30 December 2019

The downside of mandatory physical education in schools


4 comments:

  1. This video has it backwards. If bullying causes PE to fail, then the solution is not to stop PE, but to stop bullying. Similarly, teenager's insecurities are not a reason to stop PE. Getting over your insecurities is. And that's the purpose of being a teenager.

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    Replies
    1. Sadly, because most PE teachers are 1) people who are naturally athletic 2) have only scorn for people who are not, often, they are guilty of, or at least complicit in bullying students. Secondly, "Getting over your insecurities" has never, ever, ever been accomplished by being forced to do something you are not in any way good at.

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  2. Clearly the last commenter did not experience the extreme mortification of being the least coordinated kid in middle school. I did, and being chosen last for a team and then having your teammates moan and boo when they were forced to have you on their team was enough to give me stomach aches and make me not want to go to school for years. I went on to earn a doctorate from Harvard, btw.

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  3. I seriously can't consider a school as the best way to educate kids. But no one can afford to have a perfectly matched entourage of motivational educational tutors who can load into a kids brain all the social, mechanical, cultural, geological, artistic, musical, linguistic and legal skills and history to make them ready to succeed at age 18.
    Public schools waste too much time avoiding skills and knowledge people need to achieve a career course, or job set of skills, that will have them on the path to financial success, 4 weeks of vacations a year, and home ownership by age 30.
    Why? Because it takes 30 years to pay off a house loan. You see? Success in life for the majority, needs to be accomplished by age 30. After that the stats show less and less people achieving their goals, and getting things paid off before retirement.
    If people haven't succeeded by age 50, retirement will not look like you think it ought to, with money to spend, savings to cover health care costs, a home to live in (social security won't cover rent plus food plus car payments and utilities).
    Look at all the musicians that succeeded and became wealthy enough to retire. All were set by age 30. No one picked up a guitar in their 50s and made a million dollars. No one sat down at a piano for the first time in their 60s and had it made from then on. No one jumped on a motorcycle in their 40s and went on to win competitions and raced for a team owner.
    Nope, you get about 18 years after you graduate to make it, or you can count on a lifetime of status quo income.
    Public schools, and the private ones too no doubt, don't have the open minds and depth of budget to custom fit an education and sports or phys ed program to max out a kids potential and set them to winning at their chosen mental or physical goals.
    Look how many kids want to be Olympic Athletes, sports stars, X games winners, or outdoor hobby enthusiasts (fishing, hunting, mountain biking, hiking, climbing) and those simply won't happen in state public schools. Neither will arts, sciences, legal studies, etc etc blah blah blah.
    Nope. School is structured to make factory workers. Don't believe me? Look up the history of the USAs board of education directives.
    Make factory workers, not winners. Productive members of society. Read, write, work, repeat.
    After all, the legendary 3 "r"s? Has only reading, the other two don't even begin with the letter R. Arithmetic and Writing seem to have missed the target.

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