I grew up in the City Schools of Decatur where elementary schools were allowed one hour of a physical education class once or twice per week. To the best of my knowledge, all seven elementary schools shared one PE teacher, Coach Owen. There was a cap of twenty students per class, and only one class took PE at a time. We would perform our activities in a basic gym setting or outside on a field. Coach Owen taught us lots of fun things, such as gymnastics, field hockey, and dodge-ball. For the most part, I always enjoyed PE and learned a lot about different sports.
The current GA Physical Education requirements are completely inadequate, especially considering today's society. If you drive down a random neighborhood road, rarely will you find children out playing in the streets. I attribute this semi-recent change to two factors. First, the world of electronics as infiltrated our children's world of play. Playtime has now become a stationary part of our day. Second, society puts too much pressure on children to become high academic achievers by the age of seven. Because of the increase in academic standards, children are receiving more and more homework at younger and younger ages. This means that after they get home from sitting in a chair for eight hours a day, they must sit longer to complete their homework. Nowadays, neither homes nor schools are a place of play.
This stationary lifestyle for children is not natural. Studies show that movement and exercise stimulate the brain. If schools would embrace this fact and incorporate more physical education into their education system, the results would be very beneficial. Children would be able to sit still, focus more, and be more creative. But those are only the short-term effects. Long-term effects would include children learning how to retain an active lifestyle throughout their lives, which would give them increased health benefits and lower their chances of becoming overweight. The benefits of an extensive physical education program is undeniable.
I think an ideal or quality program would require an average of 30 minutes a day (minimum) of an organized PA/PE class for elementary through high school students. Even in high school, I had a hard time focusing in all of my classes simply because I needed to move around. This need for movement does not just apply to young children. It should be a continuous thing that every school system promotes. Also, the atmosphere of PE classes need to focus less on competition and more on fun learning of movement skills. The more positive the atmosphere, the more effective the PE program will be.
Although I grew up with a traditional approach to physical education, teaching with a skill theme emphasis would promote a healthier atmosphere and more beneficial results. As I already stated, movement is key for effective PA/PE classes. In traditional PE settings, less students move, playing is a competition, and too much time is spent organizing students. On the other hand, a skilled theme approach involves all students, encourages fun and positive attitudes, and promotes a higher percentage of movement. Therefore, an effective PE program that teaches the importance of physical activity to all students so that they can better focus in a classroom setting should have a skilled theme approach to teaching. With a skill theme emphasis and more frequent PE classes, children will develop an understanding of a healthy lifestyle, which will inevitably transfer over to higher performance in their academic careers.
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