“Physical Education teachers should not be under the illusion that they are Athletic coaches.” Says Bjorn Wengamann (Former Director of Development to the IAAF) at the Athletic Development Programme for Kids held at the Piliyandala Central College last week. “The reason I say this”, He explained, “Is that children under the age of 12 should not be trained to specialize in a certain event or events. The main purpose of a P.E Teacher is to give children an overall education on sport and to teach them the basic motor skills and more than anything else to encourage children to play.”

Bjorn Wengamann – Pic by Ranjith Perera

“Children should be given the opportunity to try their hand at all the events. Most world class athletes, except maybe for the marathon runners, are people who have taken part in all events when they were young. The reason for this is an athlete who is a good High Jumper as a kid, for example, might turn out to be a champion Javelin Thrower. And even if he doesn’t go on to be an athlete and chooses a whole different sport after he becomes an adolescent, then all the basic motor skills required for that sport have already been developed in the P.E classroom.

For instance a Cricketer needs to be able to run, jump, and throw. So this base if be set early in life, makes the lives of the higher level coaches so much easier.” He went on to point out that, “ In most places in the world a teacher chooses maybe the best 5 students in a certain event and the rest of the class are given a ball to play with and are left to fend for themselves, this makes these children lose interest in sport alltogether. Kids are not miniature adults; they lose interest in things much faster, so they must be taught to enjoy physical activity and not made to start competing too early.

They must be made to enjoy activity and just have fun while learning. Then they will start to love what they do. If they get disheartened early they may never get to see or feel the beauty of sport.”

“So what we hope to achieve from this programme is for P.E. teachers to do just that, to develop fun games for kids and to make their own athletic equipment with cheap material which cost them next to nothing. But more than anything else just to let children enjoy their P.E classes rather than treat them as another part of the curriculum.”