Healthy body? healthy mind? volleyball?

Physical education: Ah how somply the mention of the name brings dread to some, and a sense of nonchalance to others. How some look at the fast kids, the athletic kids, and think: man, ill never be able to run that fast. Or still others, the smart ones, thinking: i dont need to run if i do good in school. And what does running a mile in 8 minutes have to do with life anyways? who cares if i can play volleyball? so what if i can do sixty pushups in a minute? thats not gonna get me a job, unless i wanna be a gym teacher.

The truth of the matter is, being physically healthy is very important, especially in a teenager. in my experience, and there are statistical studies proving me right though i can find exact citations, being physcially healthy does indeed make a mind "healthier" so to speak, in that not all athletes are the big dumb jocks who lift weights all day, simply to bash into each other at nights. Athletes can be some of the most brilliant kids in a school, albeit because they were blessed with a good work ethic and perhaps a higih intelligence level, but also because sports and being in physical shape makes it easier to conscentrate. In my opinion, in the winter and spring (wrestling/track season, respectively) i am able to focus better and achieve higher grades than in the fall. PErhaps this has to do with me just having come from summer vacation in the flal and whatnot, but i believe that being in physicaly shape can indeed help a person mentally.

PHysical education does just what the name suggests: instructs students as to the education of their physiology. However, though the class attempts to teach the importance of being in shape, is it taken all that seriously? do naturally skinny kids think: aw man im not fat i dont need to worry about running? do the overweight kids think: im fat and i cant change it? I was an overweight child, freshmen year being five foot four inches and weighing in at two hundred ten pounds, forty five percent of which was body fat. i also noticed freshmen year my GPA was 2.5, as opposed to the 3.5 it is now, being five foot nine and weighing in at one hundred forty five pounds, running a mile in four minutes fifty two seconds, eing able to do thirty five pullups. this may seem like a futile attempt to brag about my phyical adeptitude, but i am simply trying to make a point: physical education, along with wrestling, impacted me.

I remmber thinking: man i wish i could bring my mile time down from fifteem minutes to eight to get an "A" on the run! And i accomplished and surpassed that goal, along with many others. HOwever, though physical education did indeed influence my getting into shape, there were some needless elements involved. (Certainly there are better ways to teach sportsmanship, hand eye coordination, and team camaraderie than volleyball?) HOwever, i took the good with the bad and improved.

What i guess im trying to say is that the impact of physical education is so little in students who focus so much on academics, or those who just dont care. i was one of the few so powerfully affected by the promise of either a blissful, normal childhood (i say this because it is abnormal to be obese, i read a study on it, once again i cannot name exact quatations, im sorry) and that of a "fat kid". I believe this lack of motivation about P.E. is sparked by the useless elements, such as volleyball and square dancing (yes they taught us how to sqaure dance. ridiculous i know). It disturbs me how such a posotive ideal can become so warped as to adhere to what other people think is "best for the class as a whole". i believe it would be alot better to focus one one fitness goal per marking period, instead of adhering to a foolish schedule and curriulum. PErhaps it would indeed make students take this Physical education more seriously. (and please, how about a teacher who knows about a teenage mentality, instead of one whose mind is filled with pushups and running and... square dancing?)