By Myles Schrag, HK Acquisitions Editor
When Kathleen Haywood and coauthor Nancy Getchell planned to travel to Champaign, Illinois, for the video and photo shoot of the sixth edition of Life Span Motor Development last February, they didn’t plan on Kathie’s shoulder pain preventing her from driving from St. Louis. Nor did they count on winter weather keeping Nancy’s flight from the East Coast in doubt until the final hours.
The ordeal had a happy ending: Kathie healed and Nancy worked efficiently with the Human Kinetics editorial and video team to get the necessary footage and images before heading back to the University of Delaware.
Video enhances readers’ educational experience. Students new to the field of motor development get a chance to analyze movement patterns and the acquisition of motor skills. “It is always hard to convey movement with words, so the possibility for students to see movement and not be restricted to words is a great step forward in preparing professionals to work with students, patients, and others,” Kathie said. “Verbal descriptions can give the impression that everything is black and white or an easy decision when you assess movement. Video clips help readers come away with a far more accurate view that movement is more complex than verbal descriptions make it seem.”
Kathie, who is associate dean for academic programs in the College of Education at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, has authored or coauthored 12 books with Human Kinetics, which have sold more than 175,000 copies. The diverse subjects in books showcase her skills as a writer and athlete:
- Life Span Motor Development is based on the scientific literature and is primarily for undergraduate students.
- Archery: Steps to Success, now in its fourth edition with coauthor Catherine Lewis, applies teaching methods to help readers be successful at the sport.
- Advanced Analysis of Motor Development is an upper-level textbook thatprovides a detailed review of the research base of knowledge.
- Dictionary of the Sport and Exercise Sciences is a reference book she edited with several others and published in 1991, as the broad-based field of kinesiology was starting to flourish.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of words she has written, she has been intimately involved in a variety of ancillaries, including the video clips and lab activities in web study guides for students and materials for instructors who teach the courses.
Kathie wrote the first edition of Life Span Motor Development in 1986. Many aspects of the book and of publishing itself have changed in the six editions published over 28 years. The newest release is a full-color text with video support for students and instructors.
“It was great to be able to provide students with video clips of any kind,” Kathie said. “But over the recent editions it has become easier for authors to access video and to work with it. When we started to work with video, the clips still had to be put on CDs and mailed back and forth as we worked on them with the publisher. And when the book was released, students got a CD along with their textbooks. Now, everything is web based. It is also possible to provide more examples since storage space is not the issue it used to be.
“The biggest difference is being able to provide the ancillaries in digital form,” Kathie said. “The first edition had a paper-based manual of activities. The ability to provide videos that students can watch in slow motion is a huge step forward in helping readers learn about movement and how to assess developmental progress.”
Kathie’s proudest professional achievement is being named a fellow of the National Academy of Kinesiology: “To be included in that group is just very, very special,” she said. “Being elected president of the North American Society for the Psychology of Sport and Physical Activity is a close second.”
The desire to help people understand the value of kinesiology still drives Kathie almost 40 years after she first started teaching at UMSL. “Generally, I don’t think society has a clue about what kinesiology is, but everyone knows what physical education is,” she said. “There are far too many misconceptions about quality physical education even today, but many parents realize that their children need exercise. So, physical education has some strong advocates, but there are far too many parents who just don’t have enough facts. Kathie says, “I think many in fields related to kinesiology and physical education are doing all they can to advocate for the field, but I think the uphill climb is partly related to how deeply the mind–body dualism is rooted in other educators and in teacher preparation. This worldview is so pervasive in the perspectives of other educators that they consistently give very low priority to quality physical education in the school.”
Kathie grew up in north St. Louis, first in a city flat owned by her grandparents and later in Florissant in St. Louis County after her parents saved up to buy a house of their own. She still enjoys playing tennis and training her two Labrador retrievers. Not surprisingly, Kathie passionately follows her hometown team. Asked how work compares to Cardinals baseball, she makes her priorities clear: “These aren’t even similar things,” she said. “When your dad and your grandfather start taking you to Cardinals games before you can talk, Cardinals baseball is absorbed into your blood and becomes part of your DNA. Work can come and go, but born a Cardinals fan, die a Cardinals fan.”
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