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SELECTION OF TYPES OF ACTIVITIES:

In the development of an activities program the types of activities
selected for this character education phase of the program should be such as
offers in abundance situations in which choices in line with these objectives
occur. Formal calisthenics affers few or no such choices and regardless of its
alleged "body building” effects is of little value in character education. Games
and competition activities, however, abound in such possibilities and should,
we believe, be selected more widely.

A SAMPLE PROJECT ACTIVITIES PROGRAM:

The type of activities program applicable to high school and older groups,
which has the strength of the project apr is given below. This type of
program has come from the experiments of Messrs. Lavcaga and Paynter in the Hyde
Park Branch of the Y.M.C.A, in Chicago. Adaptations have been made on this
general principle.

Begin by ascertaining, as suggested above, individual preferences. In
presenting such a questionnaire, however, one needs to be sure that the individu-
als know what the various items mean, If apparatus work has never been taught,
perhaps some demonstrations will be in order. If stunts mean little, the teacher
should show what they are before presenting the questionnaire.

When the questionnaires are tabulated the relative numbers of individuals
interested in any given type of activity will be known.

The scheme outlined here for a gymnasium class begins with a general
warming up of approximately three to five minutes, depending upon the weather
and the temperature of the gymnasium. This warming up may be formal or informal.
It will perhaps best resemble the type of warming up given to an athletic team.
Sometimes a few simple Danish exercises are used together with jogging, to warm
and stretch the muscle group and “loosen up".

This should be followed by squad activities, with this exception; that
the squad is not a pre-determined squad but one determined by the interest of
the time. Suppose in a group of forty, it was found that twelve indicated a
preference for apparatus exercises, ton a preference for wrestling, fifteen for
tumbling, eighteen for track and field, eight for boxing, twenty for basketball.
It will be seen here that there mst be many duplications. There may be an
elementary and a more advanced squad on the horizontal bar, each with a squad
leader; there may be another squad of wrestlers, one of tumbling, one of field
exercise, which might for this one day be the running high jump. There may, also,

in one end of the gymnasium be a basketball squad, which in this period will not

play the game but will simply be trained or coached in the fundamentals of basket-
ball. Each of these groups would have a squad leader with whom a program will
have been outlined. He should be a leader capable of carrying out that particular
program assisted from time to time by the instructor. The individuals are per-
mitted to go to any squad they desire and may change squads the next day. The

Same activities need not be presented day after day but at another time a different
track event may be made available, boxing may take the place of wrestling, other
apparatus may be used, perhaps volley-ball will take the place of basketball, etc.
The choice of activities will be determined from time to time by the choices of