The Criteria for Personal Growth
Dewey noted that interest, unlike practical ability, is difficult to understand by observation alone. Another leading philosopher of education, Pat Wilson, also thought genuine pupil interests take time to reveal themselves (MacAllister, 2013b; Wilson, 1971). It seems possible to gain a degree of insight into levels of interest through noting degrees of effort and perseverance, and indices of physical engagement can be measured by heart rate monitors and such like. However, to fully appreciate the reasons why students are fully engaged with their experiences, language is needed. As Pring (2007, p. 37) noted, in interpreting Dewey, “to disconnect language from the activity of the child is to make it alien, bereft of meaning.” Arnold (1979) somewhat reluctantly noted the same point when developing his ideas on meaning and movement in sport and physical education. He commented that “language and the scope it offers must remain the only way forward” provided language does not become a substitute for movement (Arnold, 1979, p. xiii). However, a criticism of Dewey is that despite noting the importance of language, he failed to use it to identify clearly the criteria against which personal growth could be measured. Thus, there is only a partial connection with elaborations about how the internal and objective conditions of education could be used to build up curricula from students’ previous experiences. We consider that recent theorizing by Tiberius (2012) in borrowing from Aristotle's interest in eudaimonism (human flourishing) and Sumner's (1996) ideas on developing a subjective theory of well-being can help provide a more specific set of well-being criteria. Tiberius (2012) specified that values need to be adequately informed by information and experience, suit us emotionally (as engagement with longer term goals requires learner motivation) and compatible with our personal ideals. Thus, what Tiberius (2008; 2012) combines are subjective elements such as ordinary matters we care about e.g., the feeling of being engrossed in experiences which engage fully our skills and interests as well as normative measures connected with life satisfaction, relationship satisfaction and meaningfulness goals. These normative measures should not be so hyper-idealized that they limit motivational engagement or so detached that they become unrealistic to achieve. In taking these ideas forward in physical education, the onus would be on identifying values that are informed by reflection and experience and which can articulate with students’ current needs and perceived longer terms goals. Thus, the habit of taking part regularly in physical education can link with on-going reflections about ones values. We think student engagement in this type of learning process could ensure that values avoid being things merely held in the mind rather than acted upon.
Progress in this way would recognize the importance of achieving greater curriculum coherence, where there is an acknowledgement that engaging with student subjective-informed ideas, feelings, and tensions is a necessary feature of education (Buchmann and Floden, 1992). In such settings there would be degrees of complexity and uncertainty, but also opportunities for students to review, discuss, and test their ideas and decisions. Furthermore, the capacity these learning environments have for students to recast and update their knowledge, skills and values, should help alleviate concerns teachers might have over curriculum fragmentation. We consider that this brief pedagogical review is consistent with social constructivist learning theories, and with evidence from self-determination theories of motivation that highlight how students should be able to develop optimal levels of interest and motivation within formalized and organized physical education learning environments (Sun & Chen, 2010).
In addition, Thorburn and Horrell (2012) have explored how the values and criteria identified by Tiberius (2008) and Tiberius and Swartwood (2011) could merge with current curriculum modeling requirements in Scotland. If further developed these ideas might help students make more informed and meaningful decisions about physical education and the types of lives they wish to lead in future years. Modeling ideas such as these could build on Brinkmann's (2007) advocacy of a more substantive and explicit reasoning approach to assessment which helps students make informed and wise judgments that show evidence of discernment, deliberation and effective decision-making. If these connections are authentic, then physical education programs could contain the capacity for cultivating the skills and affective states associated with making autonomous and reflective judgments on how to live well and wisely. If such a first person perspective on learning was adopted, then experiential learning could dovetail with the acquisition of knowledge (of skills, fitness, training, and healthy living) in ways that equip students with the habits, skills and values to make coherent well-being decisions in future years. Such a perspective could also ensure that inaccurate versions of learning experiences or unnecessarily severe self-assessments were avoided.