After a long walk with Harley, it was nice to see 10 year old Michael Turri summed up reason why it feels good to get out (or in) and move.
"It really gets my brain going," said the 10-year-old. "You need to do this stuff to get through life."
The rest of the CNN article on required PE classes is here. 100% amen from me – fingers crossed PE becomes mandatory again, as they rightly point out this is the only way school systems are going to bring a little jump rope and jogging back into the curriculum.
I wonder what would happen if a school proposed to do it differently…Ontario (or is it all of Canada?) has mandatory volunteering (which is an oxymoron for an altogether different discussion) that must be completed over the four years. What if the number of school days were added up and by the end of the year the students must have completed the number of "30 minutes of physical activity" credits that would equal three days a week on average. Activities could be held before school, at lunch and after class ends.
So, the average kid would go to one of these activities, be it walking, dodge ball, Frisbee or whatever on say Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. But other kids might miss a few weeks and go every weekday for a month to make up for it. Like budgeting, but for exercise…I dunno, might be a cool way to build a habit, improve scores, and not compromise the increasingly competitive academic standards for getting to each successive level in the school system.
Just a thought (I *hated* P.E. in middle school, but happily walked fifteen minutes to the school in the morning and again in the afternoon…makes me wonder.)
