Body expression

Although body expression is included as a content block in the Royal Decree, most of the times is skipped. Unfortunately, I have not been an exception and I hardly worked body expression during my years in primary and secondary education. Concerning primary, I do not remember having learnt any body expression in PE classes. On the contrary, I worked with it during some music classes preparing dances for the last of the term, learning how to dance "chotis" or preparing representations for the Peace Day. I think that all these activities were focused on the idea of identifying body expression with doing choreographies but I think that the concept is wider and it implies how to understand the world and how to communicate this with your own body. Therefore, this activities were partially body expression, since teachers did not allow students change the steps nor did they encouraged creativity. In conclusion, I worked a little of body expression when I was young, but only in a passive way.

                  

During my secondary school years, I worked body expression twice. One time was preparing a choreography. But then again the concept of body expression was a little bit misunderstood because it happened as in primary education. However, I had a teacher in second of ESO who really taught us some of the ideas. We were asked to listen a song and we had to move freely. Then the teacher told us some ideas or feelings and we had to performed them with our body. Finally, we had to invent a creative-movement sequence in which we had to tell a story. This sequence had to suit with the song. The groups had some classes to think about what the music transmitted, what the story would be and what were the movements for each person. Finally, all the groups presented their creative-movement sequences and the rest of the students had to interpret them. From my point of view, this was a truly activity of body expression and it was very enjoyable.

                                    

Sometimes, the fact that body expression is skipped is explained as a gender problem. On the whole, girls often show a more positive attitude towards this kind of activities than boys. From my point of view, this is a matter of stereotypes and prejudices most of the times and PE teachers have to deal with this. For instance, "boys don't dance" and "girls are bad at sports". Of course, this is not true, but it makes that participation and attitudes are predetermined even before explaining the activities. This is a pity because both genders refuse to do some things or even refuse to believe in their own capabilities, which is worse from my point of view. However, at the end of the activities is shown that effort, willingness and self-esteem play a very important role.

On the other hand, I think that boys feel more insecure while doing body expression because they are less used to it than girls. Dealing with coordination and rhythm it is not always an easy task. But here the role of the teacher is very important, since body expression should not foster comparison or discouragement. Body expression activities (as all the rest of the contents in PE) should be chosen because they are fun and because they foster self-esteem and relationships among mates. 

                                  

In addition, if the teacher knows how to manage the class, body expression activities do work for girls and boys. For instance, the activity that I described above. Maybe not all the students were comfortable or even confident with the task that they had to perform. However, two aspects were essential for the activity to succeed: team work and creativity. For those who were less skilled, the help of the mates was really useful and those who were uncomfortable, owing to prejudices towards it, had the opportunity to make their own creative-movement sequence and to realize that there is no good or bad way of expressing themselves. Moreover, there are some readings that can help to teach body expression. The article that we had to read was very interesting and gave a creative approach towards these issue, something that I think that is essential so as not to stigmatize body expression.

                                

All these ideas were shown in the practical class in which two groups proposed different activities. The main idea that I learnt from the first group was that music is a really good tool when working with children. It can help us to relax them, to activate them or even to have fun. In addition, body expression is really connected with music since both of them try to express feelings and ideas so the link can be really clear for children to understand.

                        

On the other hand, the next group showed us an idea that I really like that is that body expression is much more than dancing. There a wide range of activities that we can do with our pupils and that is the best way to eradicate all the prejudices that I mentioned above. All these activities were really funny thus children would realize that body expression is not a gender issue at all but a way to interact with other people. Body expression then it is essential in order to develop the social domain. But if teachers keep on skipping this content, they won't only decrease the learning but they won't complete the task of giving students a whole education.