[Adta] Re: Adta Digest, Vol 14, Issue 16

[Nana59 at aol.com]

Dear Rena,

I'm not sure if what I'm about to mention will help you, but perhaps you 
could report the data to your advantage.  The California Department of Education 
conducted a study on almost a million children in grades 5, 7, 9 and found that 
the children who were the most fit (measured on the Fitnessgram, which 
assesses the multiple fitness component categories) were those who also did the best 
on standardized tests.  One reference for this study is: 
www.sports-media.org/sportapolisnewsletter19.htm  The paper you'll find at this site is entitled 
Does Physical Activity Influence Academic Performance. For more position papers 
on the effects of physical activity on academics, you can go to 
www.aahperd.org This is the web site for the American Alliance for Physical Education, 
Recreation and Dance.  Once on this site, you should click on NASPE (National 
Association for Sport in Physical Education.) The latter has posted several 
position papers on the benefits of exercise.  While the writing is not at all 
focused on the therapeutic effects of dance, you might be able to use some of the 
info provided.

In May of this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics, came out with a 
position paper entitled: Active healthy living: Prevention of childhood obesity 
through increased physical activity.  In this paper, they call for increased 
physical activity in the schools, given that children spend so much of their time 
in school.  Again, this paper is focused on recommendations to stave off the 
effects of obesity on inactive children, but some of what is identified may be 
of benefit. This publication can be found in Pediatrics, 2006, 117 (5), 
1834-1842. 

Another source I would suggest is to look at the literature on resiliency. 
Bonnie Benard has several publications on the subject.  You might look at the 
following: Resiliency, what we have learned,  Nan Henderson has written another 
book that may be of interest here: Resilience in schools: Making it happen for 
students and educators.Sorry, but I don't have the books at my disposal at 
the moment, so I can't give you the publication dates or publishers. I wrote an 
evaluation report for an arts partnership and used this literature to support 
the work that artists do in the school re working with at risk children. 

Hope this is all helpful.  Good luck..
Regards,
Nana Koch 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.adta.org/pipermail/adta/attachments/20061210/5327bccd/attachment.htm