Should we eliminate high school sports for budget?

Pistol worked for little Johnny Dillinger. I still have reservations on the concept.

No, no; if the redistributers had rifles,
then we 'd have submachineguns & B.A.R.s. I was not a sissy.





David

He did not like them.
Quoth he:
"2 things that shoud never be trusted
are the word of a district attorney and an automatic pistol."
He preferred revolvers.





David

One of the best "cures" for depression is physical activity. considering the rate of depression among teenagers today i would think sport should be a required acrtivity.

I don t believe that government has any jurisdiction
to force anyone to take good care of himself.

The purpose of government is to defend our rights
from violation by one another or by alien invasions.

We citizens owe NO DEBT to government
to be nor to remain in good shape. That is a personal matter.





David

I wish we wouldn't have to make these choices -- that there would be enough money for vital educational needs AND sports.

If a choice has to be made, a choice has to be made, and education probably has to take priority.

I am very much in favor of high school sports, though. They were extremely important to me in high school and I learned habits there (both obvious not-obvious, like how to keep going when everything hurts and I want to stop) that have served me well since.

Good link on the benefits of sports for girls (which is really about the benefit of sports for everyone within the framework of how before Title IX, boys got more of those benefits):

http://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/Content/Articles/Issues/Body-and-Mind/B/Benefits--Why-Sports-Participation-for-Girls-and-Women-The-Foundation-Position.aspx

THANK U, Mr. Brown! I love it.




David

Why should nonathletic boys who have no interest in sports be forced in P.E. classes to participate in competitive team sports? How does this encourage them to become physically fit? Doesn't this actually result in nonathletic kids being discouraged from becoming physically active? Hasn't this traditional approach encouraged bullying of the worst sort instead? Why do some self-proclaimed "progressives" defend a culture that stigmatizes nonathletic boys, even before they become teenagers?

To whom are you referring with the phrase "self-proclaimed progressives"?

I must preface my response by saying that I'm largely apolitical at this point in my life. What I mean by "self-proclaimed progressives" is certain political liberals who favor social reform (as I did decades ago on the issue of racial discrimination under Jim Crow), but seem to be blind to the shortcomings (and even injustices, I dare say) of what has been the traditional approach to mandatory P.E.; namely, that mandatory P.E. is to be centered exclusively around sports to the detriment of the nonathletic kids, whose physical fitness needs are completely ignored in a class they are forced to take, which was precisely the case when I was requried to take P.E. in school decades ago. These same progressives (which, I believe, include a few members of this forum) have no problem with nonathletic boys being bullied and negatively stereotyped as "sissies" and "fags" simply because they're not good at sports. So, their support of mandatory traditional sports-centered P.E. is actually rather conservative, not progressive or even humane.

Unfortunately, I've got to go now. I've got an appointment with my personal trainer with whom I work on a bodybuilding program at a local health club. So, you see, even though I've never had an interest in sports, I'm most definitely physically active!

I have always found the strongest opposition to PE to be from Conservatives, who have wanted PE cut to make more time for what they consider to be useful instruction.

There is THAT, but there is also the matter of JURISDICTION.
There never came a time when we created government and we said to it:
"make me take good care of myself, however u define that."
We NEVER GRANTED government the jurisdiction to do that.

Therefore, it can only do so by an act of USURPATION, like a bank teller stealing from the vault.





David

If thay were conservative, then thay 'd be liberty-oriented,
as the Constitution is an instrument of Liberty in its Bill of Rights,
which strangles the domestic jurisdiction of government 37 different ways.

The domestic jurisdiction of government and personal freedom are INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL.



David

I need to amend my comments.

I realize that I’ve strayed a little bit off topic. I’m not opposed to sports programs being in the schools, although I must say that usually sports are the last item to be cut in a school budgetary crisis. I also believe that “student athletes” should not be given preferential treatment (“jock privilege”), but should be held accountable for their conduct off the playing field and should be treated like all other students.

I wasn’t meaning to say that most political conservatives and most political liberals take a particular stance on the issue of mandatory P.E. in the schools that is characteristic of their ideological camp. To his credit, OmSigDAVID, for example, clearly does not believe that P.E. classes should be mandatory upon students in the public schools. (By the way, David, I wasn’t talking about Constitutional conservatism. I was talking about conservatism that isn’t political.)

I was just saying that I find it rather odd that certain individual progressives defend the policy of requiring (forcing) all nonathletic students to take traditional P.E. classes that are centered only around sports and ignore the physical fitness needs of nonathletic students, who are regarded as less important and less deserving of attention (if not contempt). (Decades ago I was forced by school policy to take such P.E. classes until I was exempted from having to take them in high school since I was a band student. I never even heard of physical fitness programs in any of these classes.) Physical education is currently in a state of transition in the United States, since some educators have realized that nonathletic students were shortchanged and sometimes even victimized under the old system. There is a movement to reform P.E. Decades ago when I had a simplistic and naïve view of politics, I thought progressives were those people who supported reform movements. But apparently some individual “progressives” do not support this reform movement.

I also need to make a comment about the “progressives” who support the old P.E. With regard to the bullying of nonathletic students in these P.E. classes, there are three possibilities about these “progressives”: (1) They are not aware that nonathletic students have been and are being bullied; (2) They have heard reports of bullying, but have chosen to disregard them; or (3) They are aware that bullying takes place, but don’t care or even condone it. They think bullying makes kids stronger, despite the fact that there’s abundant evidence to the contrary.

If I sound like a crank, so be it.

I'm a wild-eyed liberal progressive (etc.) who agrees with your point, wmwcjr. I still remember being a small third grade girl standing in line to throw a large ball at this hoop near the sky... I was hopeless. I'm all for playing, and later was good at some sports if only for moments at a time. Forced activity seems wrong to me. I guess I'm interested in having kids learn the pleasures and benefits of sports/athletic activity in relatively unforced ways.

On the other hand, I don't really know what gym periods are like now in high schools.

Leftists in America that use the word "progressives" to refer to themselves
are very PRESUMPTUOUS, in tacitly assuming
that there is only ONE path of "progress" meaning toward collectivism and away from Individual Freedom.

Progress can be made along many very divergent paths,
some of which are good and some of which are very bad.


For instance,
the progress of time led from Czarist Russia into the much worse communismand the progress of years led from the Weimar Republic into the much worse nazism.
Progress can be very bad.

These r the good old days . . .

Thank you.

Let me repeat so no one will misunderstand me. I am not sedentary or overweight. I’m a gym rat. For about two years I’ve been working with a personal trainer on a bodybuilding program. The experience has not only been beneficial with regard to my physical health (not to mention my self-esteem), but has also been psychologically therapeutic.

Although I deny that athletics builds character (in the moral sense of the word), I don’t deny that some kids benefit from participating in a sport. The traditional sports-centered P.E. should always be available for them as an elective.

But what nonathletic kids need to do for the sake of their physical health is to get on an exercise program instead of being forced to participate in competitive team sports, which is like putting the cart before the horse. Besides, no single sport exercises all the muscles of the body. I once read a newspaper article about a professional football player who started taking ballet lessons. He was surprised when he ended up with sore muscles.

I feel like screaming whenever I hear people say that all students should be required (forced) to participate in sports because sports promotes physical fitness. Promoting sports is not the same as promoting physical fitness. You’re talking apples and oranges here. No, I take that back. You’re talking apples and rocks. Forcing an obese boy to play baseball, for example, is totally wrongheaded and even cruel. (Am I saying that there’s anything wrong with baseball per se? Of course, not.) The exercise he needs to do is constant physical movement. (Many people may find him to be irritating, but Richard Simmons has the right idea. And, no, speaking as a happily married father, I am not gay. ) An obese boy who is forced to participate in baseball in a traditional mandatory P.E. class will definitely not be engaging in constant physical movement. Not only will he not benefit physically, but his presence on the team will be resented; and he will be subjected to humiliating ridicule, if not bullying.

“Sports have become a defining attribute for men, unfortunately.” Who said that? Did I say that? No, I didn’t say that. Joe Ehrmann, a former professional football player, said that. Have you ever noticed that a boy who throws a baseball poorly is said to throw “like a girl”? I don’t mean to be politically incorrect; but telling a boy that he is like a girl is a vicious insult, worse than calling him dumb. Lack of athletic prowess in a boy or a man is somehow viewed as evidence of effeminacy. In another topic of this board, a member of this forum who once coached high-school football said in so many words that there was no difference between a nonathletic teenage boy being humiliated in a traditional mandatory sports-centered P.E. class and a high-school football player having trouble with trigonometry. I would respectfully but firmly disagree. The football player who has trouble with trig is not denigrated as the nonathletic boy, whose masculinity is often called into question. An acquaintance of mine who played football in high school (and is still a big fan) recently told me that most of his teammates had looked down on all of the nonathletic guys at their school as supposedly being inferior. I guess those who refer to nonathletic boys who don’t like sports as “fags” have never heard of David Kopay, Brian Sims, or Esera Tuaolo (not to mention others who have stayed in the closet). Aside from the issue of sexual orientation, there have been men of great courage (in other words, not exactly unmanly) who disliked sports and never participated in them.

There is a formerly active member of this website (i_like_1981) whom I’ve gotten to know personally through frequent correspondence (e-mail and PM). He’s an Englishman who resides in the United Kingdom and is not a citizen of the United States, but his experience is still relevant to us Americans. He, too, was forced to take P.E. classes. Since he had a scrawny build, he was subjected to bullying that was a bit more severe than just having a slurpee poured down the back of one’s shirt. I’m talking physical violence. Among other incidents, he once had his head forced into a toilet that had just been used and slammed hard against the bowl by athlete classmates.

When he was in the British equivalent of junior high, one day in one of his P.E. classes, he was forced to participate in a game of cricket. The team to which he was assigned lost; and he was blamed for it, never mind that he was there against his will. When the game was over, one of his teammates walked over to him and smashed him in the face with a cricket bat and broke his nose. The punk who did it was only suspended from school for a couple of days. There was no juvenile detention for him. When he returned to school, he shoved my friend into a locker. Not exactly remorseful, was he? If someone walked up to you on a street and smashed you in the face with a baseball bat and broke your nose, you would see him in court. But since this happened in a P.E. class, it wasn’t treated like the crime it most certainly was. Incidentally, when have any sportswriters or sports columnists ever written about violent physical bullying of this sort in mandatory P.E. classes?

In one of his e-mails or in a post at another website, i_like_1981 said that he had wished that the P.E. classes he was being forced to take offered physical fitness programs for the nonathletic boys. Well, of course, they didn’t offer any such programs. Then I told him about my positive health club experience and urged him to find a health club where he lived and get started on a bodybuilding program. He found a local gym and was delighted to discover that he could exercise without being bullied or ridiculed. Had I not told him about my own experience, he never would have checked out any health club or gym, thinking that they were the exclusive property of “jocks.” No thanks to mandatory traditional P.E.

I don't know what they're like in high schools, or in elementary schools in general either, but my kid's school has a mix of sports like basketball with a whole lot of general game-playing (I'd say just playing a game, usually in teams, is the main activity -- it's never anything I've heard of [no dodgeball, no "Red Rover,"), but often involves runing) and a fair amount of general fitness stuff. (Push-ups, sit-ups, jump-roping, etc.)

I remember reading in my high-school world history textbook decades ago that during the late 19th century, intellectuals and philosophers in the West were convinced that a new, golden age for mankind was dawning. Indeed, there had been many advancements in the physical sciences; and there had been social progress, such as outlawing slavery and torture (at least in the West). But that was before the start of the Great War (“the war to end all wars”) and the great slaughter that ensued. Postwar Europe was even more unstable, and tens of millions of people would die in the decades to come in wars and in forced labor or death camps. Torture of political prisoners would blossum in hideous ways under Communist and Nazi regimes, and the loss of liberty would be unbelievable.