Need to Rant about PE in schools

I think you should blame No Child Left Behind. Actually, we don't do anything in school except teach kids to pass standardized reading and math tests. At my middle school, shop is gone, home ec is gone, French and German are gone, I'd write to every elected official I could. It's only going to get worse.

not sure what schools your district is, but ours still has PE everyday... its parents that take their kids to doctors to get them wrote out of PE, and girls whining about everything down to TOM. Infact, we have to buy a gym bag, shorts and t-shirt just for gym. We as parents need to set the example, and for years I have been a bad one...

I went to Catholic grade school all the way from kindergarten through the 8th grade. My MOTHER was my principal too (so obviously, I was super popular). The school was really small, and in middle school all the 7th and 8th grade girls would have PE together and the 7th and 8th grade boys would have PE together. While the boys spent 6 weeks learning all about football and weight lifting, guess what us girls got to do, 3x a week?

Jazzercise style aerobics. Fun you say? Oh, I forgot to mention that my mother was ALSO an aerobics instructor on the side. So my mom/principal would come teach us aerobics, 3x a week, for an entire 6 weeks my 7th and 8th grade years of school. Not so bad? Oh and let me add that this was in the late 90s, but my mom apparently hadn't gotten that memo yet and was still rocking her 1988-1992 neon aerobics spandex, complete with leg warmers and a head band. So picture me, the youngest kid in the class, the latest bloomer of all of the girls, a bit socially awkward and beginning to get a little chubby and trying to figure out how to keep my training bra in place, with my Catholic school principal/aerobics instructor/mom jazzercising the day away to the Quad City DJ's "The Train."

And that is why I avoided gym class and refused to do any exercise that wasn't part of a dance class for musical theater for the rest of my life until adulthood.


I realize this story doesn't really discuss the effects of PE class and children needing it more these days, but I felt that it was relevant.

I think food is a much bigger problem than physical activity though. So many kids eat processed sugar filled garbage. A neighbor kid came over in the morning the other day and he was eating a cold nitrate filled HOT DOG for breakfast. Another kid comes over a lot with Doritos and a coke. He's 7! I volunteer at the school and he's in my daughter's class and has learning problems and then on top of that his parents feed him crap? Makes my blood boil.

I hated PE, but was a super active kid and got tons of exercise outside of school- swim team, horseback riding, soccer, playing outside, rollerblading, etc. I was not allowed to be inside during daylight hours in the summer, I had to be outside doing chores or playing (sometimes I would hide in the hay barn to read, but that wasn’t all the time.) I was always at a very healthy weight and in good cardiovascular health and it had nothing to do with PE in school. I played water polo and swam on the swim team in high school and had no problem making the JV or Varsity teams. I basically refused to do PE and whenever I was questioned about it I told them I'd rather be learning something. It was a pretty obstinate response, but I meant it. I didn't see school as a place to regulate my health, I saw it as a place to learn and felt I was hardly getting enough of that to constitute getting out and playing some half-arsed sport or run the track in blistering hot weather only to go back and have to sit in a classroom sweaty trying to focus for another couple hours. I was a straight A honors/AP student with F’s, D’s, or C’s in PE (if I had to pass it to pass the grade I would do the minimum required to pass.) I think PE should be completely out of schools or only elective and they should focus more on educating. It's the parents job to make sure your kids are healthy.

I think food is a much bigger problem than physical activity though. So many kids eat processed sugar filled garbage. A neighbor kid came over in the morning the other day and he was eating a cold nitrate filled HOT DOG for breakfast. Another kid comes over a lot with Doritos and a coke. He's 7! I volunteer at the school and he's in my daughter's class and has learning problems and then on top of that his parents feed him crap? Makes my blood boil.

I ate two hot dogs for lunch. course, I added a slice of bacon to each. and I'm drinking Coke Zero now. definitely a weird breakfast option, but I'm fairly certain hot dogs =/= learning problems.