WEST ORANGE, NJ — Sit-ups, push-ups, running and learning game rules can be activities that young teens dislike doing in gym class. What if physical education teachers could come up with a program that students would actually want to do?
Robert Berke, Corinn Giaquinto, Bryan Azzato and Meredith Schwartz, the physical education and health teachers at Edison Middle School, worked together to come up with an educational unit that would incorporate skill-related fitness components in a fun way, and the sports combine was born.
“At each department meeting, we share best practice lessons as a way to spread great lessons across the district,” K-12 Supervisor of Health and Physical Education Kevin Alvine said in a release. “After watching the teachers at Edison teach this combine and seeing how much fun their students had with it, I asked the Edison PE staff to explain and teach the lesson to the rest of the middle school and elementary staff at one of our meetings.”
Six stations were set up around the EMS gym and students rotated from activity to activity in teams. The combine included six stations: over and under hurdles, vertical jump, cone weave, broad jump, shuttle run and sprint. The goals of the combine are agility, balance, coordination, power, speed and reaction time.
During the week of March 7, Edison, Liberty, Gregory, Pleasantdale, Redwood and St. Cloud schools conducted the combine class.
“This is a great way for our community to see the innovative Health and Physical Education programs for our students,” Alvine said.
Photos Courtesy of Cynthia Cumming
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