Boston schools go lacking in phys ed

[LWolf]

Data show 1 in 4 students have none. City ordered to create plan to fix problem.

By Bob Hohler
Globe Staff / July 13, 2009

<snip>
Boston’s public schools have failed to provide any formal instruction in physical education to about 25 percent of the city’s students, despite a state law that requires physical education be taught to all students in all grades.

<snip>
Though other schools nationwide have also drastically cut or eliminated physical education amid a push to improve test scores in literacy and math, the survey results underscore the breadth of chronic problems in Boston school athletics that were detailed in a recent Globe series. Mayor Thomas M. Menino responded to the series by announcing he would form a nonprofit charitable foundation aimed at raising millions of dollars to close crucial funding gaps in city sports programs.

The mayor’s spokeswoman, Dot Joyce, referred questions about physical education to the school department.

Boston School Superintendent Carol R. Johnson said she has tried to offset the deficiencies in physical education by developing a creative plan to promote physical activity in the schools through a wide range of partnerships with nonprofit groups, as well as collaborating with the city’s community centers and Parks and Recreation Department.

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/mcas/articles/2009/07/13/boston8217s_public_schools_lacking_in_phys_ed_classes/?page=1

This is a long article, full of excuses and "creative" (read: non-funded, inadequate) ways to provide pseudo-pe for students.

I have a better suggestion. How about using that stimulus money that Obama/Duncan have tied to forcing their privatization "reforms" on states to, instead, provide funding for enough PE teachers to ensure that every student in the U.S. gets PE every day?

Providing jobs puts stimulus into the economy more than bad reform policies do. And it would improve the health of America's children, too.

Another suggestion: remove the high stakes testing that drives districts to cut back on everything but preparing for tests, and, instead, put the focus on serving the whole student. What a concept.

This is cross-posted from GD to provide a longer shelf-life:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6066237

[napi21]

1. It's NOT only Boston! My grandkids attend school in Ga. and

although they both participate in non-school sports like soccer, football, etc, the school has NOT PE program at all!

I'm old and PE was mandatory when I was in school 50/60's. It was also mandatory when my sons were in school. I asked my son when they did away with it, and he didn't know. My grandkids are 11 & 9, and it's never been part of their curriculum.

[LWolf]

2. It's everywhere.

My district, struggling with budget cuts in this economy, cut PE and Music teachers for all elementary and K-8 schools for the coming year. They justify that to the public by assuring them that we, the regular classroom teachers, will teach those subjects.

They've given us a pay cut, they've taken our prep period, they've shortened the number of school days for students to 147, and they've added two more responsibilities to our already long list. And we are still responsible for raising test scores, with less time to do so.

Yes, we'll take them outside and do something, and we'll do something with music. How much time do you think we'll really have to plan a comprehensive program/curriculum for either of the new added responsibilities?

The answer is "none."

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Make sure you have a written lesson plan for music. No.....

>>>>>Yes, we'll take them outside and do something, and we'll do something with music. How much time do you think we'll really have to plan a comprehensive program/curriculum for either of the new added responsibilities?

The answer is "none.">>>>>>>


... make that three of four written lesson plans to reflect "differentiated" instruction.

[LWolf]

4. To be written

during my non-paid "vacation" time, since there sure as hell won't be time to write lessons for music when paid time begins.

[dsc]

5. 147? How many did you have before?

I have never heard of places having below 170.

[LWolf]

7. 168.

Apparently, the school year was shortened a couple of years before I got here ('06.) Districts were cutting school days off of the calendar because of budget cuts then. We are smaller, with a (then) more stable population; little growth to help the budget out when state revenues fell.

[donco6]

10. Me neither - we're at the state law minimum and it's 169.

147 is terrible!

[trumanh59639]

6. It's happening everywhere

No wonder Americans are so fat.

[bbdad]

8. What really irks me about discussions of this kind is that

no consideration is given to the fact that some kids just aren't interested in sports. Although there have been some changes in recent years, the traditional approach to "physical education" has always been exclusively sports-centered, as if every single boy aspires to become an athlete. One of the results of this approach is that nonathletic boys have frequently been subjected to bullying, some of which is even physical assault. But even more than that, the nonathletic students get very little exercise! Speaking as a 60-year-old man, I went through three and a half years of mandatory "sports only" P.E. I never even heard the words "exercise program" or "bodybuilding." In fact, I didn't learn that there were any exercise programs until I no longer had to take P.E., which was totally useless for me and all of the other nonathletic boys who had to endure it. And all in the name of physical fitness. Nothing less than a monumental exercise in hypocrisy. For over two years now, I've been working with a personal trainer at a local health club on a bodybuilding program. I've never been stronger in my life. The contrast between the mandatory "sports centered" P.E. of my boyhood and my health club experience (which has turned me into a gym rat) is as different as night and day. And what is especially hilarious is that I get more exercise in a single workout session than I ever did in a single year of mandatory P.E., and I'm not exaggerating! Forcing overweight children to "play" competitive sports in mandatory P.E. classes that follow the old approach will NOT encourage them to become physically active and lose weight. They will only be subjected to incessant bullying and will then turn to food for comfort. (Incidentally, I've never been overweight.) In discussions such as these, no one points out that different students have different physical fitness needs. Say, there is a scrawny boy who wants to build up his physique; and there's an overweight boy who wants to slim down. Are they going to be doing the same sort of exercise? I need not comment. I believe that the "old" sports-centered P.E. should be retained for the school athletes and other students who want to participate in sports, but only as an elective. There is no point of forcing nonathletes to take such P.E. classes, which are often hellish for them. As I said, there have been changes in recent years. I've recently learned about the innovative PE4Life program, which is actually a genuine fitness program instead of sports coercion. Many people fail to realize that while sports can serve as a form of recreation for those who enjoy them to keep physically active, the fact remains that a sport is a physical contest, not an exercise program. People can get into top physical shape without ever participating in sports. I've posted a link below to a webpage article about the PE4Life program. What is especially interesting to notice is that in the school district of the article where the PE4Life program was instituted, "jocks" and "techies" started socializing with each other instead of remaining in their cliques; and bullying actually went down.

http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-22-fall-2002/personal-best

[LWolf]

9. Whether it's through sports or other activities,

our students need to be outside, they need to be physically active. There is certainly, imo, an over-obsession with sports, but that's sure as hell not what our PE classes have been about. Before the loss of our PE teacher, we had a pretty comprehensive physical fitness program. Our students played sports during PE; they played many physical games, including things like "capture the cone," and "ultimate frisbee." They also prepared for and did the president's physical fitness test. They did ground, low, and high elements on our high ropes course. They built obstacle courses and raced through them. The bottom line? Most students LIKE to play games, whether they are traditional sports or not. They participate more fully when they are playing than when they are working. When work becomes play, we have more active kids.

This year we got .75 of a PE teacher back. It's been good to see kids get more time being active, and the kids are thrilled, with few exceptions.

[bbdad]

11. You and I agree that there is a need for schoolchildren

(as well as adults) to be physically active for the sake of their health. Although I'm not completely convinced, the P.E. program that you speak of sounds relatively humane. I'm not meaning to be impolite, but you seem to contradict yourself. You say that the P.E. program you speak of was not about overemphasizing sports, yet you later say in your post that the students played sports. I do recognize that throughout this country different school districts have different programs, some better or worse than others.

Perhaps what accounts for the difference in our respective points of view is the apparent fact that we are longtime residents in different parts of the country. From the age of nine, I grew up in the state of Texas, which historically has not been known as a beacon of innovation. The mandatory P.E. classes were just as bad for nonathletic boys as I described them. There wasn't even any instruction about the sports themselves. My first trainer at the health club would vary the workout routine with instruction in one sport or another. As a boy when I was forced to take "sports only" P.E., I had assumed that shooting a basketball was just the action of thrusting the ball through the air towards the hoop. I was amazed when my trainer showed me how to properly shoot a basketball, an action that involves certain wrist and finger movements. In other words, a physical skill that must be practiced. In P.E. I once was forced to play in a game of basketball, despite the fact that I didn't even know how the game was played. And I had not been taught how to shoot a basketball. When I say "I," I mean the entire class. The assumption seems to have been made that every boy already knew how to shoot a basketball. Would you call that teaching P.E.?

Historically (in other words, for generations), physically weak boys and boys who are overweight frequently have been subjected to bullying in mandatory "sports only" P.E. classes, as opposed to innovative programs such as PE4Life that actually promote physical fitness. Over the years I've talked to many other nonathletic men whose mandatory P.E. experiences were terrible. In fact, I'd say that more bullying takes place in mandatory "sports only" P.E. classes than in all the academic classes combined.

There also is a problem with the culture that is associated with certain school sports. (Individual sports don't all have the same culture, by the way.) Athletic prowess and physical strength have become (actually, have been) the only standard of masculinity. This mindset takes a dim view of nonathletic boys. Isn't it interesting that a boy who throws a baseball poorly is said to throw "like a girl"? In a DU thread not many years back, someone referred to a survey that showed that junior-high and high-school boys who have no interest in football were viewed as "fags." (I guess they never heard of Esera Tuaolo, not to mention others.) This mindset was common when I was a boy, and it's still common today. I noticed when I was a boy that the coaches either ignored nonathletic boys or viewed them with contempt. Is it any wonder that bullying arises when nonathletic boys are viewed in this way from the start? My wife was a high-school math teacher for eleven years. She's told me that any math teacher who had a similar attitude toward students who were struggling with math in their classes and treated them with contempt would be fired.

Over the years I've heard some really sad tales from other men about the bullying they experienced in P.E. This is an issue that (until recently) was ignored. The victims were deprived of a voice. The following example took place in Great Britain, but the same kind of bullying has taken place in the United States as well. An online friend of mine attended school in London where the same old "sports only" mandatory P.E. was the reality -- with, of course, no physical fitness programs provided for nonathletic boys. His P.E. class once was divided into two teams to play a game of cricket. (My friend had never even had an interest in cricket, but he was forced to play in this game anyway. See what I mean about choice?) His team lost. After the game one of his "teammates," who blamed him for the loss, walked over to him and smashed his face with a cricket bat, breaking his nose. Was the young thug sent to juvenile detention? Of course not. He was merely suspended from school for a few days. No one cared what happened to my friend. After all, he was just a scrawny kid. The young thug was a school athlete and, if I remember correctly, may have later become a professional player. When he returned to school, he shoved my friend into a locker.

As I've said in my first post, I have no problem with students who want to play sports being allowed to play them in P.E. What I argue for is an approach that is actually effective by giving students a choice instead of having sports forced upon them. I don't take back a single word of my first post. Physical fitness can be achieved without participating in sports. I know of two Navy SEALS who became physically fit without ever participating in any school sport. Can't get any tougher than a Navy SEAl. By building up my physique and getting into shape at a health club. I'm giving the lie to the claim that physically unfit nonathletic children must be forced to participate in competitive team sports.

[Recursion]

12. Fair enough point

Though I think there is a valid educational purpose to having every student at least familiar with the rules and fundamentals of, say, basketball, tennis, and softball.

Also it's important to have some team activities in there for; sports are the easiest way to do that.

[bbdad]

14. Sure, there is value in having a basic knowledge

of the rules and fundamentals of several sports. But the point is that these things were never taught. This certainly was true in my own experience, and other nonathletic guys I've talked to over the years have said the same. The students in these mandatory "sports only" P.E. classes were expected to know the rules and fundamentals before they ever set foot in the gym. In fact, they were ridiculed for not knowing how to play these games (in other words, ridiculed for being ignorant); and the problem was never remedied. My sixth-grade P.E. class once went out to the field to play football. I told the coach that I didn't know how to play the game. He responded simply by saying, "Uh, just go stand out in the field." Historically, one of the problems with mandatory sports-centered P.E. is that the coaches get away with not teaching anything. If they actually taught the kids how to play the game, there might be some value in it. Instead, as has happened far more often than not, they just throw out a ball and say, "Go play."

The concept of teamwork is valid only when the members of the team are on a more-or-less equal footing. That is not the situation in mandatory sports-centered P.E. When a P.E. class divides into two teams for a competition, the athletic kids are going to resent the presence of nonathletes on their teams who perform poorly or might not even know how the game is played. They are going to resent the nonathletes because they want to win, not lose. Therefore, bullying is almost always guaranteed; and for what good purpose is that? Ridicule and bullying for lack of knowledge does not teach teamwork. What it does do is to condition the nonathlete to become prejudiced against athlete classmates and coaches.

[bbdad]

21. Oh, you mean the sort of "teamwork" experience

I mentioned above? The incident when my online British friend had his face smashed and his nose broken by a "student athlete"? Yes, that sort of teamwork is certainly necessary for a well-adjusted life.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. And some kids really aren't into Math. Or Science. Or Spanish.

It's called a well rounded education for a reason. :)

[bbdad]

15. Yes, students must take subjects they don't like

in order to have a well-rounded education. However, if a student walked into a math class or a science class or a Spanish class or any class other than P.E. and the teacher said, "You should already know how to do this. Here's the classwork; go do it," and then ridiculed the kids who didn't already know the subject matter and even encouraged the other kids to ridicule and bully them, that teacher would be fired. When a coach does this in a mandatory sports-centered P.E. class, it's called "building character" and "teaching teamwork."

By the way, are any kids ever bullied just because they really aren't into math or science or Spanish? Do any boys ever have their masculinity or sexual orientation called into question simply because they do poorly in a particular academic class?

[strategery blunder]

16. The problem is PE isn't always well-rounded, or even constructive.

I have depth-perception issues (the dreaded "four eyes" writ large), so most of the time PE was a disaster for me. It is incredibly difficult for me to accurately judge objects moving along a parabola, like catching a baseball, football, or what have you, and no amount of forcing me to play sports would have any effect on it. The only team sport that I proved even marginally good at was floor hockey, because pucks tend to move along more a straight line most of the time--which meant I was actually able to do things like receive or intercept a pass. That would've been UNTHINKABLE in football central.

Moreover, I only had the experience of a sport that I liked because I just happened to move from Arizona to Illinois. Unfortunately, no one is really interested in floor hockey, the ONE sport I was good at, outside of what little two weeks a year, or every other year, here and there I managed to be able to play. To truly actually apply floor hockey to any kind of lifelong physical activity, I would have had to learn how to skate, so I could play ice hockey. Was this at all an option? No. Could my parents afford private lessons? No. As a result, what could have been a bright spot in my own physical education, something that would actually lead to a lifelong DESIRE to get out and be active, was left to languish. I'd still like to learn how to skate, so maybe I could still play some recreational ice hockey eventually (I'm only 25), but we all know how well the economy is doing.

So I sucked at the 95% or so of sports that matter (football, basketball, baseball), and the ONE thing I was good at, that would be recognized by teachers had this been ANY OTHER SUBJECT MATTER, was completely overlooked and left to wilt. If a math teacher saw that I could not memorize the multiplication tables but could add numbers quickly and efficiently, well then it's possible to approach multiplication as repeated addition instead of memorizing some table. Likewise, there are multiple viable approaches to PE, and the lifelong path to physical fitness it is supposed to inculcate, not just the football/basketball/baseball trinity.

By the time in high school where PE finally split off between competitive and recreational, the damage had already been done to my DESIRE to exercise. Does any reasonable person think that helplessly suffering through ten years of bullying/no one taking the bullying seriously because of the coordination issues I had to deal with made me WANT to have a lifelong love of exercise? Please allow me to LOLOL. For a long time, I quite obviously felt that PE was completely pointless because the people who needed it the most, were the ones destined to hate it and block it out on account of all the bullying they suffer because of it. After I could take recreational PE, I at least received some meaningful and constructive education on bodybuilding, but I must say that was the only thing I actually LEARNED in twelve years of PE. Nevertheless, that knowledge languished because years and years of being bullied on account of my non-athleticism had killed any desire to apply that knowledge. However, if the split between competitive and recreational PE occurred much earlier, perhaps unathletic people could learn to value fitness in an environment comparatively free of bullying and disparagement (because the uber-jocks would all be in competitive...)

However, in this day and age of collapsing education budgets, it's doubtful that we would ever see any kind of meaningful reform of PE to make it valuable to the kids who actually need it.

Now, only half a decade after I graduated from PE have the wounds of my PE experience even begun to actually heal. I still do not like exercise, though I do want to learn how to skate so some day I might find a recreational league to play the one sport I might be marginally decent at. To that end, I must expend mucho resources of my own because PE teachers either didn't have the resources to make sure that kids other than jocks benefited from their class, or just didn't care. Most likely the latter. To that end, I've lost around 30 pounds this year, but it's not like I actually enjoy the exercise. The damage done by years of bullying from jocks and neglect by coaches colors perceptions, attitudes, and willingness to exercise for a very long time, and it's not easy to overcome. Fitness is something I have to force myself to do; the "appreciation" that I'm supposed to learn from PE never happened.

Math, science, and Spanish classes won't shove students into a locker and make unwarranted assumptions about sexual orientation because the students "aren't into" them. Yet, this is what unathletic kids go through in PE every day, because PE exists for the football/basketball/baseball trinity, not to give each and every student a viable physical education that actually applies to them. If PE is supposed to teach an "appreciation of fitness," the lesson is completely lost on its victims. I'm having to go back now, years later, and correct a deficient education, because the percentage of PE lesson time that actually applied to me was in the single digits.

I recognize that it's probably unreasonable for me to expect to learn how to skate from a public education PE class outside of Canada, as the required facilities are expensive and require significant maintenance. However, a well-rounded PE system that recognizes that there are many ways to attain physical fitness outside of the football/basketball/baseball trinity, and gives the flexibility to direct fitness into activities more suited for a student's athletic ability, or lack thereof? Youbetcha. :)

[bbdad]

17. Brother, you're speaking my language! I hear you!

You have just reinforced the points that I was trying to make above. Whenever I hear people say that the solution to increased rates of obesity in children is to force nonathletic children to participate in competitive team sports as dictated in mandatory "sports only" P.E. classes, I feel like screaming. Do any of these people even recognize the problems that nonathletic boys face in these wrongheaded classes, as opposed to genuine fitness classes such as the innovative PE4Life program? I've been amazed to hear the views that some liberals have about school P.E. Why, they sound just like Republicans to me. They don't think about the issue of nonathletic boys being bullied in P.E. at all. They see no need for reforms that would actually promote physical fitness for nonathletic students instead of discouraging them from becoming physically active at all.

As I've said above, several years ago as a middle-aged adult, I joined a health club and started working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program. I was amazed. I couldn't believe how different this experience was from the mandatory "sports only" P.E. that was forced upon me in school when I was a kid. I remember at the time that the adults who were in charge of this charade were saying that they were concerned about kids being physically unfit, yet there were NO physical fitness programs of any kind for the nonathletic kids. I didn't even know what an exercise program was because such programs were never even mentioned. The hypocrisy of those who were responsible for setting the content (such as it was) of these classes was monumental.

Because my health club experience has been so positive and beneficial, I've become a committed gym rat, no thanks to the mindless sports culture. The Boston P.E. program sounds fairly decent, I guess; but what has so often been the case is that nonathletic children (especially boys) have been kicked in the teeth by phony "physical education" classes that served the needs of only the school athletes, classes whose content was determined by neanderthals afflicted with machismo. When I think of the self-confidence that bodybuilding could have given to me when I was a teenager at a time when I was being bullied ... bodybuilding, which was NOT offered by any of the P.E. classes that I and all other nonathletic boys in the state of Texas were required to take, classes that were totally useless to us and of no benefit whatsover.

Hey, proud2BlibKansan (#13), are you reading any of this?

[strategery blunder]

18. I shudder to think of what my experience would've been had I stayed in AZ.

I certainly did not receive any meaningful physical education there.

In Illinois, I did not have any practical physical education until the eleventh grade, when I finally had the option to take recreational PE. Even then, only a relatively small portion of the class (weightlifting unit) proved relevant to me in the long-term.

What amazes me is how PE coaches could not notice (or care) my sudden change from complete laughingstock to actually being able to block shots and score the occasional goal (I was generally able to persuade my way into playing as a defenseman instead of the goalie, by pointing out how horrible I was at catching things) :) when the floor hockey unit came up. The difference in ability was night and day, because the depth perception problem that held me back was nowhere near as bad. The sudden change in ability happened across multiple grade levels, so it wasn't a fluke either. Had I been that weak in ANY OTHER subject, and suddenly able to do something well within that subject, the difference would have been noticed, and probably adjusted for, by any competent teacher.

PE? Nada...

Note that if it wasn't for the floor hockey fluke, I likely would still believe I suck at everything related to what PE is supposed to teach. And I only received the floor hockey bit by having the good fortune of moving from AZ to IL as a kid. Had I stayed in AZ, the effectiveness of PE likely would've been exactly zero instead of at least nudging up to being beneficial two weeks, and only two weeks, out of every school year.

Now, as for proud2Blib reading this, it IS the middle of the schoolweek, and I wouldn't be surprised if proud2Blib has lots of work to catch up on after getting distracted by the election. :)

[bbdad]

19. Someone wrote the following at another website.

I am for mandatory P.E., (my italics) even if there is some bullying (I remember in Junior High, at the end of the P.E. class, the whole school went out to see "the Sissy" run or jump or play basketball, just to jeer him... "I suffered a lot", he told me years later, in college).

Even though he personally knew a victim of such bullying who related to him how bad it was, he still has no problem with P.E. bullying. What a great guy. That says it all.

[Taitertots]

20. Some people don't understand that Physical Education isn't about sports

Or at least it shouldn't be.

Then they act surprised when the children end up over weight. Duh, you have ruined sports for them and taught them NOTHING about how to become more physically fit.

Why don't we start making Math and Reading a competition, then see how the stupid kids feel about it. See if failing constantly while everyone laughs at them helps their math skills.