Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Kids need more exercise and during the school year it comes in the form of PE class.

This time last year they were splitting up the local middle school putting half of the students in another building, an old elementary, which was an old middle school. They decided to keep the special ed program together at one school, so my autistic son would not change schools. He'll have two more years there. The routine at this school is to have PE every other day all year long.

We live in the area served by the other school so my daughter will go to sixth grade there in the fall. Imagine my shock when I learned at parent orientation she would have PE for only one quarter! Look around! kids are out of shape and over weight. Why, then, is it a good idea to schedule classes like this? CG's daughter had one quarter of Spanish last year. How on earth is she supposed to remember anything from year to year?

Isn't one of the goals of education to make the students better people prepared for the future? How is this system supposed to make the students at this school better people with these scheduling policies? Why are these policies different from my son's school on the other side of town? Don't they see the lack of PE will lead to vanity sizing in the negative digits?

1 comment:

AM Kingsfield said...

Ah, I see your confusion. You ask
"Isn't one of the goals of education to make the students better people prepared for the future?"
Well, idealisticaly, yes. But in reality the goal is to get higher test scores. They keep adding more curriculum and extending the subjects that are tested. Until they come up with a physical fitness test that counts for something, PE will continue to decline. At least someone is doing something about the soda machines.