I personally cannot subscribe to something wholeheartedly unless I know why I'm doing it. That's why exercise classes or things like CrossFit never really appealed to me. Why are the exercises in this order? Am I training to failure or trying to maintain a tempo? What objective, measurable outcomes can I expect from this workout? I think that is why I gravitated towards powerlifting, because it was very cut and dry whether I got better or not. Did I lift more weight? Good! Did I lift more weight? No. Let’s figure out why by examining the training and see where I fell short, make the necessary changes, and then try again.
Feeling tired after a workout is cool, but what did it accomplish? I could do a lot of things to get tired, but it doesn't mean I've improved at any one thing. Tired should not be the metric of whether I was successful, but intentional improvement. When we think of Vygotsky's Proximal Zones of Development, the goal is to stretch a little further than what the child can do, but still have the ability to be successful. These small victories accumulate, self-confidence is built, and over time, mastery is achieved. There is an obvious plan for the development of students and learning is not haphazard.
I heard that the phrase "to pay attention" is so accurate because attention comes with a cost. A cost of energy, to be precise. Bear with me while I go on a tangent, but I wonder if this is an evolutionary adaptation to not "pay" the "cost of attention" because it is literally saving energy, which can be measured in calories. In the days before supermarkets and refrigerators, when food supply was inconsistent, we had to conserve energy to avoid starvation. To the chagrin of modern humans, this is why we can't grow an infinite amount of muscle or seem to lose our love handles. Our bodies are fighting to keep energy expenditure low because when food is scarce, individuals who do a better job at storing and conserving energy survive, and if they have kids, potentially pass those traits on. While it’s true that our brain uses a disproportionate amount of energy for its size (20% of BMR), research suggests that active thinking doesn’t burn that many calories. Yet, from observation and personal experience, there seems to be a rate limiter to how much mental energy one can devote before they become tired from thinking. What if this is the actual superpower of ADHD? When interest is high enough, the mental rate limiter that would have kicked on long ago is suppressed, and the individual accesses extreme mental focus bordering on obsession.
I have witnessed it many times in my experience as a classroom teacher when a kid becomes lost in their work. You ring the bell or chimes to clean up for lunch, and they look up, wondering where the time went. Dr. Montessori called this “normalization,” and it shares a lot in common with the psychological phenomena of being in a “flow state,” or in a sports context, “being in the zone.” While normalization and flow state share similarities, they are not necessarily the same thing. However, my hypothesis suggests that to achieve a normalized classroom or a flow state, individuals must have a mental buy-in to their work. Another hypothesis is that, for many people, the shortest distance to travel to elicit buy-in comes from the understanding of why they need to do it. In short, the context.
Throughout my teaching experience, whenever students ask "why" they need to know something, I make sure to have a solid answer. Because if I don’t, guess what, those kids are immediately going to tune me out. If I can’t answer why, then why should they need to know it? The phrases "It’s good to know” or “to be a well-rounded student” do not spark interest. There needs to be a reason why the student is going to pay the mental cost of attention to learn something, and a good explanation can motivate and inspire. This is extremely important for your ADHD kids, who can give absolute focus, but only if they are interested in it. Lacking interest can lead to procrastination at best or non-compliance at worst. I almost feel like teachers should have a minor in business because selling is one of the most critical functions of a teacher. We must be performative and convince the student that the content you are giving them is worthwhile and they should invest their attention in it.
The way that I do this in the Montessori PE learning environment is to try and give them “the why” as much as possible. This starts from class number one, which is all about sportsmanship. We spend time not only defining what sportsmanship is, but also why we need to use sportsmanship. While I will tell the students that sportsmanship is the grace and courtesy of the PE classroom, that is not what makes them buy in. It is the copious examples using “If-Then” statements detailing how sportsmanship will affect their ability to form friendships. Here are some examples I share with the students to illustrate why we need to understand and perform sportsmanship through the understanding of the mantra "Be Fun to Play With, Be Fun to Play Against."
- Being fun to play with means that kids will want to play with you.
- When kids want to play with you, you will get more invitations to play.
- The more kids who want to play with you, the more friends you will have.
- Parents who see that you play well with their kid will invite you to their house more often and invite you to celebrations and parties.
- A coach who sees you getting along with teammates will like you more.
- A coach who likes you more will probably have you play in games more.
- The more playing time you get, the better you will become and the more fun you will have.
These statements may seem blunt to the point that some adults might find them harsh or portray sportsmanship as transactional, but that is by design. The purpose is to eliminate the ambiguity of why sportsmanship matters. When kids clearly understand the why and importance of these behaviors, they are more likely to use them. In contrast, when someone is not using sportsmanship, I can clearly articulate that if they continue doing what they are doing, there will be negative consequences that, if left unattended, will impact their sociability. I try my best to avoid vague platitudes like “because it’s the right thing to do.” Most (Montessori) kids would immediately ask, “Why is it the right thing to do?” So we might as well skip to the answer and be upfront with the “why.”
Another way I build in the “why” is through integration with the classroom curriculum. I’m leveraging the fact that their classroom teachers have built in the “why” in the classroom, so when they play a game integrated with classroom content, the “why” is also integrated. This becomes even more apparent when we integrate with a big study like a science fair or an engineering process. When we engage in various activities that replicate the scientific method or the engineering process, they clearly see these systems and frameworks put into use in the real world. There is no mystery as to why we are doing this activity in PE; they clearly see the connection. For significant projects, such as a science fair, which typically takes weeks, we conduct numerous experiments that involve the scientific process. After returning from COVID, where the kids were separated into small pods, which worked great for creating sample groups, I conducted my own research to explore the effects of integrating the scientific method into PE, with a specific focus on supporting their science fair. To put it bluntly, it dramatically increased the students' ability to recall information and, more importantly, think critically. During the engineering fair, we conduct the Invent a Sport series, which follows the design thinking process from idea to prototype to testing. It's always fascinating to see the similarities and differences of the final product between classes and examining how they got there.
Finally, another favorite of mine is playing traditional indigenous sports. There are so many connections to their culture studies built right into the curriculum. Whether it's the history of a sport and how it has evolved over time, or its connections to other components of culture, such as music, dance, food, and religion, there is much to explore. I try very hard to use these connections to entice the students during the introduction, and then during the debrief, explain another facet of the game's importance to the people who played it. Here are some examples I use during debriefs to underscore the importance of the game.
- Native American Lacrosse and Stickball – The game could be used as a substitute for war. The outcome of the game resolved the dispute. Lacrosse literally saved lives.
- Seven Stones (India, Middle East, Southeast Asia) – one of the few games where the objective is to rebuild after destruction, which is symbolic of the course of nature and the resilience one must show in life when things fall apart.
- Traditional Aboriginal Games (Australia) – Many of these games taught practical life skills necessary for survival in sometimes harsh environments. The Aborigines truly understood that children learn through playing games.
- Ko Ko and Kabaddi (India) – Both games reenact military tactics from the sacred Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. This becomes a natural segue into a discussion on religion and culture using ancient source material.
- Cuju (China) – Quite possibly the first version of soccer ever recorded, which comes as a surprise to many students that the origin of soccer didn’t come from Latin America or Europe.
- Beikou (Mongolia) – Beikou is a field hockey-style game that the Daur people played for centuries. During one of the Olympics, a quarter of the Chinese national field hockey team came from a town in Mongolia with fewer than one hundred thousand people, despite China having over a billion people.
- Ta Kurt Om El Mahag (North Africa) – A fascinating examination into the heart of African baseball and its origins, which connect to human migration.
- Townball (United States) – A fun way to see how different versions of baseball coalesced into modern baseball, as well as how cricket and rounders transformed into an authentic American sport.
- Pato (Argentina) – Underscores the importance of horses in the development of the country. Modern-day horses were not related to the indigenous horses in the Americas, but were brought over from Europe in a fascinating socio-biological experiment.
- Xikunahati (Brazil) – Directly connects to the religion and origin story of the Paresi-Haliti people.
- Harpastum (Ancient Romans) – A precursor game to modern rugby used by Julius Caesar to coax his soldiers to train.
- Medieval Football – Quite possibly the ancestor sport of modern rugby, soccer, American football, and Australian Rules football, based on the rules set of "Mob football." The adoption of the modern versions of the sport across the world is directly connected with English colonization.
- Ancient Longball – A fun look into the origins of bat and ball games, and it influenced dozens of bat and ball sports across Europe.
- Ki-O-Rahi – The game has a deep connection to the mythology of the Māori people by recreating the different planes of existence as well as the cycle of life within the playing mechanics of the game.
- Mesoamerican ball game – Another game that had deep connections to religion, completely integrated with other aspects of culture, and was used to solve disputes.
- Ancient Babylonian Polo – The game comes from descriptions of a game played in the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest writings in humanity.
- Rugby (specifically for South Africa) – I recount the story of how Nelson Mandela used rugby and the South African team, the Springboks, to unite a country that was on the precipice of civil war.
In the end, everything comes back to answering the question of why. Whether in the weight room, the classroom, or on the playing field, real growth and engagement only happen when there is purpose behind the work. Students, like athletes, need to see the connections, understand the value, and believe that their effort will lead to something meaningful. When we as educators take the time to make those reasons clear—through sportsmanship, curriculum integration, cultural connections, or simply being honest about outcomes—we invite students to invest their attention, energy, and focus. And when they buy in, that’s when the magic happens: the flow state, normalization, and ultimately, a deeper love of learning and playing.
If you made it all the way through the blog and are interested in learning more, I want to remind everyone that there is one week left for the back to school sale where you can save $100 off the Lifetime Memebership, which gives you permanent access to every lesson plan and video tutorial now and all new ones that will be created and uploaded in the future.