Health: No child left out of the dodgeball game?

[Mr Epee]

No child left out of the dodgeball game?

Originally Posted by Excerpt

The 2006 Shape of the Nation -- jointly conducted by the American Heart Association and the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting high quality physical education -- concluded that most states are failing to provide students with adequate physical education requirements.

The percentage of students who attend a daily physical education class has dropped from 42 percent in 1991 to 28 percent in 2003, the report says.

The report's findings are compelling in the context of the rise in obesity rates.

The number of kids considered overweight has more than tripled since 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Among those between ages 6 to 19, over 9 million kids -- 16 percent -- are considered overweight.

This subject is of particular interest when it is placed into the context of the recent trend of privitization within the youth sport industry. It used to be that kids learned to play football/baseball/etc in HS, but today sport instruction is commonly provided by independent organizations that are sport specific in nature. These private organizations are often expensive and not accessible for the avg family. However, when a approached from the supply side... the costs are inline with the specialized services provided.

So what is the proper role of the public education system in facilitating physical activity?

Thoughts... comments... opinions???

[KD5MDK]

I can't really be unbiased here, because my mother is a past President of NASPE.
But I would say that physical health is an important national issue, and that the education system is one of the few avenues where health knowledge can be distributed to the entire country.

[Hades]

I think it is great that they are putting more fat kids into dodgeball games, they are much easier to hit.

[chefencer]

National politics=Local politics - I've only got time for one quick diatribe: There was widespread concern in my local school that RECESS was going to be CANCELLED to make more time to study for the Standards Of Learning tests (officially known as the S.O.L.'s - I'm not joking!)!!!!!!! We already only have P.E. once a week... GGAAAAAaaaaaaaacccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkk!!!

[RoninX]

Originally Posted by Mr Epee

No child left out of the dodgeball game?

So what is the proper role of the public education system in facilitating physical activity?

I was reading this article earlier and actually used the search feature to see what had been discussed about this topic before, only to discover that Mr. E beat me to it (as usual).

I agree that they raise some interesting points in that article. I heartily agree that cutting PE or recess in favor of longer hours of inefficient and poorly funded teaching is not a good option.

However some of the statistics they used in this article are contrary to their purpose or without relevant qualification. Example 1: More freshmen in HS are getting "vigorous exercise" than seniors... gee... is this because every guidance councillor in america recommends getting whatever PE requirements you have out of the way early? Instead they seem to insinuate that it is a trend toward lack of exercise as people approach adulthood. Example 2: They outright state that PE classes are actually experiencing the LEAST amount of funding/time cuts outside of the two areas of study focused on by the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) act - reading and math. Areas they are experiencing worse cuts including art, music, and SCIENCE!

PS: The fact the science is suffering as a result of the NCLB act is only another example of how completely bassackward this administration is.

[RITFencing]

I think this is people playing into a false dichotomy between mental ability and physical ability. When it is decided that the mental stuff is so much more important to develop (to the point where some people consider exercise almost vulgar) the physical end can suffer. I think high school should not just be a place to get people ready for jobs; it should be a place that helps people be ready for life in general, and until we can exist as electrical impulses on silicon, we're stuck with our bodies.

Interesting sidenote, all of the best students in my high school were also fairly popular and played sports. I've found that it holds true in college as well; the nerdly kids who disdain anything not done in front of a computer screen tend to be good, but not great in the classroom. Having a healthy body leads to a greater self confidence and self image, which actually really do help study skills and also lead to a more efficient cardiovascular system, which means more oxygen is getting to the brain.

Another interesting sidenote about physical activity... In Rochester I fence occaisionally with a man going into his 50s. He's overweight (took a long break from fencing) but is getting into better shape. Every day after he fences his knees ache a bit, and it's clear that he's short of breath during practice. However, he's also the only person in his company (all roughly the same age) not taking medication for something. His body isn't like a 20 year old's, but it's in much better shape, and therefore he is much healthier and happier because he stays active.

How does that relate to sports/PE in high school? These kinds of habits can be set when young, and hard to break later on. Just ask everyone who thought better of doing track or whatever when they were young and then had a severe cholesterol issue and a bad back when they were 40. They're easy to spot in a gym: they walk in with black socks and a button down shirt, then get on a machine backwards and don't think of asking for help.

[T. Mock]

My school district has been facing large budget cuts as of late and one of the suggested ways to cut down on costs was to limit gym at the middle school to every other day or three days a week or something instead of every single day. For middle schoolers who have no recess, a large concern came up about behavior problems associated with reduced gym classes. Without some way to burn off extra energy and refresh the mind during the day it is very easy to get distracted and bored and do dumb things as a way to combat this. I think gym classes are very important but they must be done in an effective way. Despite many people swearing that gym class is the worst form of public humiliation it can be wonderful.

Example of gym done wrong: In my middle school (different district/state/region of country from one mentioned above) gym class was a total joke. We have gym every other day but only for one semester. So a total of one quarter of gym classes. And because for some reason it was necessary to separate the genders for gym, girls gym consisted of running one lap on the track during a 40 minute period or choreographing a gymnastics routine to provacative music. Not exactly getting the blood pressure up and it wasn't enjoyed by anyone.

Example of gym done wonderfully well: Junior year of high school I took independent study gym. I got to school every day at 7 am (school started at 8) with 24 other kids and we put together out own workout schedules and made gym fit our lives and what we wanted to get out of it. Some people in the class were training for sports teams, others just didn't want the constraints of a normal gym class. Every day there was a different game available in the gym (dogeball, water polo, floor hockey, etc), we could make use of the school pool, the fitness center on campus (for cardio and weights) and the track.

For me, gym has always been a place to decompress and to work up a sweat. You don't have to worry about grades and the harder you work, the more confident you are going to feel. The semesters that I didn't have gym were always more sluggish because there wasn't the escape during the day and that made it harder to concentrate the rest of the day. I had fencing to decompress when I didnt have a gym class and some people had sports teams, but for the people who aren't motivated to get off the couch, gym in schools is the only place for them to have a healthier body, a more relaxed mind, confidence and a place to work off the extra energy that can lead to bad behavior.

[mrbiggs]

I hate to be the guy to say this, but can't parents accept some responsibility? I mean, when your child is sitting down, probably in front of TV or video games all day, don't you realilze that they're going to get fat?

Children are getting fatter, and parents keep blaming the schools for feeding the kids junk food and not giving them enough gym or recess. These things certainly aren't helping the problem, but kids are in school for 30% of the day, 50% of the year. There's a whole lot of life left for parents to take responsibility for what their children are and aren't doing.

And I always hated gym, which was basically a series of halfassed attempts to get us to play weird sports which no one cared about.

[chefencer]

Originally Posted by mrbiggs

I hate to be the guy to say this, but can't parents accept some responsibility? I mean, when your child is sitting down, probably in front of TV or video games all day, don't you realilze that they're going to get fat?

Children are getting fatter, and parents keep blaming the schools for feeding the kids junk food and not giving them enough gym or recess. These things certainly aren't helping the problem, but kids are in school for 30% of the day, 50% of the year. There's a whole lot of life left for parents to take responsibility for what their children are and aren't doing.

And I always hated gym, which was basically a series of halfassed attempts to get us to play weird sports which no one cared about.

One of the points here is that there are working parents who can't afford to put their latchkey kids in, say, fencing...and I wouldn't want my kid running around outside when no one was home. It's not 1956 anymore (nobody tell Inq) and the rules are significantly different. Yes, parents are responsible for the health of their children, but we have a Public school system and just from a future costs basis it would probably be cheaper (and it's certainly easy enough) for there to be a Greater emphasis on fitness while said latchkey younglings are in the daily care of the school district. What kids do during that 30% of the day, 50% of the year Is the business of everyone, because we're all paying for it and our children will be paying for it in the future.

[T. Mock]

Not only may parents not want their children running around without supervisiion, if they are working it is very hard to enforce mandaory playtime. If the parents aren't there to nag the kids to go outside, then chances are they won't make the extra effort to find a playmate and will just watch tv.

[lindajdunn]

In my area, recesses were cut and gym was reduced to accommodate budget cuts. At the same time, they proposed a separate building and new swimming pool that would be used by about 1/30th of the students on a part-time basis. The proposed gymnasium was adequate for classes but everyone complained that it wasn't large enough to accommondate sectional crowds.

IOW, the emphasis upon sports is upon the few who make the cut to participate in team events.

The latest proposal is that schools shift their emphasis in gym classes to fitness training versus kids standing around or sitting around waiting for an opportunity to play a sport.

The school has a weight room but only those students who are on sports teams are granted access.

[scrapinpeg]

Mens sana in corpore sano, and all that. Active kids simply do better in school, this is well-established.

Schools are cutting out recess and gym classes at an astonishing rate. They do so in order to pack in more classroom time during the day, which begs the question of why they all of a sudden need more time to teach the same subjects. They also do so to limit liability for lawsuits brought by litigious parents who see every scraped knee and bruised ego as a reason to call their lawyer.

This is of course contrary to the schools' purpose.

Schools exist to provide essential book-learning. Kids who don't get exercise tend not to learn so well as those who do get exercise. So a school that takes away children's opportunities for exercise is reducing their facility for learning, and thereby making the school's job that much harder.

Schools exist to provide socialization. Games and sports are inherently useful at fostering social skills demanded by life. Classroom participation rarely is. By taking away opportunities to interact with peers during games, athletics or simple down-time, schools remove opportunities for socialization, and actually harm the community they are supposed to foster.

I see where the schools are coming from, but their reasoning is poor, and their strategies are foolish.

[RoninX]

Originally Posted by scrapinpeg

Mens sana in corpore sano, and all that. Active kids simply do better in school, this is well-established.

Schools are cutting out recess and gym classes at an astonishing rate. They do so in order to pack in more classroom time during the day, which begs the question of why they all of a sudden need more time to teach the same subjects.

I agree with most of your post however they are not teaching the "same" subjects as they were 30 years ago (or even 10). The best example is that the bar for math (and some places science) is being set ever higher. I had as much math after middle school as my parents had through high school. Not to mention that those darn US/World history classes seem like they have more info to cover every single year! More is being required of schools, however the answer is not to steal 15-25 minutes from reces/lunch etc. The answer is better funding to allow smaller class sizes, better paid teachers, and thus more efficient transfer of information!

Of course my congressman doesn't answer my email

[RITFencing]

While more seems to be required of schools, I don't think they need more classroom time to do so. My own time in a public high school was largely wasted; unmotivated teachers halfheartedly tossing out facts at unmotivated students. It was pathetic. Assignments were given out largely to keep kids busy or because it was generally thought that a lot of homework should be necessary. Classroom time was eaten up by teachers who didn't have any idea what they were doing or by students who, smelling blood in the water, would tear the teachers to emotional shreds, take advantage of every situation we could, and basically do whatever we were capable of to avoid work that was largely irrelevant. It was a great monument to pointlessness. Where brains go to die.

The solution is not to pack more of the same crap into a day, but rather to spend the time much more effectively.

[keith]

Originally Posted by scrapinpeg

I see where the schools are coming from, but their reasoning is poor, and their strategies are foolish.

Sorry it's not the policy of the schools, rather it's the policies of politicians that control school curricula .

On the other hand my recess injuries included two concussions, including a stitches in the scalp, a gashed arm, two black eyes plus the usual bruises and scratches. I also recall two broken limbs amoungst my friends. These where all injuries from playing I'll skip the injuries that where the result of fights

Given the way society is going with the idea that someone has to be responsible the withdrawl of physical activities is predictable.

[RoninX]

Originally Posted by RITFencing

The solution is not to pack more of the same crap into a day, but rather to spend the time much more effectively.

To this end I vote for X-boxes and epees for everyone!

[KD5MDK]

x-Boxes don't support the 40ms lockout time, I believe. Also, converting from standard 3 prong floor cords to x-Box controller ports is a pain in the neck.

[scrapinpeg]

Originally Posted by RoninX

The answer is better funding.

Believe it or not, funding has almost nothing to do with better school performance. Washington DC, for example, spends more per student than one might think possible, and yet it has some of the most dismal schools.

The number-one factor that influences how well a school performs is not funding, but parental involvement. A community whose parents get involved in the school itself, as well as in their own children's education, tends to have stellar schools regardless of how little funding is there.