my last answer, I think, be involved in every aspect of their child's education and and physical education included. So much of our children's learning is is done by doing. And we're not sitting in desks, we're up doing in physical education. And so so I think in support of good physical education is really important. Then the the some of the other things that we try to do is we have a very specific goal in physical education is that if we've done it right, just like a mother who raises their children, raises them to be independent and not need their mother. Which is a kind of a sad, bittersweet.
Cougar :Right.
Keven :And notion. But in physical education, what worked ourselves out of a job, meaning that the kids can independently choose to be physically active in a variety of different ways for a variety of different outcomes, because they have learned to do that. And there are so many offerings that that adults have that if we don't prepare them as children and adolescents to be aware of and have the skill set to to access those offerings and then participate in them, then we're going to struggle to have active adults. And one of the one of the first realizations I think is really important is that research is very, very clear on this, is that the adults. Who are always worried about whether their children are active and enough are actually they themselves the least active segment of our society and children who they worry so much about being physically active are actually the most active segment of our society. Interesting. So there's a really huge misconception going on there. And we would do well as adults to look to children. Well, how are you physically active? And what we find is that the patterns of adult activity have been reduced down to what I think slick marketing has convinced us that, well, that's the way you exercise. You go to the gym, you buy the leotards, you you buy the iPods, you put them in your ears, you turn your music on and you isolate yourself away from everybody else on a series of machines or spin cycles or rowing machines or track or in a pool or someplace like that. And you work hard for 30 minutes, steady state, get your heart rate up into that training zone. And and and it tends to be a recipe that no one can actually stick with. A few do. He always remember everybody had had the New Years. This year, this year I'm going to buy the gym membership and I'm going to go, Well, that lasts on average, about two weeks. Mm hmm. There are adults about 24% of our adult population that are active chronically, daily, but they are very much the minority. The children, however, about 70% of them are active, but they're active in a different way. And I think if we learn something about that, how are they active? Well, instead of engaging in 30 minutes or cramming that exercise in there because we got all sorts of responsibilities, they've got to go to work. I've got to get the kids going. I got to cook dinner and I got to cram my exercise into 30 minutes. So it's got to be intense. But kids aren't like that. Kids have the most enjoyable form of physical activity is they will look at something, they'll go engage in it, They'll run really hard until they get tired. And I think we can learn something from that. I think that we know that children are not like little adults when it comes to exercise. But I think adults are more like little children. Then the other way around. And so my. My recommendations in this particular article were were. You know, if you're thinking about your activity patterns, don't overlook some of the things you're already doing. If you're walking around the neighborhood that counts, it doesn't have to be in the gym. Right. If you like to hike with your kids and go to beautiful places, that counts. What we've done is discount some of the things that are what we call lifestyle activities. If you ride a bike, if you if you like to go fishing, I do. Which often takes me on a three mile hike to a remote stream somewhere where I can catch the fish and then the three mile hike back out. Sure. That all counts. And. And don't overlook things like housework. Housework is actually very strenuous. And every homemaker in America would agree with that. In fact, I just saw an article in in our News Feed that they've they've equated now a full time homemaker to two and a half full time jobs outside the house. The amount of work that they do. Wow. So that's a tremendous contribution to to your physical activity levels. Yard work. Yard Work is physical. Gardening is physical. Think about all the times you are up and down and standing over, bending over, picking up things, moving this, moving that, digging holes. So let's not overlook these lifestyle forms of physical activity. And then we can include in that, if you wish, gym memberships, there's an environment, culture, if you will, in gyms that may not suit everybody and but there are places that you can go. Often community fitness centers are a really good option to some of the for profit gyms. They offer community types of programs for a variety of different people, and those are all good. As far as sports go, there tend to be a few adult leagues in certain sports that go on, and those are still, if you want to continue in your sporting pursuits. But by and large, people are starting to enjoy things that are more free flowing. Pickleball, for example, is has taken off here in Utah County. Pickleball courts everywhere. Why? Well, there's a fairly short learning curve. The game is still evolving. There's a really congenial group of people that. Show up at the pickleball courts just to play with anybody else that will show up. And while there there are professional leagues now and whatnot, there's a there's a really nice culture, I think, built around that and other other things too. But things come and go. Tennis used to be that way. Not as much anymore. So those are some of the things that I advocate. I think that taking care of your diet is important. There's 1,000,001 diets on every. Grocery store newsstand. Look at any magazine. I guarantee you, without fail, there will be a little place on the front page that says new diet.
Cougar :Right.
Keven :And they recycle those all over the place. But ultimately, I think. This all is under the umbrella of how do I want to live my lifestyle? And lifestyle has been taken over by career. To the point that we only think about career, but we and it has such a huge impact on our lifestyle. Mm hmm. But we don't have time to pursue a lifestyle or some of those fun gadgets like. A boat that we might want to use. Because careers and career choices tend to. Take away from other lifestyle pursuits. And so then what happens is we start to fall into what's been called the Western lifestyle. Which has deleterious health outcomes. Chronic disease being one of them. Cancer, obesity, diabetes. Those are all lifestyle related diseases, we think, Well, I just got bad genes. Well. Unfortunately, only about 10 to 12%. Of lifestyle diseases that have mentioned are actually due to genetics. They're really due to the lifestyle choices we're making. And so my suggestion would be consider your lifestyle. Is it. Is it leading you to the outcomes that you want? And if it's not, make some changes. Don't make them all at once, but make one they had another and so on.
Cougar :It's clear that we each need to be deliberate planning those things. It feels like it might be different to work 8 hours in the yard on Saturday, as opposed to working a little bit each day in the yard or. And again, that's only possible if we if we prioritize that lifestyle over, you know, the next career advancement and, you know, working another 12 hour day. So so finding that balance and prioritizing our health health is one of those things. If we don't prioritize it, it will exert its its own will.
Keven :Yeah right. It really will. I don't care if you're a neuroscientist, brain surgeon, a rocket scientist, if you don't have good health, all those degrees won't do you any good. Right. You'll be unable to to perform at the level that you want. Yeah. So yeah, health. Health undergirds all of our pursuits. Yeah.
Cougar :It's, it's, it's one of the few things that to, to prioritize and take care of it. I just really appreciate your balance and the way that you approach this. I think I think some of the efforts that I see out there, they do maybe they're counterproductive if they if they create an expectation that's beyond reach for the average person or if they use shame as the primary motivator. And so I just I really appreciate your approach. So I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Kevin, thank you so much. And I've taken a lot of your time today. But I do want to ask one last question. I always ask this of our guests here on why health? Is there anything that you're reading or listening to? Maybe it's a book or a podcast or something that you're thinking about right now and this in this time that's in that's inspiring you? Or maybe it's concerning you, but it's it's it's occupying some of your your mental and emotional bandwidth.
Keven :Yeah. I'm glad you asked that. I really think if we could get. More people who love to teach. But aren't considering teaching as an option to them to take another look. I think they'll find something that really resonates with the notion of lifestyles that we're we're experiencing nowadays. Lifestyle issues are becoming more. More important.
Cougar :Love it. What a great place to end. Right there with a promotion for. For thinking about teaching as a career. Dr. Prosek, thank you for your time. Thanks for joining. Why Health today? Really appreciate it.
Keven :You're very welcome. I appreciate the Thanks for the work that you do. You were so fun to work with on our recent project. And if anybody gets a chance to be in your class, they will enjoy it. And I've heard always terrific reports on how. How much they enjoy your your class.
Cougar :Thank you. Much appreciated.
Keven :You're welcome.
