In most educational systems, physical education (PE), (also called physical training (PT) or gym), is a course which utilizes a play or movement exploration setting for the transmission of physical knowledge and skills to an individual or a group, the application of these skills, and their results. It also can refer to any intramural or extracurricular sportor physical activity students take part of through their school system. It should be noted that unlike other curricula, a majority of the course work is participated in, rather than "studied."
The purpose of physical education involves more than training the body, or physical fitness, but is based on the understanding that fitness and physical training helps the mind. For young children play has been recognized as a valuable, even essential, component of learning.
HISTORICAL FOUNDATION OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Physical education has existed since the earliest stages of human society, in forms as simple as the transmission of basic survival skills, such as hunting. Later, the ancient Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian civilizations had traditions of physical education and activity, most commonly acted out in sporting competitions, military tactics and training, and martial arts.
However, the real history of physical education is in the changing methodologies used to transmit physical skills and, to a lesser extent, the varying intentions of the educator, and thus theGreek influence is often argued to be the most fundamental to how the discipline is viewed today.
The ancient Greek emphasis on anatomy, physical achievement and abilities was for the first time in the ancient world blended with a humanistic and scientific approach to balancing one's life. The first known literary reference to an athletic competition is preserved in the ancient Greek text, the Iliad, by Homer, and the ancient Greek tradition of the Olympic Games, which originated in the early eighth century B.C.E. The Japanese