The most important thing in physical education? “All children should be able and allowed to move,” says Daniela Schmid-Bertl on the phone. “That is the basic requirement.” Schmid-Bertl teaches at a secondary school in Lower Bavaria and is also head of the department for sports at the Bavarian Teachers’ Association – and thus knows first-hand how the subject is doing in Bavaria. A common problem, therefore, is sports groups that are too large for the small gym or for the capacities of a single teacher. Then part of the group has to sit on the edge instead of moving, says Schmid-Bertl. Physical education is so important for the students. If he fails, it will be “fatal”.
But that’s exactly what happened over and over again. For example, because there were no teachers; At some elementary and middle schools, physical education hours were therefore temporarily reduced from three to two. Even at the peak of the corona pandemic, school sport was only possible to a limited extent or not at all. On Thursday, the education committee of the state parliament will try to find out what consequences this has and had – but above all what physical education should look like in the future. Experts are invited to Munich’s Maximilianeum, the hearing is streamed, which only happens at meetings that are found to be of some importance.
The latter could surprise even physical education teachers. Your lessons, important? The minor plays a subordinate role in everyday school life; those who can calculate, read, write and understand facts are promoted. There would be a need for movement. Swimming associations complain about increasing numbers of non-swimmers, health organizations warn of obesity among young people. In addition, sport contributes to personality development – and can teach fairness or to accept and master challenges. In practice, sport could become more important in some types of school anyway. For example, families with elementary school students have a legal right to all-day care from 2026 onwards, which in turn should make more school leisure activities necessary.
The experts in the state parliament agree that there is a need for action. “We need a better position for the subject of sports in schools,” says Ansgar Schwirtz, Professor of Biomechanics in Sports at the Technical University of Munich. The corona pandemic has shown how important health and exercise are.
“The shortage of physical education teachers is a shortage of skilled workers”
The experts also agree that good physical education classes require qualified staff. “The shortage of sports teachers is a shortage of skilled workers,” says Thomas Oswald, sports supervisor at the Ignaz-Kögler-Gymnasium in Landsberg am Lech. His concern: that, like in 2015, gymnasiums could soon be closed to accommodate refugees. At that time, you had to go to other halls by bus, and maybe 60 minutes were left of a double hour of sport. He still sees the resulting “lack of exercise time” in the upper grades.
Of course, the panel of experts cannot and should not solve the refugee question this Thursday. Other question marks also point beyond the conference hall in the state parliament: for example, how swimming lessons can be organized in rural areas, where pools have had to close in recent years because they became too expensive for the communities. That doesn’t make things any easier, though, as assessments of future requirements sometimes differ too much.
Susanne Tittlbach, professor of social and health sciences in sports at the University of Bayreuth, advocates a reform of sports teacher training. This concentrates too much on sports ideas from the 1970s and too little on new ideas that link movement with “cognitive stimuli”. Gereon Berschin, Professor of Sports Science at the University of Passau, disagrees: He says yes to the teacher examination regulations in the previous form. Sports are the core. Berschin also sees the danger that things would be “saddled” onto physical education classes for which more family and society are actually responsible. “We have to think about what the school has to do and what not.”
On the other hand, anyone who asks physical education teachers about the future of their lessons hears one wish above all: that it can take place regularly – and at best on a larger scale. Subject teacher Oswald made a similar statement at the hearing. “We don’t have to talk about a third sports lesson,” he says, “but about a fourth.”