Papel do professor de Educação Física no desenvolvimento motor de escolares da educação infantil

Abstract

Physical Education (PE) is a compulsory curriculum component in the Brazilian basic education that includes kindergarten/preschool, primary school and high school. In the educational networks, the organization and understanding of whom can teach PE classes in the early years (kindergarten education and primary school) is divergent: some choose and rely on a specialist teacher (PE teacher), and some others choose and rely on a regular teacher (in general, graduated in Pedagogy). Considering the importance of PE in the early years and that these classes can be taught by a specialist teacher or by a regular teacher, does the presence or absence of a specialist teacher influence the motor development of students? Thus, this study aimed to investigate the motor development of children from kindergarten education who take PE classes with a PE teacher and students who take PE classes with a regular teacher. Twenty-nine students from kindergarten education took part in this study and they were divided in two groups: students from a school in which PE classes are taught by a PE teacher (GEsp) and students from a school in which PE classes are taught by a regular teacher (GRef). In order to assess children’s motor development, motor skills and postural control were evaluated at the beginning of the school year and at the end of the school year. Motor skills were evaluated using the TGMD-2, which is composed of 12 motor skills: 6 locomotor skills and 6 object control skills. Postural control was evaluated during upright stance maintenance on a force platform under different vision (opened or closed eyes), and base of support (bipodal and semi tandem stance) conditions, through two variables: variability and velocity of the center of pressure (CP). Results revealed differences in children’s motor development in each group. Regarding motor skills, only GEsp increased TGMD-2 total score from pre- to post-test. When considering the performance obtained separately in each sub-test, results revealed that, from pre- to post-test, both groups improved locomotor skills score, but only GEsp improved object control skills score. Regarding postural control, it was observed that under the condition of closed eyes and semitandem stance, for GRef, variability of CP values in AP direction decreased from pre to post-test; while for GEsp variability of CP values in AP and ML directions increased from pre- to post-test. Based upon these results, it is possible to conclude that there are differences in motor development of children from kindergarten education who take PE classes with a PE teacher and students who take PE classes with a regular teacher. This suggests that a new understanding of whom should teach PE classes must be established, indicating the requirement for licensed teachers in PE to teach PE classes.