While we don't live in the big ol' USA, we share many cultural trends and influences. The article below highlights some issues and questions for you to consider.
Should government mandate PE in schools?
How much PE, what types of activities. and for what grades?
Think back to your days in the middle school years (gr 6, 7, 8)....what kind of PE experiences did you have? What was the level of vigorous physical activity in your PE classes ? How did this compare with your PE experience in high school?
What should PE classes look like in schools to help promote a positive attitude toward being active + provide enough benefits that go with regular vigorous activity?
Do you have any other reactions/ thoughts to this article?
Florida children in grades six through eight are required under current law to take one semester of physical education every year, but the state is now considering a bill to eliminate the requirement for that class.
The bill's sponsor, Republican State Rep. Larry Metz, said in an email to ABC News that one of the main reasons behind the proposed law is to leave the decision to offer physical education up to local school districts, not the state. He is not opposed to physical education, he said, and the bill would not affect the current physical education requirement in elementary schools.
"Simply because an idea may have merit for some does not mean that we should use the power of government to mandate it for all," Metz wrote. "Some physically fit and active middle school students might rather use that time in their school day to take another elective."
He added that it was difficult for some schools to accommodate the additional time required for physical education while trying to focus on academic achievement. It would have required lengthening the school day, in some cases, and there was no "additional funding" to do that.
"Since this mandate was passed, K-12 education funding has been significantly reduced," Metz said. "In the current declining revenue environment, I believe it is only fair that some mandates on school districts be removed."
But nutritionists, pediatricians and the American Heart Association are all speaking out against the bill, saying that with obesity affecting 30 percent of the nation's children, cutting back on physical education is dangerous.
I decided to turn on the way-back machine and go read one of your first posts.
ReplyDeleteThis requirement reminds me of my early days at Ray Shepherd when the new PE rule came in that required us to have a certain number of minutes of PE every day. The teachers who love PE, thought that this was great, the teachers uncomfortable with PE didn’t know what they were going to do and had us do pretty lame stuff like jumping jacks for 10 minutes non-stop. Some teachers made their classes go out for a run at the beginning of each day, no matter what the weather was like. That’s a good way to make people hate PE! (Luckily, I was never in one of those classes).
One thing that Ray Shepherd did was a thing called Fit Kids. That was basically a circuit around the gym that focussed on health and sport-related components of fitness. It was fun. A lot of the activities were novel activities, so no one was really great at them, plus it was very fast-paced. It was developed by someone with a background in Kinesiology, so it was well thought out (me reflecting with more knowledge now. Back then, it was just fun).
So, the point is, mandated activity does not equal quality activity. It also can be instituted so poorly, that it has the effect of turning people off of activity. I do understand the argument that some kids would get no activity if it wasn’t a part of school.