As Schools Fight Obesity, Physical Education Is Cut.

[elleng]

More than a half-century ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower formed the President’s Council on Youth Fitness, and today Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Michelle Obama are among those making childhood obesity a public cause. But even as virtually every state has undertaken significant school reforms, many American students are being granted little or no time in the gym.

In its biennial survey of high school students across the nation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in June that nearly half said they had no physical education classes in an average week. In New York City, that number was 20.5 percent, compared with 14.4 percent a decade earlier, according to the C.D.C.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/education/even-as-schools-battle-obesity-physical-education-is-sidelined.html?hp

[FBaggins]

1. Easily solved.

They'll cut lunches next.

[HockeyMom]

2. When I worked on LI as a TA,

we had to make sure during recess the kids were MOVING. In warm weather they were not allowing to just SIT and talk. They had to MOVE, run, go on the equipment, etc. They had outdoor recess unless it was raining, snowing, snow on the ground, or the temps were under 32 degrees. Well, when it was very cold outside, nobody wanted to just SIT during recess. Cold temps make you want to move anyway.

In Florida it's a different story. HOT almost all the time. Who wants a kid on a basketball court when the temp on that court is 120 degrees?

[Swede Atlanta]

3. I never saw P.E. as a way to provide me with physical exercise.......

I know this isn't going to be politically correct but it gave some individuals a job.

I never learned anything about any sport, exercise or health in P.E. It was kind of like an intra-mural sports league for the jocks. They were chosen and got to play all the time. The rest of us were usually relegated to running laps, doing sit-ups and push-ups or watching the jocks play.

I think a much better approach to encouraging physical exercise would be to provide a variety of exercise options in which students could participate. Football, basketball, baseball, soccer etc. for those into competitive team sports. But provide options for swimming, running, yoga, aerobics, spin, weight lifting, etc. for those more interested in personal sports.

It is about finding a balance in life to include the necessary physical exercise. But I am not a big proponent of what I knew as P.E. as a way to deal with the obesity problem.

[NYC_SKP]

4. K/R (nt)

[elleng]

6. Everything you say is correct. Thanks.

And we've got to recognize that P.E. of any sort appears to have gone the way of art, music, shop and home ec; thrown out the window.
Public education is in a desparate condition.
There are a few really excellent p.e. programs we've read about/seen during the last couple years, wish I could recall one in particular, but I have little hope they will proliferate.

[HiPointDem]

11. public education is being deliberately destroyed, and throwing non-core subjects out is part of

that deliberate destruction.

[Reader Rabbit]

7. It's not just a physical fitness or obesity thing, though.

Physical activity promotes learning. Exercise enhances brain development and performance.

Kids who are stuck in the classroom for most of the school day aren't going to learn as well as those who get periodic breaks to do some physical activity. Our school had PE every other day a few years ago (and we'll be doing the same in the coming year), and all the classroom teachers could definitely tell which days the kids had PE and which days they didn't!

[elleng]

8. Of course!

And I recall, a few years ago, an elementary school principal or superintendent somewhere, having removed 'recess' from the school day, saying something like 'Who needs it? It does not good!' I was horrified. Sorry I can't recall where this was, but I was glad WE weren't there!

[radicalliberal]

13. That's strange ...

In all of my mandatory "sports only" P.E. classes, I didn't get any exercise (with the exception of a few "warm-up" exercises). I never worked up a sweat, and I never so much as heard the words "exercise program." There was hardly any instruction in the sports themselves. P.E. was (and, at many schools today, still is) prime time for bullies. Nonathletes were (and are) treated like dirt. Much of the worst school bullying takes place in junior high and high school gyms. All I ever learned in P.E. was to fear coaches and athlete classmates.

When I was in my late fifties, I started working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program at a local health club. I've been utterly amazed at the difference between my ongoing health club experience and the mandatory "sports only" P.E. experience I had as a boy. As I said above, I get more exercise in a single workout than I ever did in an entire year of mandatory P.E.

I'm sick and tired of hearing talk about the need for "physical exercise" without any reference to the very real problems inherent in the traditional approach to mandatory P.E. There seems to be no concern about reforming P.E. No objection to the bullying, no objection to the fact that the physical fitness needs of nonathletic students are ignored. It all seems so hypocritical to me. Sports must reign supreme in the schools. The nonathletic boys (being the wimps, sissies, and fags they are) be damned!

[Reader Rabbit]

14. Schools I have worked in do PE very differently.

The units are very focused, and students engage in a wide variety of physical activities, not just sports. The "health" aspect of PE is always stressed.

[radicalliberal]

15. I understand there have been some changes since the time I was a boy.

Last edited Fri Jul 27, 2012, 04:12 PM - Edit history (1)

(I've referenced an excellent program -- PE4Life -- with a link in my first post above.) But I've also been told the "old P.E." is still around in some school districts.

When I was a boy, the "health aspect" was never stressed; and nonathletic boys frequently were treated like dirt in a class that met the needs of only the athletically inclined. Traditional mandatory P.E. was (and still is) useless for nonathletic students.

Please do a Google search on "p.e. bullying" and see what you find. (Yes, I'm repeating myself.) For that matter, just do a search of this website on "p.e. bullying" and "jock bullying" and see what you come up with. I've been amazed by the stories of bullying I've heard over the years from nonathletic guys who had had to endure the traditional mandatory "sports only" P.E. They had bitter experiences and many times were treated unjustly.

Many boys' P.E. coaches, in fact, have been prejudiced against nonathletic boys and against those boys who have less than ideal physiques, especially scrawny boys and fat boys. Nonathletic boys who either aren't good at sports or simply have no interest in them have been called sissies (during the 1960s), wimps (during the 1970s), and fags (today). The issue of bullying in school sports has been completely ignored and, I believe, deliberately so. After all, most sports fans don't want the image of school sports to be besmirched in any way. (Witness Penn State.)

I mean, if a bully is placed on a pedestal simply for excelling at a sport and suffers no negative consequences for his misconduct, no matter how dishonorable or egregious (as I noticed as I was growing up), who cares? As I've pointed out (and please forgive me for using a racist epithet now; I'm using it for emphasis, not to condone bigotry), nonathletic boys ("nerds," "geeks," "sissies," "wimps," "fags" -- sarcasm intended, of course) are nonpersons at best in traditional P.E. classes and, generally speaking, are the niggers in the world of school sports. If I'm bitter, so be it. I care deeply about the indignities nonathletic boys in some school districts are being subjected to today.

If a medical doctor has a patient who needs to become physically active for reasons of his health, the doctor doesn't say, "Go play a sport." (Incidentally, some sports entail health risks, interestingly enough.) The doctor will tell his patient to get some exercise. (For example, the best exercise for people who have diabetes is to take a brisk, nonstop walk from 45 minutes to an hour. No mention of sports.)

There is no reason or justification for forcing nonathletic boys to participate in competitive team sports in mandatory P.E. classes -- a situation which is almost always guaranteed to encourage bullying. Coaches who take the traditional approach to mandatory P.E. are not going to be interested in the nonathletic boys, anyway. They will be inclined to have a dismissive, if not abusive, attitude toward them. Why should nonathletic boys be subjected to coaches who are prejudiced against them, viewing them as "effeminate" or unmanly? My wife taught math classes in a public school system for about 11 years. She said any math teacher who treated students who have trouble with math the same way that traditional coaches frequently have treated nonathletic boys would be fired. But somehow mandatory P.E. has always been "different."

I favor the retention of "sports only" P.E. as an elective. I say let the athletic kids play sports; and if you are unwilling to provide genuine fitness programs for the nonathletic kids, stop imposing your intolerance upon them and leave them alone.

I know what doesn't work and what does work for nonathletic boys because I've experienced both in my life. For several years I've been working on a bodybuilding program with a personal trainer at a local health club. The experience has been psychologically therapeutic for me as well as beneficial physically. The physical trainers actually appreciate me because I work hard. My health club is like a community. No one is bullied. I've been treated with respect. Since the members (who are quite a diverse lot, physically speaking) are minding their own business as they pay attention to their own workouts and exercise routines, there is none of the machismo and obnoxious, boring, contemptible "alpha male" behavior that is so often encouraged in school sports.

I still have a long way to go to achieve my goal. (There are no shortcuts in building up one's physique. It's hard work that takes patience.) But I've been amazed by the muscular development I've already achieved at my age. Now, when mandatory "sports only" P.E. became a rather unpleasant, bitter reality in my life, I was weak and scrawny. On the very last day of school when the dreaded daily torment of mandatory P.E. had finally to come to an end, I was -- yep, you guessed it -- weak and scrawny. So much for physical fitness!

[TBF]

9. I failed PE -

couldn't do gymnastics to save myself ... in my little school in the boondocks it was a way for the athletes to get an easy A. Of course I also had my own horse and rode regularly, and did a lot of biking and running (later in life when I moved to a city I ran tons of road races and even completed 2 marathons).

I believe general Art, Music and PE should be graded pass/fail in elementary school, and perhaps graded classes offered in those areas (middle and high school) for folks going interested in those fields. But I also hate that school districts are cutting them because at least they give the students a break from the drudgery of testing.

[HiPointDem]

10. no time for pe, too much test prep and testing.

[2labslib]

12. I teach Elementary School in California, and I teach my own PE.

And my own music, and my own art, and all those other things the state can't be bothered to pay for. Who cares what is best for the kids?