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Health & Physical Education
Mission Statement
The philosophy of the Mount Carmel Academy Health and Physical Education Department is centered on an appreciation of and respect for the human body as created by God. Classes provide an atmosphere focused on enhancing physical, mental, social, and spiritual attributes through meaningful physical activity and teamwork in order to promote life long movement.
The Health and Physical Education department at Mount Carmel Academy consists of six faculty members. Classes are divided into grade levels when class size permits.
The Health and Physical Education department encourages an appreciation of and respect for the human body as created by God. As such, we offer ways to enhance students' mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. It is our hope that students will incorporate health wellness and physical movement/exercise into their daily lives. We recognize the vital part that Health and Physical Education class plays in helping the student to formulate a healthy lifestyle. The goal is for our students not only to be life-long movers, but life-long learners.
Students are given opportunities in a variety of lifetime activities. On any given day, students in Mount Carmel Academy physical education classes may be found participating in Aerobics, Badminton, Basketball, Flag Football, Floor Hockey, Golf, Ping Pong, Scooter relays, Soccer and Volleyball. In 2004- 2005 school year we opened the new Assembly center. The facility, equipped with collegiate basketball court, volleyball court and new state of the art fitness/strength center was incorporated into our daily classes.
Student PE curriculums are designed to incorporate both individual and team sports. We believe it is important that everyone learns how to achieve goals as individuals and in a team context. Students are pre-assessed on rules and regulations prior to participation in any sport, and fair play and sportsmanship are stressed throughout the department.
Rubrics are utilized to assess students in areas including: dressing out, attitude and participation, rules pre-assessments and traditional assessments on the classroom-based health instruction component of the curriculum.
The "dressing out" grade requires students to accept personal responsibility for being prepared on a daily basis by reporting to class on time and in proper uniform. Attitude and participation are very important because not all of our students are athletes. We recognize and accept this fact and encourage everyone to do her best. Of course, we would be remiss in our responsibilities to simply roll out a ball and tell students to play. That is why pre-assessment on the rules of each particular activity is required. Finally, our health curriculum covers areas including: cancer in women, STDs, First Aid, personal safety and environmental safety. Classes are rotated in three-week blocks so that each instructor is given access to every area in the gym and outside. Our curriculum is aligned with the National and Louisiana Standards for Health and Physical Education.
Through it all, we strive to create an atmosphere that is conducive for each student to express her own uniqueness in each activity. We believe that correct form can be taught, whether a student masters a skill is another matter. We never grade a student, therefore, based on mastery of a particular skill. Rather, we strive to convince students to embrace a lifestyle that incorporates physical activity. We strongly believe that our success will be our students' success that results in a long, healthy and productive life that benefits themselves and their families.
* As a result of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, our Health and Physical Education department lost everything. Our gyms had ten to four feet of water and all of our equipment was destroyed. All of our results from the previous years Presidential fitness tests were gone. We opened Mount Carmel Academy in January 2006, five months after the storm. We had four full-time Health and Physical Education teachers, two less than pre-Katrina. We had no gyms and very little equipment. Classes were held on the fourth floor in the Walker Street building. We did different creative activities to help our students recover and build a new sense of what 'normal' was post Katrina. I contacted Mark Manross, Executive Director for PECentral.org. He arranged for our story to be placed on their webpage and have companies and organizations send any type of equipment to us. The results were amazing- Physical Education equipment began to arrive. We were overwhelmed and felt truly blessed by the outpouring of support from across the country. In August 2006, we began our school year with two working gyms and six full time Health and Physical Education instructors. We again began to document results from our Presidential Fitness test and added pedometers to our program. It has been inspiring to see our students to come back ready to learn and participate in our curriculum. New and cross-curricular units are being written and taught. We look forward to continuing to educate our students in the importance of health and physical education as a lifetime activity.
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