American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance - AAHPERD

 Issue: September 2004

Aesthetics in Action
Judith B. Alter

Abstract:
This article applies the principles and concepts of the aesthetics of movement to actual physical education teaching situations. It does so by discussing the author’s one-day observations of several middle school physical education classes taught by three different teachers. During these classes, the teachers taught students how to calculate and use their training heart rate, how to shoot basketball foul shots, and how to complete supervised circuit-training consisting primarily of weight training and jogging. The description of these three different lessons demonstrates how the concepts of the aesthetics of movement fit into and enhance these class activities and facilitate student learning, understanding, skill improvement, and deep personal satisfaction.

The study of aesthetic experience focuses on understanding and appreciating beautiful form in all human activity. Several concepts can help students learn to appreciate beautiful movement. These concepts include understanding how to respond to aesthetic experiences, identifying the aesthetic features of nonmoving objects and people in their environment, recognizing the aesthetic components of movement (space, time, energy, flow), discovering the characteristics of movement patterns, and learning the evaluation criteria for aesthetic quality in all movement activities. This article suggests how to incorporate the sixth- and eighth-grade aesthetics concepts and principles into the three classes that were observed. Following each activity, the relevant concepts and grade levels for those concepts are given.

Article category: Concepts and Principles of Physical Education-Part 2