Sorry dodgeball fans, gym class now offers choices
‘We want our kids ... to be active for life,’ district official says.
You won’t find gym class on the schedule in upstate New York’s Victor school district.
What you will see: kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, dance, self-defense, archery and in-line skat- ing — all under the heading of physical education. The teachers say it’s a more fitting description of lessons ered models for the more skill-specific gymnastics. meant to last well beyond modern approach. D.C. sixth-graders learn orithe class bell. Connecticut, Vermont enteering, including how
“We want our kids, as they and Michigan are among to read a compass and geowalk out of these halls in states that include physicache. High schoolers swim. grade 12, to be active for cal education or fitness in “We want to teach a varilife,” said Ron Whitcomb, their accountability plans for ety of these foundational the district’s director of the U.S. Education Departmovement skills with health, physical education ment under the new law. The cycling, swimming, parkand athletics. more holistic view of school our. So that they’re very
With the childhood obequality is a departure from individualized,” said Mirsity rate at about 17 perthe old law’s heavy reliance iam Kenyon, the district’s cent, the federal education on test scores. director of health and physlaw passed in December In the shadow of Washing- ical education, “and when 2015 to replace No Child ton state’s Mount Rainier, you have that, you can’t Left Behind elevates health physical education teacher take it away.” and fitness to rank among Tracy Krause’s students Lily Morgulis, 7, envisions things like art, music, civhave for several years been riding bikes with her parents ics and science as elements fly-fishing and rock climb- on weekends after masterof a well-rounded educaing as part of an “Outdoor ing the two-wheeler with tion and makes additional Academy” program that her classmates at Seaton funding available. also incorporates English Elementary School.
At a time when schools are Language Arts and environ“It’s a good exercise. It all about getting students mental science. All freshgives you an opportunity to ready for college or jobs, men at Krause’s Tahoma ride bikes once in a while,” experts say it’s a chance for High School take a founLily said on a recent mornmore physical education dations class that lets them ing, after putting on a shiny teachers to look beyond explore things like dance, blue helmet and making sevgraduation, too, and leave yoga, strength and condieral smooth circles. “I feel even the least competitive tioning. like it’s really fun. It feels students with the will and “Our (school) motto is happy.” skills to keep moving. In ‘future ready.’ We want On the flip side, schools, many places, that has meant kids to leave with a plan including in New Hampmore bike-riding, outdoor for the future, whether it’s shire, Virginia and Maine, hikes and yoga, and less college or the military or are increasingly doing away dodgeball and shimmying going straight to the work- with “human target” games up a rope — more choice force, and I think the same like dodgeball in gym class, about which activity to purneeds to be true about their as well as team sports that sue, and less emphasis on health,” Krause said. may pit accomplished comwho’s the best at it. Washington, D.C., teach- petitive athletes against
“The most important job ers put all of the district’s classmates who would rather of a great physical educa- second-graders on bicysit on the sidelines. tion teacher is to appreciate cles to gain a lifelong skill. The goal should be to meet every student in that class, Fourth- and seventh-grad- all students where they are not just the highly skilled,” ers do parkour, in which and move forward, said said Whitcomb, whose prostudents leap and vault over Cheryl Richardson, senior gram pre-dates the new law obstacles in a way that’s director of programs at and is among those consid- more freewheeling than SHAPE America, the Soci- ety of Health and Physical Educators, not “where P.E. is so hard that they learn to hate it or associate it with some sort of torture.”
Gym class was so defeating for Christa Crawford Valency that she transferred out of her private Los Angeles high school.
“The P.E. teacher was a former professional football player. He was ... ‘We’re going to run stairs,’ and I was just, l ike, throwing up. I could not keep up,” Crawford Valency, 31, said. Though she surfed and did martial arts, the “suicide runs” and competitive volleyball games required skills she hadn’t acquired.
“I was having panic attacks,” she said.