Would you want to be forced to jump into a pool of water even though you never learned to swim? Or be forced to perform a gymnastics routine when you’re just about as flexible as a piece peanut brittle? Students are forced to partake in both a gymnastics unit and a swimming unit in gym class, even though both of these sports require skill and time that a high school gym class cannot provide.
Many teenagers would much rather do another activity that they can actually participate in, rather than risking injury, failure or humiliation in these two units. These sports both need to be taken out of the curriculum in order to maintain a certain level of fairness and participation amongst students at LHS.
Gymnastics, for example, is a sport in which difficult and challenging stunts must be performed. Why, then, is it in the high school gym curriculum? Most people are not properly trained or do not have the talent to even attempt gymnastics without fear of injury or humiliation. Some people are just completely incapable of doing something as simple as a somersault. Is it really fair to ask them to do something they can’t do?
Although some classes do wear heart rate monitors (a device used to monitor how many times a heart beats per minute) at one point during this unit, most do not. The grade a person gets in the gymnastics unit is based on their level of participation. So if one truly lacks the flexibility or talent that is required for gymnastics, how are they expected to participate and earn a grade? In other sports, students can at least somewhat participate in the games like basketball, flag football, or volleyball. On the contrary, gymnastics is one of those sports where you either get it or you don’t.
Swimming is another ridiculous unit in gym classes. This unit is quite unjust to students who can swim such as members of the swim team. This is because while the gym instructor is teaching the class basic strokes, already common knowledge to swimmers, they are wasting precious time they could be using to get heart rate minutes in their TZs (the time period in which one’s heart is beating 130 beats per minute or more). The amount of time a student has in their TZ happens to be the grading system during the swim unit.
Another valid point is that the unit is not nearly long enough for someone to learn how to swim. Swimming is a sport that can take weeks, months, even years to perfect. Obviously, a nine day unit is not the proper amount of time to learn. So, then, what is one supposed to do if they can’t swim? If the sport is being introduced for the first time in high school gym class, chances are, a non-swimmer is not going to learn to swim. But even if they fake sick, are sick or have an actual injury during the swim unit, they still have to make up the missed days. It almost appears to be a vicious cycle, all coming back to being forced to swim, even if you’re not comfortable with it.
There are only two solutions. Number one: Separate students into different groups based on their skill levels. Yes, this may appear to be something that might cause issues, but it is the best solution in the long run. Number two: Take these two units out of the physical education program completely. There are other sports that are just as beneficial as these units, sports that EVERYONE can actually participate in and enjoy.
photo by Taylor Wanbaugh