Freeskiers’ Specific Ways of Knowing in Moving

Author(s):

Gunn Nyberg(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Paper

Session Information

18 SES 10 A, 'Physical' Education: Dilemmas and Considerations

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-04

15:30-17:00

Room:

B103 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Maud Hietzge

Contribution

The aim of this presentation is to provide examples of what there is to know, from the perspective of the mover, when knowing how to move in specific ways. It will be discussed how the findings can contribute to ideas for both teaching and learning capability to move in the context of physical education.

The capability to move in terms of coordination, body consciousness, bodily expressions and creating movements does not seem to be an explicit educational objective in physical education (PE), neither nationally in Sweden (Larsson et al. 2007, 2005, Ekberg 2009, Redelius et al. 2009) nor internationally (Kirk 2010, p. 29, Tinning 2010, p. 29, Shusterman 2004, Whitehead 2005, Evans 2004). Internationally, the capability to move in terms of ‘sport techniques’ is dealt with, albeit in a superficial way (Kirk 2010, p. 29). This means that ‘sport techniques’ as an educational content are mostly taught at an introductory level or conceived of as a more or less taken-for-granted ability for being good at PE (Evans 2004, Kirk 2010). In Sweden, being physically active, no matter how and in what forms, has become an overarching aim in PE (Nyberg and Larsson 2012, Redelius et al. 2009) and consequently the capability to move seem to be a taken-for-granted prerequisite for, or outcome of, being physically active. Despite the PE subject’s tradition of being a ‘practical subject’, theoretical knowledge has nevertheless come to the fore (Hay 2006, Green 2010, Brown and Penney 2013), meaning that practical knowledge such as knowing how to move in different ways has become a mundane and more or less insignificant part of the subject. If knowing how to move is conceived as a fundamental part of the educational content in PE, this kind of knowing needs to be explored, understood and articulated in order to (re)conceive it as an educational goal, possible to develop.

In this study, knowing how to move is seen in line with Michael Polanyi’s (2002) theory of tacit knowing where knowing is always rooted in personal experience and comprising what Ryle (2009) calls ’knowing how’ as well as ’knowing that’. The personal, and to a large extent tacit knowing, can be conceived of as ‘knowing as an art’ (Polanyi 1975, p. 33), in contrast to conceiving physical skills as plain mechanical skills, as they might be described when dichotomized from mental skills. Tacit knowing evolves in the relationship between the two kinds of awareness, the subsidiary and the focal. By integrating particulars constituting the subsidiary awareness we can comprehend something else which we attend to, our focal awareness (Polanyi 2002, p. 61). This triadic process also indicates a view of knowledge as being knowledge in use, not a state deriving from, or caused by, an intellectual mental process.

The aim of this study was to explore what it means to know complex movements, from the perspective of the mover. The knowing involved in moving is explored in the practice of freeskiing, characterized by a tradition of learning movements where practitioners have a strong commitment to learning how to move in complex, different and new ways.

Method

One main methodological issue to be considered was how to understand someone’s knowing when this, for the most part, is tacit and not easily articulated. Janik (1996), who studied tacit knowing in the exercising of professions, stresses the need to entice the knowing out of the practitioners. Considering also that knowing is not restricted to intellectual, mental processes (Ryle, 2009) it was assumed that a qualitative approach, including in-depth communication with experienced practitioners as well as observations of their actions in moving, could provide data for exploring practitioners’ knowing. The selection of experienced practitioners was made on the assumption that they would be found in a context characterized by a tradition of a strong commitment to learn and create movements in the absence of a coach or a teacher. This might also ensure they were aware of their knowing to a larger extent than would be the case if they had relied on a professional coach or teacher. Due to the season, the context of freeskiing was chosen. Four experienced freeskiers, aged 19 to 24, agreed to participate in the study. Each had been practicing freeskiing since nine or ten years old and recently three had participated in national championships. In order to enhance the athletes’ possibilities to be as specific as possible about their actions, a method called Stimulated Recall (SR) was chosen. Stimulated Recall is a method for enhancing reflection by recalling situations through audiotapes or video recordings (You 2009, p. 9). The freeskiers were video recorded during practice followed by an SR-interview, lasting 60-75 minutes, as soon as possible after practice. During the SR-interviews the skiers were asked to carefully observe their video recorded performance whilst explaining as much as possible what they were doing and what was important to focus on as well as other significant issues in order to succeed with the trick, regardless of if it was a success on the video or not. They were also asked to stop the video, rewind it and use the slow motion function whenever they wanted to. Along with this, complementary questions such as: Can you explain in more detail? How do you manage this? How do you know that? were asked by the interviewer. The SR-interviews were audio recorded and transcribed, with reference to the related video sequence.

Expected Outcomes

The findings show that the freeskiers have developed specific ways of knowing which can be described in line with a triadic process of knowing; the focal awareness, the subsidiary awareness and the knower. For example, during the in-run the skiers’ awareness is focused on their velocity, which constitutes a fundamental base for executing the intended trick. In order to know the degree of their velocity so they can make appropriate adjustments, they rely on ‘particulars’ on which their subsidiary awareness is built and evolved through experience. They have developed a capability to discern and also modify their velocity. They also know how to create and shape frames of reference to which they contrast their velocity and ways of moving. Additionally, the freeskiers know how to navigate their awareness rapidly and when needed. Their awareness is embodied and includes a bodily understanding named by Polanyi as ‘grasping’ (Polanyi 1954, p. 8), which includes understanding and mastering as interwoven. The skiers’ ‘grasping’ is clearly exemplified by the way they know the relationship between movement actions. It seems also to be of significant importance to discern one’s way of moving which probably enhances their capability to discern other skiers’ ways of moving. The skiers have achieved what Duesund (1996) calls the inner value of grasping specific ways of moving which could be analogous with Polanyi’s (1975) description of ‘meaning’. The meaning of knowing a movement is depending on the extent to which the subsidiary awareness can contribute to the focal awareness, Approaching movement education as a possibility to develop specific ways of knowing such as those exemplified in this study will reflect an engagement in the learner’s learning providing also possibilities to create meaningful knowing in moving although this requires time, effort and, if the context is institutional education, pedagogical engagement.

References

Brown, T. and Penney, D., 2013. Learning ‘in’, ‘through’, and ‘about’ movement in senior physical education? The new Victorian Certificate of Education Physical Education. European Physical Education Review, 19 (1), 39-61. Duesund, L., 1996. Kropp, kunskap och självuppfattning [Body, knowledge and self-perception]. Oslo: Universitetsförlaget. Evans, J., 2004. Making a difference? Education and ‘ability’ in physical education. European Physical Education Review, 10 (1), 95-109. Ekberg, J-E., 2009. Mellan fysisk bildning och aktivering. En studie av ämnet idrott och hälsa i skolår 9 [Between physical education and being active. A study of the subject physical education in year 9]. PhD thesis. Malmö: Malmö Studies in Educational Sciences, 46. Green, K., 2010. Examinations in Physical Education: A sociological perspective on a ‘new orthodoxy’. British Journal of Sociology of Education 22 (1), 51-73. Hay, P. J., 2006. Assessment for learning in physical education. In: D.Kirk, D. Macdonald and, M. O’Sullivan, eds. The Handbook of Physical Education. Sage: London. Janik, A. 1996. Kunskapsbegrepp i praktisk filosofi. [Concept of knowledge in philosophy of practice] Skåne län: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion. Kirk, D., 2010. Physical Education Futures. Oxon: Routledge. Larsson, H., Fagrell, B. and Redelius, K. 2005. Kön-Idrott-Skola [Gender-Sport-School]. Available online at: http//www. Idrottsforum.org. Nyberg, G. and Larsson, H., 2012. Exploring ‘what’ to learn in physical education. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, DOI:10.1080/17408989.2012.726982. Polanyi, M., 1954. Skills and Connoisseurship. Atti del congresso di studi metodologici (pp. 381-394). Promosso dal Centro die Studi Metodologici. Torino: Edizioni Ramella. Polanyi, M. and Prosch, H., 1975. Meaning. The University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M., 2002. Personal Knowledge-Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, London: Routledge. Redelius, K., Fagrell, B. and Larsson, H., 2009. Symbolic capital in physical education and health. To do, to be or to know? That is the gendered question. Sport, Education and Society 14(2), 245–60. Ryle, G., 2009. The Concept of Mind. New York: Routledge. Shusterman, R., 2004. Somaesthethics and education: exploring the terrain. In: L. Bresler, ed. Moving bodies moving minds. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher, 51-60. Tinning, R., 2010. Pedagogy and human movement. Theory, practice, research. Oxon: Routledge. Whitehead, M., 2005. Physical Literacy – A Developing Concept. British Philosophy of Sport Association. You, J. A., 2009. Teaching beginning dance classes in higher education: Learning to teach from an expert dance educator. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 10 (23). Retrieved [date] from http://www.ijea.org/v10n23

Author Information

Gunn Nyberg (presenting / submitting)

Stockholm University, University of Dalarna

Falun

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