*******New Curriculum Guide, free download
CHANGING THE GAME: WOMEN, RACE, SPORT & MEDIA
Growing up, my participation in physical activities and sport was often questioned. As a brown girl and young woman I really wasn’t seen as ‘the athletic type’. I hesitantly described myself as being somewhat good at sports.
In gym class, I excelled and achieved some success at school sports (never got an MVP, usually sports’man’ship awards).
Despite being cut from some teams I remained in sport spaces through work and leisurely pursuits. Yup, followed a path to become the gym teacher – where I (naively) believed I could make physical education inclusive for all.
Countless young girls were convinced at such a young age that physical education and sport spaces where NOT places in which they belonged. So many reasons contributed to their thinking.
From working at Olympia Sports Camp, teaching phys-ed for 8, years, a number of administrative jobs in sport – I still get asked puzzling questions regarding my abilities.
“Do you know how to throw a football? Can you ACTUALLY teach others how to do it as well?”
“How do you know so much about the NBA and basketball and/or sports in general?”
My PHD work aims to investigate how ‘current’ cultural representations of women are potentially shifting our thoughts around women in physical activity and sport spaces.
I designed a curriculum guide for educators interested in having crucial conversations with students that can hopefully interrogate longstanding beliefs about women, race, media and sport. ******Download for free here
