Effective Teaching Competences in Physical Education

In his training and experiential path, the physical education (PE) teacher will be considered qualified and “competent”, only when he/she will be able to affect positively and effectively the educational relationship with the students by helping and leading them towards the acquisition of that particular form of intelligence, which from now on, we will call “body-kinesthetic” or “motor” intelligence. For a long time now, the concept of "competence" has been adopted within various fields and referred to different dimensions to indicate the level of ability to do something. For this reason, it is currently challenging to provide a univocal definition of competence since its meaning varies according to the context and the topic of the discussion. From an educational perspective, the PE teacher’s competence should not simply indicate his basic knowledge, intended as the sum of specific and sectorial knowledges consolidated though the experience, nor his teaching skills, intended as pure technical-professional skills. Indeed, a third indispensable component that has to be integrated in the concept of competence, can be identified in the individual character, attitude and personal traits of the teacher. Finally, a fourth component is the high success rate of the teaching and didactic process. Only the combination of these four distinct but related components, will qualify the teacher to deliver high quality teaching and to be considered “competent”.