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Daily Pilot
Creating classroom calisthenics
Active Learning program puts exercise on a par with academic performance
Jeff Benson, Daily Pilot
Hiba Shublak's students are so excited to learn that they're jumping up and down about it.
Shublak, a 30-year-old Costa Mesa resident, was upset that physical education and health were taking a back seat to test score improvement. So, she decided to take an active approach.
She's reaching out to preschool-age through sixth-grade students and Orange County teachers with her Active Learning program, merging academics with physical education.
The program was created to mix literary arts, math, science and comprehensive curriculum with planned physical activity.
"There are a few programs out there that teach physical activities, but I don't know of any program that integrates as much academics as mine does," she said.
Her lessons typically include stretching and aerobics, mixed in with a bit of geography, some critical reading and various inspirational quotes.
As founder and chief executive officer of the program, Shublak provides teachers with useful tips to get their students moving around during their lessons, even getting the teachers active themselves while they're in front of the class.
"It's fun for the kids when they get to see their teacher moving around," she said. "They get excited about it because he or she is their role model."
She teaches four classes each day, for 30 to 45 minutes per class. After a month or so, when the teachers have had some time to practice the program in their classrooms, Shublak comes back to each of them and critiques them.
Shublak bases Active Learning's creation on two main concerns affecting students nationwide.
First, childhood obesity is becoming a nationwide epidemic.
"It's really bad and getting worse," she said. "This is what the problem is, that people are trying to provide all these different solutions for obesity. Some people say you should educate kids on nutrition, and others say you should educate them on physical activity.
"You have to hit on every aspect. A lot of kids have no movement; they just sit all day."
Second, many students are dropping on their academic scores, she said.
"Without physical activity, the students don't get enough blood flow to the brain," she said. "That allows the mind to clear out so students can have more energy to study. When they're confined to the classroom and they don't even have 15 minutes of movement, they start getting stressed out."
She usually has the older children group up in different stations, where they perform jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups and other exercises for points. After they've completed their stations, they're asked to add up their points and to calculate the median and mean of their scores.
Younger children perform similar exercises but may only be required to count the dots on a die they roll when they're done, she said.
Shublak, a 13-year health and fitness expert with an educational background in Child and Adolescent Studies, Psychotherapy and Education, also teaches workshops independently to teachers and parents in order to encourage healthy habits.
The Active Learning program has latched on with schools in Fullerton, Anaheim, Santa Ana and Westminster, Shublak said, and she's already spoken with Newport-Mesa Unified School district officials about incorporating the program into the local area.
• JEFF BENSON covers education and may be reached at (714) 966-4617 .