[munchenphile]

I’m not defending daily gym class. I’m defending daily sports.

I was fortunate enough to go to a high school that did not have a gym period, but required all students to play an organized sport.

Gym in large high schools is a waste of time due to the student to instructor ratio. One frustrated gym teacher to 50+ kids playing dodgeball? Of course you’re going to have theater kids just going through the motions and goth kids behind the bleachers smoking cigarettes. It’s not real exercise.

You need small rosters, organized practices, uniforms, referees, fans (students and parents) and intra-school competition. It creates seriousness and expectations. You can’t hide from your coach when there’s only 14 kids on the roster. You need to do the sprints with everyone else and take the drills seriously.

I don’t think this scales beyond smaller high schools. Not enough facilities, not enough coaches, not enough money.

[danenania]

That sounds great to me as an athlete, but I know there are many kids who would hate being forced to be part of organized sports.

The important thing is that they get exercise of some kind. Maybe just allow them to choose whatever form of exercise they want as long as they do something each day?

The school could offer sports but also allow them to walk, run, lift weights (when old enough), play tag, do yoga, or whatever they prefer.

If a kid truly hates all exercise and refuses to cooperate, I guess there’s only so much you can do, but you could at least remove as much friction as possible and try to meet them where they are. Anything that gets them moving will offer huge physical and mental benefits over just slouching in shitty plastic chairs all day.

[ajmurmann]

As someone not from the US all this is bizarrely moving a health concern into school which should be about education and nothing else. If it's reasonable for school to prescribe exercise for kids why not have them schedule doctor visits for the kids and create meal plans? Where is the line?

[munchenphile]

>schedule doctor visits

Lots of schools have an in-school trained nurse.

>create meal plans

Most schools in the US sell/provide subsidized lunch.

So yeah, there ISN’T much of a line here in the US. The school is daycare, education, basic medical attention, a cafeteria/food welfare program, and sports/after school program all rolled into one.

During early COVID in the Bay Area, the middle school in my neighborhood kept “serving” lunch. That is to say, it was too “dangerous” to hold class. However, they still staffed cafeteria staff and had a line down the street at lunch time of kids with subsidized/free lunch, and they handed out brown paper bags. So the school was literally operating ONLY as a child nutritional welfare program for a while, but not as a school.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

That happened in a lot of places. In fact, one of the good policies that emerged from COVID was that in order to remove the stigma of "kids who qualify for free lunch," the school district made all meals free. I think you still have the option of buying extra food if needed. My child still has about $80 unused in his lunch account for the last couple years.

[danenania]

It probably has as much effect on later adult quality of life as anything academic they could be doing, but yeah I suppose there are very different cultural views on this in different places. Where are you from btw?

I do think it’s a bit brutal and unnatural to make kids sit in classrooms all day in uncomfortable chairs under fluorescent lights with no time outside and no time for physical activity.

Afaik lots of schools in the US do facilitate physical exams by a doctor. I remember having one in middle school. It was the subject of much discussion among the boys in my class at the time since it involved a female doctor and a hernia check...

[RulerOf]

>The important thing is that they get exercise of some kind. Maybe just allow them to choose whatever form of exercise they want as long as they do something each day?

As someone who only took part in high school sports for the exercise, I was really frustrated that I went through 10+ years of education without really being taught anything about the realities of what's required to achieve and maintain lifelong fitness.

I would have been happy to join a "cardio and weight training team" because I frankly didn't give a fuck about wrestling or football, especially since those programs focused most of their effort on the well-being of the top-performing players anyway.

[galangalalgol]

I agree with the option to do other activities. I didn't like sports much, but I liked lifting in off-season, but when I didn't want to play in any sports (we didn't have power lifting) I got taken out of off-season and put back playing full-contact half court while the PE teacher tried to ignore that almost no one was doing anything physically active.