One critical reason middle school students should be allowed to choose their P.E curriculum is because students are starting to not enjoy P.E classes, and P.E classes are meant to be fun. Penelope Trunk, author of the article “Forced Gym Hates Exercise”, says: “Kids who don’t have any gym yearn for exercise during the day and they generally know what they like, team sports or individual sports, rigorous or methodical... Kids who are forced to do a certain type of exercise generally dislike exercise in the same way that kids who are forced to learn a certain way that’s not appropriate to them start to hate learning.” (Trunk, 2013). This is important to notice because that quote summarizes what I feel like in P.E. class. I don’t usually like the way we are being forced to learn the sports that we don’t take any sort of interest in, and I find myself become quite tense. I think the author’s intention was to tell P.E. coaches and parents that kids that have to follow the system of P.E. units get tired of doing forced sports. A study conducted by the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF) interviewed 1,500 kids and found that over half (51 percent) of girls are “put off physical activity by their experiences of school sport and P.E. lessons.” (Alamy, 2012). This is significant because 51 percent is a lot of girls that don’t like sports just because of their experiences, which is saddening because kids should be able to enjoy sports without any obstacles in the way.
Another crucial reason middle school students should have the right to pick the sports they do in the P.E. curriculum is because kids’ self esteem is decreasing because of how unconfident kids are feeling when doing sports they’re not good at or not fond of. I have personal experience. I really find myself engaged in some sports that we do, such as basketball or badminton. They are really fun, interesting sports which I wouldn’t mind doing in P.E. classes. I feel I strive in these sports and really like them. However, I feel that P.E. units I have such as touch rugby and volleyball are really challenging for my abilities, and I dread P.E. and feel uncomfortable when attempting to do the sports. Furthermore, I know some people like my classmate Piper, that really like touch rugby and volleyball, and some people that despise basketball and badminton. This is important to notice because I feel this can relate to everyone, even outside of the P.E. subject. You can be really talented at humanities, but struggle in maths. It’s exactly the same for P.E. units. Also, Sarah Harris, contributor to the Mail Online, found a research at that was conducted at the University of Bedfordshire in the UK. They found that almost half of middle school teachers (42 per cent) say that their students don’t enjoy PE lessons, and that thirty-nine per cent of children across the UK have a negative attitude towards being physically active by the age of 16, according to a survey of 400 middle school teachers. This shows that many middle school students’ interest in P.E. is decreasing, because it says that by the age of 16, the children have lost their attention towards P.E. At this age, children are going through adolescence and while we’re going through this transition, we start to make many decisions that usually stick through to the end of adolescence. P.E. is a subject in school that shouldn’t be ignored, and is crucial to our health, but with people losing interest in it, it’s not gonna benefit their mental health (e.g. feeling better about your body) if children are not interested at such a young age.
Another crucial reason middle school students should have the right to pick the sports they do in the P.E. curriculum is because kids’ self esteem is decreasing because of how unconfident kids are feeling when doing sports they’re not good at or not fond of. I have personal experience. I really find myself engaged in some sports that we do, such as basketball or badminton. They are really fun, interesting sports which I wouldn’t mind doing in P.E. classes. I feel I strive in these sports and really like them. However, I feel that P.E. units I have such as touch rugby and volleyball are really challenging for my abilities, and I dread P.E. and feel uncomfortable when attempting to do the sports. Furthermore, I know some people like my classmate Piper, that really like touch rugby and volleyball, and some people that despise basketball and badminton. This is important to notice because I feel this can relate to everyone, even outside of the P.E. subject. You can be really talented at humanities, but struggle in maths. It’s exactly the same for P.E. units. Also, Sarah Harris, contributor to the Mail Online, found a research at that was conducted at the University of Bedfordshire in the UK. They found that almost half of middle school teachers (42 per cent) say that their students don’t enjoy PE lessons, and that thirty-nine per cent of children across the UK have a negative attitude towards being physically active by the age of 16, according to a survey of 400 middle school teachers. This shows that many middle school students’ interest in P.E. is decreasing, because it says that by the age of 16, the children have lost their attention towards P.E. At this age, children are going through adolescence and while we’re going through this transition, we start to make many decisions that usually stick through to the end of adolescence. P.E. is a subject in school that shouldn’t be ignored, and is crucial to our health, but with people losing interest in it, it’s not gonna benefit their mental health (e.g. feeling better about your body) if children are not interested at such a young age.
I do agree that their is no need to change the system of the current P.E. units. In the survey I conducted within my mentor class, most if not all the respondents generally said they didn’t mind the P.E. sports we had in school, and 12.5% of the peers said no to changing the sports curriculum. The P.E. units we’ve been having have been quite successful throughout many years and there have been no complaints. Also, I do understand how painful organizing everyone into these sports would be, let alone organizing middle school students into different P.E. classes. But don’t we want all kids to be comfortable, confident and contented when they’re playing sports? Isn’t that what sports are meant to be doing? Offering this opportunity to select what sports we can do would help achieve this goal.
Middle school students should be able to have the rights to choose the sports they want to do. I take the position that while middle school students stay fairly fit with the P.E. units given to us, we are having to follow the system of sports that some kids aren’t eager to do. The UWCSEA P.E. department should provide the rights for middle school students to choose their own sports units in the curriculum.
I do understand that it’s gonna be very chaotic to organize the sports for 620 students. Also, most kids still like the P.E. units. However, there are kids still struggling out there. I’m proposing an idea which can help solve this issue. We can treat P.E. class as a health society; kids who are keen athletes can have the opportunity to sign up for hardcore sports, and other kids who are less eager to do tough sports can choose ones they want to do so they feel better about themselves.
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