PE in our schools

[SEAL76]

Mandatory PE is dislliked by many but some level of fitness is needed in our daily lives. Modifications need to be made in the PE programs at every level. Perhaps just a 30 minute walk or jog every day is all that should be required. Some strength training is also needed. Light weight training or bodyweight exercises and at a moderate level is not a bad idea either. Proper stretching, pilates or yoga might be incorporated into a good PE program. The old style model that seemed to based on Boot Camp is no longer practical. Perhaps the students should be allowed to choose from a range of activities at the junior hig and high school level. This type of activity does not feed into the culture of sports obsession.

[Millhouse]

We actually discussed this heatedly in another thread.

Seal, check this out. The link below leads to some interesting articles on what several school districts have done to reform their Physical Education programs.

http://www.tolerance.org/teach/printar. ... 317&pi=ttm

This is what we're about here, and we believe in compromise (something the sports bores that come here do not), and this link is a great way to employ fitness without all the popular competitive sports nonsense.

Also, here is the original thread we discussed the topic in.

http://www.sportssuck.org/phpbb2/viewto ... a&start=15

[Earl]

SEAL76, you have raised an issue that means a lot to me. Iâ??m a 59-year-old man who has diabetes and therefore must exercise. Two summers ago I joined a local health club and started working on a bodybuilding program. My health club experience, which has been downright therapeutic, contrasts sharply with the traditional sports-centered P.E. classes that I was forced to take from the time I was in the 4th grade through junior high. These P.E. classes were a constant torment for nonathletic boys, and did nothing to promote their physical fitness. (Iâ??m convinced that more bullying takes place in traditional sports-centered P.E. classes than in any academic class.) Actually, we were discouraged from engaging in any physical activity. (Incidentally, I get more exercise in a single workout at my health club than I ever did in a single year of junior-high P.E.) All boys were forced to participate in competitive team sports, even those who were not interested in them. Those boys who were bad at sports never received any instruction to help them play better; and there were no exercise programs to help those who were physically unfit, who were generally ignored. (During all the years I had to take P.E., I never even heard of weightlifting. I was ashamed of being physically weak, and would have welcomed any instruction to increase my strength. I thought I was inherently puny.) Instead, the nonathletic boys were held up to ridicule; and a social divide was created between the athletic boys and their nonathletic peers that lasted all the way through high school. The innovative PE4Life program shows a lot of promise, and I strongly support it. Ironically enough, though, the opponents of P.E. reform are far more likely to be sports fans and boosters of the football team than those who have no interest in sports.

[SEAL76]

I went to 12 years of Catholic school. I did not have a single PE class until I went to High School. We did the traditional pull ups, push ups, jumping jacks etc. as well as the old bounce stretching which of course was not all that helpful. No one knew that at the time. I never really saw any bullying by the jocks or those who were more fit. The PE teachers taught skills and even gave pointers on how to do the exercises correctly. We even began to incorporate aerobics into our PE classes. In the spring we did a short PT in the gym and then ran a few laps. Many times after the PT we either played baseball or basket ball outdoors in the good weather. I guess my PE experience was very different than many of the ones that I have read about. Some PE teachers did more harm than good for the children in their charge.

[Polite24]

I can agree with the notion that maybe kids should have more options for PE. Fitness related stuff for some, and competitive sports for others.

[Earl]

I went to 12 years of Catholic school. I did not have a single PE class until I went to High School. We did the traditional pull ups, push ups, jumping jacks etc. as well as the old bounce stretching which of course was not all that helpful. No one knew that at the time. I never really saw any bullying by the jocks or those who were more fit. The PE teachers taught skills and even gave pointers on how to do the exercises correctly. We even began to incorporate aerobics into our PE classes. In the spring we did a short PT in the gym and then ran a few laps. Many times after the PT we either played baseball or basket ball outdoors in the good weather. I guess my PE experience was very different than many of the ones that I have read about. Some PE teachers did more harm than good for the children in their charge.

I went to public instead of parochial schools. Perhaps that accounts for the differences in our P.E. experiences. We hardly received any instruction at all. We were not told how to do any exercises properly. The dunderheads who set up the P.E. curriculum in my school district seem to have assumed that every boy was an athlete. Particular athletic skills simply were not taught. Each boy was assigned to a team, and that was it. When I went through the 4th and 5th grades, in the supervised P.E. classes I would be forced to participate in baseball games, even though I hardly knew how the game was played. Since I usually struck out, I was reviled by my teammates. None of the P.E. teachers offered to help me learn how to not strike out. My first personal trainer at the health club was a young guy who had quite a varied athletic background. He was a really nice guy who didnâ??t consider me to be an oddball just because I had a nonathletic background. After a few weeks of workout sessions, he said that he was bragging about me to the other trainers. Sometimes he would supplement the weight training with exposure to a sport. When I was a boy, I had ignorantly assumed that shooting a basketball was simply the action of thrusting the basketball into the air towards the basketball hoop. So, when I first had to play in a basketball game during a P.E. class, I did rather poorly and thought that I was a klutz and felt ashamed of myself. Decades later I was amazed when my trainer showed me that shooting a basketball depended upon proficiency in a particular skill that had to be developed -- a skill that I could have easily developed with practice when I was a boy, had I been taught about the movements that I needed to make with my right hand. In other words, I had never been taught how to shoot a basketball. This is just one example of the deficiency of sports-centered P.E.

[Sergey]

I can agree with the notion that maybe kids should have more options for PE. Fitness related stuff for some, and competitive sports for others.

I honestly didn't think you'd understand that, but I feel somewhat happy because I reported the coach and now he can't yell at me because I don't play Hawaiian Football or any other type of bullshit game.