Bill would require 30 minutes of daily gym class....

[a kennedy]

OMGosh, we used to have 60 minutes of gym class back in the day.....but when the school budget is bad, gym class is the first to go....this is so funny.....NOW they realize how important physical exercise of any kind is important.

http://journaltimes.com/news/local/state-and-regional/bill-would-require-minutes-of-daily-gym-class/article_f30392ca-6106-11e3-b05a-0019bb2963f4.html

[Berlum]

1. Occupy Gym Class !

[woodsprite]

2. My son is in 8th grade, he has only had 1 semester of gym

since starting 6th grade. They share "specials" teachers with other schools now, so the school has 1600 kids, 1 half time gym teacher. I think my son will rotate in for 1 more semester in February. If not, he'll get tech ed (what used to be called "shop class&quot . Out of his 3 yrs, he also has only had 1 computers class -- and that was without any keyboarding instruction.

I can remember back when I was in school, we had 60 min. of gym 2 days a week, a 30-min recess after lunch, and (because of coordination issues and lack of strength upper body strength) I was pulled out for "special gym" 3 mornings a week for 45min each. Now there is no special gym, and in elementary school, my kids only had 20 min recess. In middle school they have no recess.

Sometimes I wish for the old days again....

[Silent3]

3. Why not transfer some of the budget for team sports, that aren't for everyone...

...to physical education that is for everyone? Exercise that's about improving health and fitness, not about humiliating the kids who aren't as good as the others?

[LWolf]

9. Because those team sports aren't fully funded anyway.

They are subsidized by parents and the local community.

My students got an increase in PE this year, which we'd been working hard and long (years) to achieve. They get PE 4/5 days a week. I'm glad. I'd like to see them get PE every day, and get a full hour, not the 40 minutes they currently get.

[Silent3]

10. It depends on the school district...

...but it plenty of places, a lot of tax payer dollars go into team sports, whether or not more subsidies are thrown in in addition to that tax payer support.

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/

[LWolf]

12. Oh, some tax dollars are at work.

That's true. Not enough to fully fund other PE for everyone who doesn't engage in sports, though. And, in many areas, cutting those sports programs would result in an outcry heard around the world. Many of our parents won't show up for parent conferences, don't support academic learning or academic programs, but obsessively support sports; some only send their kids to school for the sports.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's true. It's true where I teach, where plenty of parents periodically "home school" their kids, enrolling and withdrawing them like a revolving door, sending them back when they can't manage them or during a particular sports "season," and taking them home to protect them against too much academia between seasons.

If it weren't for sports seasons, these kids wouldn't get any education at all.

[canoeist52]

4. I wish they had a half-hour of Yoga or straight up cardio training instead of gym class games.

My daughter's aggie high school used to give the kids the alternative to walk the paths around the woods and fields for gum class a few years ago. Was very popular. High school gym class was a joke when I had it in the 70's The only time we ever broke a sweat was when we were forced to do square-dancing.

[northoftheborder]

7. stretching, cardio, strength training - would be so much more beneficial for all students than..

.....the billions spent on fancy stadiums and expensive team coaches for major sports. I'm not against team sports, but there should be a better balance in the time and money spent on "sports".

[Dash87]

5. Not only gym class, but recess!

You can't keep kids locked inside all day. They'll never learn that way.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. I hated gym class in junior high

Hated, hated, hated it. It was taught by coaches who favored jocks and looked the other way when there was bullying.

[Buns_of_Fire]

13. I couldn't stand it. 55 minutes to show up, "dress out", run out to the PE area,

do about a half-hour's worth of sit-ups, push-ups, pull-ups, parallel bars, running the track, touch football (well, it was supposed to be "touch&quot , softball, basketball, or whatever the sadistic SOB had planned for that day, run back inside, take a shower, get dressed, try to retrieve my jockstrap from whoever stole it that day, and try to make it to my next class.

I prayed for rain every day, when we'd just get to sit in the gym and watch the 47th showing of "You and Your Penis" or something equally educational.

It was about that time in my development that I discovered that I had a knack for forging my parents' signature on "please excuse ***** from PhysEd today" notes.

[Populist_Prole]

14. Same here. We had gym class every day and it didn't help a bit for anybody but jocks

Only very later did they shift from just pure spectator type sports to give us a choice to a variety of fitness methods. Football, volleyball, basketball was pure hell to us nonathletic types in a clique-ish jock-loving school. PE class was also bully heaven: While the coaches didn't tolerate it at all when they saw it ( they'd come down hard and heavy on a bully ) they could be everywhere and there was a lot of "maiming" going on.

[MissMillie]

8. Gym is ONE of the first things to go

Art and Music usually get the axe, especially in states where P.E. is mandated already.

[Recursion]

11. No joke, the dearth of physical education in public schools is appalling

We have to fix this. Arts and PE have received absurdly short shrift lately.