This article, on how more kids are able to opt out of PE due to new legislation that was meant to enforce PE participation, is terrible. According to the article, as many as half of the kids in some middle schools are opting out of PE because of two reasons: the kids want to take fine arts classes, and the parents don't care if the kids are fat.
This is bull.
I'd like to share with you some of the reasons to opt out of PE:
1. It's boring. This is not a workout in the adult sense of a workout. Adults get to decide how to exercise to best fit their own needs and interests. Adult workouts are usually solo or in small groups, but gym classes aren't, which makes personal interest even less relevant. In a workout, you have to be mentally engaged or at least be satisfied with your choices, because that's what makes exercise a lifelong habit.
2. We live in Florida. Dear G-d, do you realize how
hot it is here? Kids start school in August and it's like 100 degrees outside without factoring in the humidity, and on a day when you can fry an egg on the sidewalk, a student is given a waiver form to get out of PE. What kid in their right mind wouldn't beg for it to be signed?
3. Can you even tell me it works? There's a lot of yammering about "health" and the "obesity epidemic," but how many really decent studies can show that PE can effectively combat obesity? I've never yet read one. Sometimes, like in the PE class the bf took in high school, you just sit around answering worksheet questions about team sports. Sometimes, like in the PE class I took in the sixth grade, you're just waiting around in lines of 75 other kids.
4. PE is unfair. I remember clearly being asked to do "the standing long jump" once a year. I was graded on it and we moved on. No one ever taught me how to do it, and it's not a pre-test, because there's no post-test. There's no practice. It's not aerobically efficient. It's not strength training.
And no one ever explained to me why the fuck we were doing it.
5. PE teachers suck. I'm going to be accused of painting with too broad a brush here, but I stand by it because it's basically true. PE teachers usually think that they know best, even though they don't care to factor in body type, experience, and what is reasonable for each individual kid. Not all of us can climb a rope. Most of us grew up into adults who don't have to climb ropes. We're okay with it. PE teachers, as adults who can and do climb ropes, are not a positive influence on kids who can't. Also, habits are learned from people you respect. If the PE teacher is tormenting you, you won't respect him or her, and you won't get anything out of the class.
6. Locker rooms are homophobic. I'm not sure that I have to elaborate on this one, but I will say that when you're changing for gym class and you're the only eleven-year-old girl with adult sized breasts, the reaction can range from mere personal tension to outright group abuse. The fact that PE classes themselves are sexist is actually secondary to this problem, imo.
7. PE isn't a workout. I've touched on this in previous items, but it can stand to be repeated as its own. We aren't talking about going to the gym and running on the treadmill for thirty minutes before doing fifteen minutes of weight training. We're talking about a huge group of kids being herded along in a totally dehumanizing, inefficient way that adults would never put up with.
8. The state legislators being quoted in the article are all fatasses. Well, they are. So why don't we make our legislators take 50 minutes out of their day to run around and be screamed at under the broiling Florida sun? But they don't. So why should you? Opt out.
9. Aren't these lawmakers all Republicans who are against a nanny state? That's how the Florida legislature describes itself. This isn't ideologically consistent. They must just like picking on fat kids.
10. Even when someone miraculously organizes a team sport during a PE class, almost no one gets to play. There will be a couple of kids on each team who actually know how to play the sport or game, and they will run roughshod over everyone else in pursuit of the all-important win.