Severn Elementary PE Teacher Publishes Third Textbook

Charmain Sutherland sat in her office Thursday afternoon at Severn Elementary School giddy with excitement as she read one of her student’s “activity logs.”

With her voice animated and her eyebrows lifted, Sutherland marveled at her student’s initiative to take what he learned in class and transfer it to his life at home. In a world where childhood obesity is becoming more and more rampant, the local PE teacher said its victories like this that are the key to creating healthier lives for children and their families.

The local educator has devoted 21 years of her life to teaching, and with that, a feverish passion for changing the status quo of physical education.

“We’re trying to create a love for learning through activity,” Sutherland said. “We want students to develop a love of lifelong learning to be active so that they can take it home with them and influence the whole family.”

Sutherland’s goal is to transfer the love for “play” and create an atmosphere of learning within the confines of physical activities. It’s not just fitness and health that she wants to affect; it’s all areas of study, including reading, writing and math.

“Not everyone has a gym. Not everyone has a space. So you’ve got to be creative and capture the interest of those students who want to be active for life,” she said.” I’ve been in a school system where they had PE five days a week, and I just feel sorry for those who may not have it once ever two weeks.”

With two Master’s degrees, one from Old Dominion University and one from Johns Hopkins University, Sutherland recently published her third physical education book, one that targets her goal of transferable, active learning.

“The concepts you could learn and the learning that happens through activity is powerful,” Sutherland said.

Titled Physical Education Action Plans: Challenges to Promote Activity at School and at Home,  the manual is like a textbook that can be used by physical educators and classroom teachers alike.

Published through one of the nation’s leading publishers of health and fitness books, Human Kinetics, the impact of Sutherland’s work is almost sure to be widespread.

“Hopefully through the book I can instill a love for physical activity, and through the activities at school and what the child brings home to do with their family,” she said.

“[My books] are usually used as supplemental textbooks for college courses, or ways to educate potential physical educators,” Sutherland said. “But this one really has a message of ‘be the best you that you can be.’”

If authoring three textbooks and earning two Master’s degrees wasn’t enough evidence of her commitment to education, there’s always this little fact.

Sutherland actually lives in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

She moved there after school ended last year, but when Severn Elementary fell short one PE teacher, Sutherland met the call and moved in with a friend in Odenton.

“I go home to Florida about once a month,” she said.

Sutherland said that “when she grows up,” she hopes to teach physical educators at the college level and through her higher education degrees, become a Dean or Chairperson while focusing on her passion of teaching and active learning.

While living on Florida, Sutherland is pursuing a Ph.D in Educational Leadership in Higher Education. She was also named the 2007 Physcial Education Elementary Teacher of the Year by Maryland Assocatioan for Health, Physical education, Recreation and Dance.