Mandatory Physical Education

[foodmaniac]

I thought that PE was one of my more fun classes, even though I am absolutely atrocious at any physical activity. Maybe the act of throwing a ball at someone's face was very stress relieving?
Btw, PE was compulsory for me from year 7 - 10 (Australian standards).

 

[SonicKoala]

I can tell you why I don't like it.


Exercise in general just feels like I'm spinning my wheels, like I'm a gerbil in a wheel. I get tired, cranky, sweaty, uncomfortable, and I have fuck all to show for it. I've got no qualms about doing labor-intensive work, just last week I was outside slaving away underneath my truck replacing worn suspension parts, but with that I had something to show for it. Before it drove like I was drunk, now it tracks straight and true. I'll mow my yard with a push mower, because I can look out my window and see a lawn instead of a field. But I flat refuse to exercise because I see no benefit to wasting the time and energy.

I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong in feeling that way, but there are a wide range of benefits to exercising - it helps to combat disease, it keeps your weight down, it improves your mood, it gives you more energy, it helps one sleep better, and, in general, it makes one look better, as well. You don't have to like exercise, but claiming you have "fuck all to show for it" is incredibly shortsighted. Yes, you aren't going to see the benefits I listed above immediately after exercising, and it would seem as though that's the main issue you have with exercise in general. Which is too bad, because it's good for you, and there's simply no arguing that point.

 

[Knusper]

I've never been properly marked in PE owing to the fact that the teachers don't care as long as the athletic kids are doing something and neither my parents nor I considered it important. When doing GCSEs (14 - 16) we had one lesson every fortnight. It was just as well because I never liked it, not because I'm bad at sport (although I am) but because it was boring - the teacher would just give us a football or basketball and let us be.

It got interesting when we went to do less conventional sports. We spent one term doing circuits and boxercise at the nearby leisure centre (punching pads then running round in circles and doing push ups) and then the next year, I kid you not, we walked down to the local bowling alley.

So yeah, it's boring because not even the teachers are motivated.

 

[Burs]

Exercise in general just feels like I'm spinning my wheels, like I'm a gerbil in a wheel. I get tired, cranky, sweaty, uncomfortable, and I have fuck all to show for it.

Thats becuase you are focusing on what you image should be AFTER exercise. maybe the exercises you're doing are a bit daft for tennessse but remember that almost everything you do in life is exercise and tbh If you are healthy and dont particularly enjoy Phys as an adult you shouldn't do it.

However saying that; what PE should do is motivate you as a kid to maintaining a healthy lifestyle if not then its a bunch of guys playing games in short-shorts its the reason its called Phys Ed and not Phys Training.

As for sports...my school did not offer any of the following:

Stock car racing
gokarts
motorbike
dirtbike
ATV
RC
touring cars
drag racing

Since they didn't offer any sports I liked, let alone wanted to play, I didn't have any interest joining or practicing any of them.

just becuase My school didnt offer:
Rowing
Sailing
Field Gun http://youtu.be/t2Rb9A77-w8
It didint stop me from taking PE as a GCSE subject

As someone with severe Dyspraxia (I cant throw a ball in a straight line let alone catch one, and sometimes walk straight into walls) it was hard but I got through enjoying every minute of it ^.^

 

[badgersprite]

I don't know about high school, but, to be honest, having a lesson or two a week where you get to run around, have fun and do fuck all sounds fine to me. A way of blowing off steam and not getting overly stressed, and keeping yourself from getting burnt out studying. But, then again, some people might find they seriously don't want to do that, or don't find that it gives them those positive effects. So, yeah, it should be available, but probably not mandatory.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I think physical education should be required. It is to help you stay in shape but also usually focusing on team aspects as well.

 

[SpecklePattern]

So I question the Escapist members about mandatory Physical Ed.: What's the point?

Point is that not all have the motivation or any kind of experience on exercising. Some get no physical movement at home. I know it's nearly a lost call to try to change that in school, but still... doesn't hurt anyone. Only your nerves

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Uh, without it, I think most of us would not do any or barely any work out otherwise. I guess its to prevent us from becoming moving hills.
Also: you're a neanderthal for enjoying sports? I'm about as active as a dead fish and I love a good game of hockey, badminton or something similar to those two.

 

[El Poncho]

In my school mandatory P.E isn't a grade, it's supposed to go through all the sports and some fitness but we always end up pressuring the teacher to let us play football(soccer) or basketball:3

 

[Farther than stars]

Edit: I work out at the gym. A Lot.

So in my starting year of Highschool in about a month, every student needs to have one credit of physical education in order to pass to the new grade. There are only two classes to choose from, endurance building (Muscle building I guess) and Sports practice. I obviously picked the endurance training because I do not want to be with all the neanderthals and I have a very slender figure. (Does not help that i'm a nerd too.)

So I question the Escapist members about mandatory Physical Ed.: What's the point?

There is no point in having physical education. It's our life. Our build. I think we have enough power to decide what we want to do with our bodies, correct?

Can you help me understand this "Theory" of P.E.? I'm some what ignorant of these thing called rules in school.

WARNING: This post contains sensitive subject matter, which may affect you emotionally.

Endurance training isn't muscle building, at least not in the sense that body builders do it. Endurance training is more about training to be able to exercise for longer periods of time. Essentially it is indeed about enlongating your core muscles so that you can use them for longer, but that really isn't the main focus of endurance training. In fact, I can guarantee you that the main muscle your focus will be on is your heart, since the relatively slow muscle build is barely recognisible compared to the physical strain your heart has to put itself through.
When you think of endurance training think of excercises like running (marathons not sprinting) or swimming. Sure, you build muscle, but that's not really the reason you train for those things.
Anyway, to answer your question, education feels the need to take some responsibility for the physical development of its students, especially since they're cooped up in a room most of the time, but I'd postulate that schools these days don't actually do enough to encourage children and teenagers to exercise (what with the whole overweight issue these days). So is it really worth it for that one, perhaps those two lessons a week? Well, one could agrue that exercise at school might encourage young people to become more involved in sports outside of school, maybe out of a competitive stride. And there's certainly an argument to be made there.
Honestly though, do you really believe the world would be a better place if you had 100% control over your body at such a young age? Suicide for instance is still strictly speaking homocide, so you could even argue that you never have full jurisdiction over your body and perhaps that's for the best. Moreover, what about the brain? Wouldn't you say that that's part of your body too? Yet every day you still go to school to let your teachers tweak at it to improve its knowledge. And I think we can all agree that's for the best, no?
From a more practical, less philosophical point of view, didn't you just say that you already work out a lot? How is a little bit of P.E. going to make a difference then? One would have thought that you might actually enjoy it more in that case.

 

[grizzlyAssuager]

Knusper said it right.

I think that like so many subjects, it all depends on the teachers.
personally, in my entire school career, I had ONE good PE teacher, in my last year:

She was not abusive is any way (it's sad this is mentioned as some special thing), and she managed to magically motivate a bunch of 17-year old girls in an art school, by letting them do things suited to their activity-level. Teaching how to give a friend a massage, how to climb up a rope, some basic yoga, going to the fitness hall and letting us roam free, stuff like that.
She also made sure to not do things that stigmatize people, and give them asthma-attacks at the same time things like those bloody cooper tests.

this shows what PE can (and maybe even should) be.
In theory, it would be nice and relaxing to do some stuff with your body once in a while at school, and I think it would be great if less active people could get a taste of what doing sports can feel like, they might even stick with it, or you know, HAVE SOME FUN. Teaching a group of students with wildly varying skills sports by letting them run laps or playing teamsports involving balls is just going to frustrate the better ones, and downright traumize the lesser students. So if any PE teacher reads this: MORE FUN PLZ. You choose this job because you love sports? Time to spread that love, instead of shouting at us from the side while we are running laps.

(I was one of the most unmotived kids possible in PE. Having exercise-induced asthma might have had something to do with that. Now I don't have those classes anymore, I do a lot of sports. Maybe it was that last teacher I had, maybe it's just that being forced to do something is never fun. Hooray for freedom!)

 

[thick doona]

If you're never exposed to PE how will you know if you like it?

It's the same as how English should try to make you love reading, Maths and Science give you new ways of thinking/skills.

The vast majority of stuff you do in school will be not be of much use to you. At least this one sort of HAS to be

 

[DracoSuave]

I hated PE when I was in school. HATED it.

What it did was have us do sports stuff for a while. What it didn't do is educate me.

Now that I'm older... I actually see its value. You need to exercise and keep fit. However, where physical education often fails is teaching people HOW to do that for oneself.

Now, what SHOULD be included are lessons in Sports Medicine, Kinesiology, First Aid.

Knowledge of what the difference between Aerobic and Anaerobic exercises is, and which exercises are for building strength, which endurance.

That sort of shit... so that the students can walk away knowing how to prevent making their lardy butts bigger, or their skinny asses skinnier.

Also... some fundamental knowledge of how certain sports work is also cool. I think it's a crime that in my Canadian school, they didn't teach hockey fundamentals.

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

I don't see why everyone bitches and moans about P.E. It can be a bit shit when you're doing something you don't want to do but when you get to choose fun stuff it's great and you're not working.

Besides, in what other class can you nutshot a guy from the other side of the hall in dodgeball?

 

[imperialwar]

I'm also pretty sure that doing power exercises (like sprints or mid-heavy weights) for about thirty seconds then having a minute or two break (rinse and repeat) can improve your cardio/endurance, simply because your body is forced to utilise oxygen for the subsequent sets (you can't replace all the ATP, you need oxygen to remove the lactic acid build-up, and eventually you end up getting most of the energy from aerobic respiration). So if someone is resistance training, they may as well push that little bit extra and improve their cardio at the same time.

So our 3 energy systems are: Phosphate, Lactate, and Aerobic. Phosphate energy is stored in the body cells and typically lasts 10-15 seconds for most people. Lactate kicks into until about the 2minute mark after that we are doing the fat + o2=energy equation for fat loss. So officially if we had the intial lung capacity we could run for 2minutes without needing o2 to make energy. Obviously though it is a genetic imperative for us to keep breathing so we ignore that effectively.
Lactate isnt removed from the system until 30 mintues after the engaged activity is stopped, the average complete removal being around 2hours.
There are several training methods that focus around Lactate Thresholds.

 

[thathaloguy117]

Ok they can have their PE, as long as they take out the whole "healthy" food thing to balance it out.

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

I don't believe in any mandatory education, but if it's absolutely going to happen and it has to be physical education, I think the most important thing would be to teach people how much effort it takes to burn off a set amount of calories. How hard do you have to work to burn off 250, for example. This would give everyone an idea of just what eating a big mac or drinking a 32 ounce Coke would mean in terms of exertion.

Seems the most reasonable to me. Then you show people what they have to do if they want to eat bad food and allows people to make more informed choices.

 

[Brandon237]

For us it is just a small part of Life Orientation. Most people here are of a decent weight, and the stuff we do is fun and relatively easy. I do karate outside of school, and I can eat like an absolute pig for a day, do nothing for the next two days and weight the same as before I ate like a pig. I have a damn fast metabolism, and burn fat so quickly when I exercise I am also wiry strong, not a heavy lifter, but I get few sprain injuries despite jumping and climbing like a madman.

I think something should be done, but nothing too heavy, and DO NOT FORCE ME TO PLAY BALL SPORTS. M'kay? I hate dem.

 

[dkyros]

If there are talks of mandatory physical education, then its probably not a bad idea.

 

[XHolySmokesX]

I have nothing against PE, but i don't like the options i was given at my school.

First off we were put into 4 groups;
All boys: for the sport obsessed, and the kids the teachers iked more than the rest of us.
All Girls: for the athletic girls, keep all the fit girls in one place kinda thing
Mixed 1: for the better of the worst
Mixed 2: the group for the people who the teachers thought were hopeless.
(we had a very fascist school as far as classes went)

We were put in one group and weren't allowed to change or choose.

Then 80% of the time we did football(soccer), with our teacher being this brain dead football obsessed sport science degree strict weird that got payed more than the head.

10% of the time we did netball, probably becasue they thought we were to retarded to play basketball, with this tracher that was so strict and didn't understand children to the extent that she would give you a detention if you moved with the ball too much.

the rest of the time, if we were lucky we would do athletics, which i enjoyed, but we had to do what the teachers wanted us to, so it was normally run round the field 4 times (400m x 4, yes thats a mile), and then do a series of 100m sprints.



IT SUCKED

I was so gutted about the choises we had, i would have loved to play tennis, basket ball, cricket, rudby and other sports, but we were forced to do these. bad times.