CHAPTER
22
Organizing sports in schools is a natural. These days, though, some government schools seem to want to drop sports – and often physical education – altogether.
Amanda Spake wrote in US News & World Report, “Now only 8 percent of elementary schools and 5.8 percent of high schools offer daily PE in all grades.” This is amazing but true. It’s probably also why recreation districts have grown so fast. Could it also be a reason for high dropout rates? Maybe it’s also the reason that so many kids’ guts and butts have grown so much?
Many modern schools are so big that few students make the sports teams. The result is overweight and out-of-condition kids, many of them with too much pent-up energy. The situation doesn’t match the wishes of a vast majority of parents, at least in my informal surveys. If a ball team carries 20 players, it represents 10 percent of a school of 200, but just 1 percent of a school of 2,000 students. In a small school, a half-dozen sports teams would involve over half of the school population. This is probably a good argument for reducing school size, but it is also a good argument for physical education in schools.
A few government schools even go so far as to try to prevent the neighborhood association or recreation district from using school facilities. Unforgivable!
Yet, schools are the perfect place to organize PE and sports for kids. Kids need a break from class time, and they need to work off some of that energy. Physical education should be mandatory for all kids. In lieu of physical education, after-hours intramural or school-team sports should be offered for those kids and parents who wish to participate. They are at school, why bus or drive them elsewhere to play? The facilities are right there – let’s use them!
Schools that have organized sports should have a “no pass – no play” rule that covers every subject. I would readily endorse a requirement of a “C” grade or higher in all subjects for students who play sports. Let the kids know that schoolwork is more important than sports. Period. Kids who are competitive will want to participate in after-hours sports and may keep their grades up to do it.
Even when the school is organizing sports, parents should be expected to help out. Parents are much more likely to do what is best for the kids.
“Oh, but the parents don’t have time,” say some administrators and teachers. Last time I checked, there were lots of parents who would volunteer if they were asked. The common cop-out from some teachers, administrators, and unions is that “parents aren’t involved.” Have the parents been asked? Has anyone called them? Has the school sent a note home with the kids? Has anyone put an article in the local paper asking parents to volunteer?
The primary and middle schools once had enough money to offer physical education and intramural sports. What has happened? Do you remember voting to eliminate sports or physical education from schools?
Could it be that the administrators, school boards, and unions played the “Washington Monument Closing Game”? They say with an almost imperceptible whine, “We don’t have enough money to do what needs to be done, so we will have to cut the sports, physical education, band, music or whatever program.”
The tax-dollars-per-student figure has increased far faster than the rate of inflation. The students-per-classroom number is the same or lower than when I was in school. Some people don’t like to address those facts.
“Well, our job is teaching, not sports,” they say. Are there no lessons to be learned through sports? Can’t students learn to “feel good” about themselves in sports as well as in the classroom? Won’t involvement in sports make better students? Sports are like any other extra-curricular activity. The more students take part in those activities, the more they and their parents feel that they “belong.” And that feeling will invariably translate into better performance in core-subject learning.
One also needs to ask, is some of the violence seen in today’s schools occurring because kids aren’t physically challenged? An hour of physical activity for every kid, every school day is good for everyone involved. Intramural or inter-school sports are a proven way to get that activity.