Movement and Play on Higher Education's Contested Terrain

Despite the inescapability and value of skilled movement and play in people's lives, higher education has been reluctant to embrace either one. Motor activity in the context of games and play has been called nonintellectual, nonacademic, nonessential, and nonartistic. These four labels can be used to show how we lose four successive games in academe. These contests exist in the form of four dichotomies: (a) theory versus practice, (b) intellectual practice versus physical practice, (c) useful physical practice versus ornamental physical practice, and (d) ornamental physical practice that is art versus ornamental physical practice that is not art. This analysis shows that our field has two fundamental strategies at its disposal if it wants to fare better in this academic tournament. Physical education can agree to the games as they have been presented and try to get on the winning teams for one or more of the four contests. Or it can rebel against the rules of the tournament themselves and show either how the games are invalid or the judging is flawed.