Who or rather what is Ed Parkour?? Well let’s begin with the definition of parkour. According to Bill Genereux, parkour is “the sport of traversing environmental obstacles by running, climbing, or leaping rapidly and efficiently”. Now you may ask, “Where does the Ed come into play?” Well ‘ed’ is short for education. That’s right, I’m talking about Education Parkour.

If you have every watched a video of parkour, you should. These people that do it are fearless. They jump over anything: buildings, fountains, fences, stairs. You name it and they probably have jumped, ran, or climbed over it. Genereux uses a metaphor to compare parkour to education. I really enjoyed this metaphor. Genereux discusses that there are many obstacles in the world of education, but as teachers we should go into the field as if we are parkour experts. If there is an obstacle, jump over it. Don’t be scared of what you may face. Instead, incorporate it into your lesson. Be fearless like people who practive parkour.

So like Genereux, I ask: Are you an Ed Parkour? Will you take the barriers that might be thrown in your way as a good thing or will they stop you from teaching the way you want? As future teachers let’s all strive to be ed parkours. It’s what our future students deserve.

Check out Bill Genereux’s blog discussing Ed Parkour:

http://billgx.edublogs.org/2012/02/04/who-is-ed-parkour/

And check out this video about Parkour:

Parkour