Posted on 02/06/2005 11:45:29 AM PST by WFTR
I recently read an article on the Fox News website about higher percentages of children being overweight and how this trend is evidence that our education system is failing our children in physical education. The article had the standard statistics about percentages of students who take phys. ed. and the standard stories about most classes being games where athletic kids dominate and non-athletic kids stand quietly and inactively to the side. I don't remember specific recommendations, but the implication was that we should demand that schools offer better physical education and demand that kids be required to take these classes.
The formula for this type of article has become a cliché. If someone holds a math or science contest and Americans finish outside the top ten, the article argues for more math and science. If a survey shows some percentage of teenagers who can't find Bulgaria on a map, the article calls for more geography. If someone discovers that none of the teenagers in his neighborhood have read his favorite novel, the article screams for more arts and humanities. What all of them have in common is the refrain that schools are "failing our children."
I'll be the first to admit that schools could do a better job on many things including physical education. I spent most of my youth as a fat, clumsy kid. Phys Ed was always two weeks at the beginning of the year where we did calisthenics and then the rest of the school year spent playing games that weren't really effective at improving our fitness. Occasionally, we would have to spend a day or two doing calisthenics as punishment for some misdeed that the coaches couldn't pin to an individual. As a result, we not only didn't get exposure to the kind of consistent, inexpensive, healthy exercise that could promote a lifetime of good health, but also we were left with the association of these exercises as a punishment to be avoided.
To make matters worse, much of what the coaches taught us about fitness was wrong. For example, we've learned over the past thirty years that gentle stretching is more effective than trying to bounce into the "textbook" position and hold it through the pain. I've never had good flexibility, and stretches were always about bearing as much pain as I could while a coach yelled at me to "get down" farther. I swore that when I finished my last gym class, I'd never stretch again. In recent years, friends have persuaded me that there were benefits to proper stretching, and I've begun doing stretches that were within my ability. I'll never have good flexibility, but I've improved. If I had been taught correctly in junior high, maybe I would have developed a healthy habit that would have followed me through my adult life.
We can talk about many ways to improve phys ed and every other subject taught in school, but none of these address one of the saddest failures of modern American society. That failure is the failure to recognize that it's not the government's job to teach us everything we need to know to survive in life; it's not the government's job to give us everything we need to have in life; and it's not the government's job to make us do everything that we must do in life. We can overcome failures on many issues, but the failure to be sufficiently independent of our government is a failure that will ruin the freedom that has been one foundation of our nation's greatness.
The subject may change, but all of the "there's a crisis" pronouncements about education are based in the belief that if government schools don't teach something, then no one will ever learn it. A few people stop learning when they leave high school, but most of them weren't learning all that much when they were in school. For the rest of us, leaving public schools is not the end of our learning, and we will continue to pick up important information throughout our lives. Public schools should give us the tools to continue learning. Primarily, these tools are the ability to read, the ability to write, and the ability to use math and science.
Our society is failing our children, but not in the area that the do-gooders claim. The biggest failure is the failure to teach kids to recognize their own needs and to act independently to meet those needs. The government's job is not to provide an endless series of crutches for every weakness we have. Instead, the government's job should be to ensure the freedom for each individual to figure out how to walk on his own.
The sad thing about it all is....if you, as a parent, voice a concern about your school not providing proper physical education, you'll have Mass. DSS knocking on your door saying you're medically neglecting your child cuz they are overweight, and it's your responsibility to control that problem, not the school.....sick, sad world how Mass. agencies can turn everything around and blame the parents. But, in the same sense, if you recognize a child gaining weight and you attempt to control it, you'll have them at your door again claiming you're abusing them through exercise. Damned if ya do, damned if ya don't!
Bill
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