Stepping Up to Build Health


Run to win.
Give it everything you’ve got.
Stay alert and in top condition.
These characteristics are often used to describe successful athletes, but Paul uses them when he urges Christians to think of their own lives as athletes: spiritually training themselves to think and act like Christ, to whole-heartedly pursue eternal life with God (The Message, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27). 
 
With this passage in mind, the PE department has chosen “STEP UP” as its Teaching for Transformation* storyline. Through the “STEP UP” theme, the department desires that students 1) step closer in their relationship with God, 2) focus on small steps of progress towards goals, and 3) take steps of responsibility and initiative in doing the right thing. 
   
PE teachers across the three divisions share how they see their classes support healthy living:

• PE provides students a way to see how overcoming fitness challenges in PE can be applied to facing other challenges in their lives.
• PE provides students with the opportunity to set goals and see measurable progress towards those goals. 
• PE focuses on students’ individual strengths through goal-setting, creative challenges, and measurable reflection. Visual data and technology provide ways to recognize and celebrate student achievement.
• PE focuses on building strength as well as developing skills, but also builds awareness of safety so that injuries or breakdowns can be prevented. Students need to know that emotional, spiritual, and physical stresses can lead to fatigue; a physically weak body lends itself to weak systems that make the body more susceptible to illness or breakdown.
  

*Teaching for Transformation is a program used at CAJ to help teachers highlight God’s story more fully in their various teaching subjects.