The school’s requirement that we take four years of gym is absolutely ridiculous and should be abrogated. While the requirement doesn’t seems so bad out of context, consider the fact that English- a class developing skills vital to any field- is the only other class with a four year requirement. The message the school sends is that you may decide learning Spanish or studying chemistry is unnecessary, but the time spent in a mediocre volleyball game is utterly vital. How can anyone argue gym is more important to an education than an academic course? It’s not like we’re learning valuable fitness skills, getting our hypotonic muscles whipped into shape. The kids who don’t like gym just put in as weak of an effort as they can get away with, usually because they’re exhausted from the packed schedules of a modern high school student. It would be nice if we were all athletes who liked to run laps, but it would also be nice if we were all math-letes who liked to calculate the area of a warping triangle. The fact stands that we aren’t all passionate for the same subjects, something the school recognizes by letting us drop classes I would consider crucial to a well-rounded education, like history and math. It would be a real relief to me and other students who don’t like gym if we could capitalize on the time spent attempting feeble bicep curls. What if we could take another class by dropping gym? I have friends who love art and can’t take art class, because they have such packed schedules. Other friends take all AP classes and desperately need more time to work together. Having an extra period makes a huge impact on a schedule. Gym seems to quite obviously be the weakest link in the chain of subjects. Why is it that it’s treated as more important to our educations than core academic classes?
Wow. First of all: preach. Second, Molly, this is an amazing post and I agree with everything you mentioned. I think that as a person who stresses about gym all the time (as you know from art class), the class feels like a malignant weight to carry around. I stress about not being good enough for my gym teacher as well as my other teachers. I think exercise is good for our health, but it's difficult to achieve this kind of goal when none of the activities aren pleasing to us. Having the option to drop the class would be an amazing change, because there are so many classes I would like to take next year, but there aren't any slots left. Once again, I agree with everything you've written. We think so much alike!
Molly, you are SO right! I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've had the same thoughts. Spending so much time in a class to essentially do nothing (because 90% of the class is so tired already) is such a waste.
Not only that, but the necessity of carrying around extra clothes and shoes, along with the weight of textbooks, laptops, binders, and plenty else, makes the proverbial weight Kasane mentioned very real! There is also the fact that if you're placed in a gym class with a large group of people you don't like or talk to, the heavily social aspect of gym makes the time spent there far more awkward than a class should have to be.
You would think that if the school system really cared about our physical health, they would give us the period to catch up on the physical rest that so many of us miss out on, but it seems harsh and unusual that they do exactly the opposite, don't you think?
Whatever the case, you're absolutely right that this period could be better spent in a multitude of ways- just thinking of how much academic stress a quiet period could alleviate makes my head spin!
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