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Gym Class: Why Kids' Exercise Matters Less Than We Think

/DG/

silentigata ano (profile)
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Do you feel PE as it is now is a waste of time or PE itself is a waste of time?
My kids can do simple math naturally. They didn't need to learn that in school. Maybe they don't need to learn more.
There is another reason to exercise at school. Kids need to spend their energy otherwise they can't concentrate.

+1
 

Quinlan

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Jumping is innate. Or maybe I'm just a weirdo... I get perfect score for that silly jump test. No practice required. ;)

Some people will always be naturally talented in certain areas but I think "practice makes perfect" applies to all subjects.
 

heart

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Some people will always be naturally talented in certain areas but I think "practice makes perfect" applies to all subjects.

Passion for learning a skill can't be faked or forced. People who don't have a passion to learn a skill probably won't learn it adequately enough. Skill/craft can be taught in almost anything but not talent. But one will not know their talents unless skill/craft unlocks it. So passion is the first key.
 

JivinJeffJones

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There is another reason to exercise at school. Kids need to spend their energy otherwise they can't concentrate.

I dunno about that. I used to go to swimming training every weekday morning during summer and it didn't help me concentrate. It just made me fall asleep in the period after lunch. If you enjoy your subjects you'll funnel your energy into them. If you have enough. That's what I found, anyway. If I were to argue for the value of physical exercise during the school day it would be from the angle of getting the blood flowing on a cold winter day and relieving stress. But that really only works if you don't find PE a stressor in itself.

I like the ideas of a "remedial PE" (different streams matching different ability levels), general weights/cardio training, and making the whole thing optional in the first place. If the experience of PE undermines the aim of it, it'll only be counterproductive in the long run. ie If PE gives you a bad experience of competitive sports, you'll avoid them ever after. I know the jock types at my school who were academically-challenged enjoyed nothing more than mocking the lack of co-ordination of the nerds. Which doesn't help anyone, really.
 

wolfy

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I dunno about that. I used to go to swimming training every weekday morning during summer and it didn't help me concentrate. It just made me fall asleep in the period after lunch. If you enjoy your subjects you'll funnel your energy into them. If you have enough. That's what I found, anyway. If I were to argue for the value of physical exercise during the school day it would be from the angle of getting the blood flowing on a cold winter day and relieving stress. But that really only works if you don't find PE a stressor in itself.

Swim training and getting up early are pretty hard on the body. On spending energy, it depends on what age group we have in mind. I was thinking more of primary age kids.

I like the ideas of a "remedial PE" (different streams matching different ability levels), general weights/cardio training, and making the whole thing optional in the first place. If the experience of PE undermines the aim of it, it'll only be counterproductive in the long run. ie If PE gives you a bad experience of competitive sports, you'll avoid them ever after. I know the jock types at my school who were academically-challenged enjoyed nothing more than mocking the lack of co-ordination of the nerds. Which doesn't help anyone, really.

Sounds like a great idea.
 

Quinlan

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Passion for learning a skill can't be faked or forced. People who don't have a passion to learn a skill probably won't learn it adequately enough. Skill/craft can be taught in almost anything but not talent. But one will not know their talents unless skill/craft unlocks it. So passion is the first key.

That's all true but PE doesn't stand apart at all in this sense, compared to any other subject. I do think education should be more about discovering passions than making worker drones.
 

FDG

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I liked PE since I was reasonably good at sports, but the teachers were complete losers that loved to make kids feel like they couldn't handle anything. They wanted every game to be extremely competitive, and graded us on our performance afterwards; moreover, they always taught us very complicated gymnastics, making fun of us whenever we couldn't perform it perfectly. I knew perfectly well that I wasn't bad at executing physical tasks (in fact, even people that were very good at it had some problems with the complicated gymnastics), so it didn't hurt my self esteem at all, but still.

I don't believe that it's good to prepare kids for competition in life. It's a self-fulfilling cycle: if we want our society to be very competition-oriented, then kids should be taught to be competitive. Otherwise, it's silly. Personally, I'd prefer a collaboration-oriented social atmosphere, so I'm strongly against pushing children to be more competitive with each other.

Jumping is innate.

...given the level of fitness. You can be good at jumping if you practice, although if you don't have talen you will never do quite well. The number of fast-twitching fibers is fixed, however the mixed-type fibers can be trained to improve jumping ability.
 

JivinJeffJones

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I think this whole "preparing kids for the competitive nature of the world" is just a line used by people who enjoy competitive sports. There are other ways to teach competition which don't involve sports. Chess being an obvious example which springs to mind. If you really are trying to prepare them for competition then why settle on sports as your sole vehicle? Ditto for "teamwork". It seems pretty arbitrary to me. I'm not saying sports should be erased from school, I just don't think there's any good reason it should be mandatory (or at the very least, mandatorily competitive).
 

Thalassa

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As interesting as this is, I don't fully agree with it. While I didn't necessarily enjoy traditional P.E. classes, I loved taking ballet, tap, jazz, and gymnastic classes as a child which are technically still physical education classes, just extra-curricular. That's because I'm a person who likes individual exercise like dancing, swimming, walking, and biking. I've had life long muscle tone, a built in desire to exercise when I get sedentary, and I never had to worry about my weight until I got into my mid-twenties.

Kids today are too sedentary as it is. I praise all that is good in the world that my nephews love to play outside, because some kids don't. Then again, some kids LIVE for traditional gym classes.

My solution? Offer alternatives to traditional gym i.e. dancing, martial arts, or swimming. I don't know if it's realistic, but it might make some of those kids who hate gym class form a different opinion about exercise. I was lucky enough to have parents who paid for private dance lessons, and I wish stuff like that was more widely available in public education for kids whose families can't afford it.
 

heart

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I dunno about that. I used to go to swimming training every weekday morning during summer and it didn't help me concentrate. It just made me fall asleep in the period after lunch. If you enjoy your subjects you'll funnel your energy into them. If you have enough. That's what I found, anyway. If I were to argue for the value of physical exercise during the school day it would be from the angle of getting the blood flowing on a cold winter day and relieving stress. But that really only works if you don't find PE a stressor in itself.

After PE I usually felt tired and spacy for at least an hour or two.
 

Vildechaya

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I was awful at gym, but I am glad I learned some of the things that I would not have learned otherwise.
 
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