Is PE an important class?

[Mudora]

PE? Not really. PE has never changed my life. By the time kids get through PE, they've already decided whether they are going to be physically active or not.

However, you are always sitting down in school, and a physical extra curricular activity definitely wouldn't hurt.

 

[Low Key]

Do those of you complaining about PE do anything outside of what your school "forces/forced" you to do? Even something as simple as walking a couple of miles (outside of work and school)? If not, then that is why you are in the class.

 

[Frankster]

I say PE is an important subject during school, it IS an opportunity for once a week to have a proper game of something as well as giving us the chance to try out new sports you wouldn't do normally.

But what is this talk of bullies and pe making kids feel like crap? o0
I went to a sucky school and despite being a definite fat kid, i didnt mind pe 1 bit, even enjoyed most of it.

Edit: Also for the record... Pe is the one class EVERYONE would stay an extra 5-10 mins as usually it was right before break time.

 

[Anti-gravity]

p.e. is fine and a respectable class... i have actually lost alot of weight from it and i decreased my mile time by like five minutes so... there

 

[Flamezdudes]

I find it extremely boring and it doesn't satisfy me at all. I focus on academics more.

 

[Sporky111]

I think it's important, but not more important than the social, emotional, and physical stresses it often forces kids to suffer through. Most of the trade offs aren't because academics are seen as more important, it's because the parents of the children don't want to be involved in an activity that tends to cause more developmental problems with children than it solves.

Long story short: Get decent gym teachers. Any bum off the street can teach a kid to play sports, but real teachers should look out for the kids and make sure they're able to enjoy themselves as well.

 

[joshuaayt]

No, of course not.
A) We go to school to learn both the foundation for, and how to handle ourselves at, university/TAFE/work/etc. Even careers involved with physical activity have their own courses; actual activity has little to do with it. It relates to the purpose of a school about as much as video games.
B) Something schools have yet to grasp: one or two sessions a week that equate to roughly twenty five minutes ( for a 45 min periods) of actual, although undemanding, physical activity do NOT make you any healthier. I don't know, maybe in the US you guys have P.E everyday, which makes a little more sense.
Anyway, wherever that isn't the case, all it does is allow the idiots who don't do anything in class recieve to empty praise, and convince the overweight kids that they, yes, do indeed suck.
Hm? What personal experience? I don't know what you are talking about.

 

[Biosophilogical]

I'm going to go with no. It isn't important, if you are good at P.E., then you enjoy it most of the time, but it doesn't promote physical activity becuase you are already fit. If you are bad at it you probably won't enjoy it, and probably will end up despising exercise, tereby doing less and promoting introvertial practices such as gaming (don't get me wrong, I love gaming, but I won't deny the anti-social nature of it).

So yeah, either way it doesn't help much, if, on the other hand, they started from an early age teaching about a healthy lifestyle, the kids would be more likely to want to be healthy, rather than doing it out of self-lothing and poor self-esteem.

In summary:
Promoting a healthy lifestyle = good
Forcing aspects of healthy lifestyles onto people = bad

 

[Kortney]

. It makes you feel well good about yourself,

No, It makes the fit kids feel "well good" about themselves. Meanwhile, the unfit ones are excluded and laughed at.

In my PE classes, the fit boys run around and have a great time while the unfit ones (and the few with weight problems) are ridiculed. During my school life, I have not seen a more degrading and worthless "subject". The theoretical side to PE is great; sex education, healthy eating, drug information, ect, but making children run around and play sports is completely ridiculous.

I'm not against schools having a sport course or a fitness course, but it should not be compulsory. I have never heard of one unfit or overweight child who got themselves back into shape because of a PE class. If you want to get fit, an hour or two a week dicking around an oval isn't going to do anything and the people who I have seen get themselves into shape have all done it on their own accord, not through a pointless PE lesson.

I'm perfectly in shape, perfectly healthy and perfectly fit and I despise PE lessons. I don't go to school to run around an oval - I can do that in my own time thank you. In junior school it was mandatory that we showered afterwards - wow, if that's not a sure fire way to make a large portion of the class stressed out and extremely uncomfortable I don't know what is.

EDIT: As a side note (which I know is just purely from my own experiences) every case of bullying I have witnessed at school has happened during a PE lesson or directly afterwards. Probably just a coincidence at my school, but something I'd like to point out.

 

[crypt-creature]

I hated PE, mostly because I played softball every school year and during the summer, but also because it seems like a scheduled chore instead of a 'fun' activity. I got out of it in High School because I put the required hours into softball instead.
You're not going to get people into physical exercise/activity unless they can have fun, it becomes routine, or they are confident and can get over any insecurities they might have (and are not constantly harassed by people).

What is more important, or equally as important, is/are health and good eating habits. PE alone isn't the way to go.

 

[kainwolfe]

I find it extremely boring and it doesn't satisfy me at all. I focus on academics more.

Focusing on one specific thing won't make you well-rounded and interesting. It's always good to have balance. You might focus more on academics than athletics, but at least you have a general experience that helps make you a more interesting person.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

PE is bullshit. End of story. PE teachers are the teachers which couldn't do anything else.

 

[Reolus]

I'm a primary school teacher in Australia. Most PE courses are integrated, that means the classroom teacher does P.E with the class. In the school I am at, there is a specialist P.E teacher.

And for some children, HPE is the only time they have an opportunity to:

1. Learn to throw and catch
2. Learn how to run (believe it or not, there is skill required!)
3. Learn how to swim
4. Understand how to make healthy eating choices
5. Do Sex Ed.

Take a look at the following link for the kinds of skills HPE teaches students:

http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/p-9/qcar_el_hpe_yr7.pdf

It's not neccessarily about being the fastest or the best - those kind of social pressures come from being part of a group and being asked to perform, not the curriculum or the teacher themselves, though I am sure there are some exceptions to that rule and some people have bad experiences about what they had to do.

Whether you like it or not, there are more obese people and people are less coordinated, because of whatever reasons (technology, society, etc) important physical skills are an aspect of being a capable and successful human being. In fact, some people are paid very well to be successful at hitting a ball or perform some other physical activity.

I don't think "because I'm not good at it so it made me feel bad" is just cause for removing the physical element of education.

 

[dylan_mcb]

i think everybody is completely missing the point. PE is for people wishing to go into the sport area and healt business. its like science is for people who want to be scientests and shit. you do sport in PE because a) you have to be physical its good for you and b)because learning about all the different sports gives you a broader understanding of your body, what is capable of, how to use it, and how to keep it in good shape. PE is not there just as an excuse to play sport, or to do exercise. its a valuable learning experence as it teaches you about you body and how to use it and maintain it.

as for me i absolutely love PE its the highlight of my school week and its the most fun i have mon-fri.

 

[Nouw]

Not where I live. P.E. is very important. But the damn teacher doesn't think much of it. We constantly miss out on it because the damn P.E. teacher isn't here.

 

[__Anarchy__]

Yes of course it is,

The thing that gets to me are the so called "unfit" (Sportistic) people who just sit on the field and talk to one another when it is a team sport, that's not being unfit that's being bloody lazy, the least you could do is give it a go. This happens every sport class and every sport class the curriculum is totally fucked because of it, Jesus just give it your best shot its only once a week for gods sake

that particular subject gets to me

 

[likalaruku]

I always hated PE, whether it was volleyball/medacine ball/soccer in primary school. or Tae Bo & basketball in highschool. We didn;t hae PE in Jr. High.

 

[blankedboy]

Not for me. It depends on the person, and how much sport you do in other places,

 

[shaboinkin]

In elementary school it is.

I remember sitting in my class waiting for us to go outside going crazy because I had so much energy built up inside of me.
It's good for the younger kids just to let go of some excess energy, after that however, if a kid is fat in middle and high school, they got to take it up to their selves to loose weight and crap