Abstract
Physical literacy, a concept introduced by Britain’s physical education and phenomenological scholar, Margaret Whitehead, who aligned the term with her monist view of the human condition and emphasis that we are essentially embodied beings in-the-world, is a foundational hub of recent physical education curricular revision. The adoption of the term serves a political purpose as it helps stakeholders advocate for the educational, specifically literacy, rights of the whole child. Yet, one might wonder what impact conceptual shifts of becoming “physically literate” in lieu of becoming “physically educated” have on physical education research and practice. Terms such as “reading” the game and metaphors that describe the body as an “instrument of expression” are entering the lexicon of physical education but from a seemingly cognitive frame of reference. Arguably, the extent to which the adoption of physical literacy has on dissolving Cartesian views of the body and the mechanization of movement it performs has yet to be questioned. This article thus acts as an invitation to explore physical literacy in a Merleau-Pontian inspired act of inscribing the world through movement and how a reading of a reversible imprint might awaken a more fluent sense of what it means to become physically literate as new curricular pathways in the field of physical education emerge.
Highlights
Looking very broadly it could be suggested that the overarching characteristics of a physically literate individual are that the person moves with poise, economy and
With a desire to awaken such “intelligence and imagination” as I orient myself toward Whitehead’s definition of physical literacy, a concept that has influenced the curriculum of physical education worldwide (Whitehead, 2010), I begin with a brief reading of my environment in which much of my purposeful motility is situated
As we step on the path of curriculum transformation, shaped by the existential and foundational concept of physical literacy, I wonder, what sensations might become ingrained? In sharing such an intimate, phenomenological exploration of my traces in the snow, mud and grass that shape my countless motile journeys in the fields and forest behind my house, I wonder how this might contribute to a curricular understanding of physical literacy
Summary
Ingold (2004) theorizes, “People as they walk the streets, leave no trace of their movements, no record of their having passed by. Note that “tele” means “far off, afar, at or to a distance” (online etymology dictionary, 2011) and by watching television while walking, the direction of one’s gaze does just that, creates a distance between what one is seeing from what one is physically doing Such dissociation numbs what might be awakened if we were to experience the fullness of a tread in the chiasm of our breathing bodies (Gintis, 2007) and breathing world (Abram, 2010), a technological numbness that Ihde (2002) alludes to as a “thinning” within a possible “thickness” of Merleau-Ponty’s elemental flesh. Attention is directed to the mechanistic break down of movement the Cartesian body performs where learning is narrowed to the process of acquiring sport-specific techniques, that if perfected, may be applied to a game (Rink, 2006)
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