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Logan Gabur

Mr. Rudebusch

English Comp. IV

19 December 2016

PE: Crucial or Childs Play?

Dont all schools and parents want the best thing for the kids and for them to succeed in

life and in the classroom? Every parent and school wants their kids to develop good life,

exercise, social skills, and teamwork skills. They also want their kids to do the best they can on

their homework and test they receive. Kids are put under a lot of pressure to succeed in school

and on test because thats what the school gets evaluated on. These things are all important to

school administrators, parents, and teachers. School administrators and teachers are having to do

the best they can with everything due to the budget cuts being made though. One thing that

theyre doing because of the budget cuts is starting to cut PE classes to focus on more time in the

classroom. Administrators and teachers understand how important kids learning is and how more

classroom time can help them learn. I sympathize with school administrators even though some

schools are starting to cut PE classes for the benefit of more learning time, however, doctors and

teachers are arguing that not having PE class is determinantal to kids health and academic

success.

Many schools are starting to cut PE classes because of the budget cuts and wanting to

spend more time in the classroom to focus on other subjects. According to Eleanor Bader on the

website Truth-Out, In the year of 2001, 44% of schools decided to completely cut PE classes to

get more time for the students in the classroom. This quote is showing the percentage of schools
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that are cutting PE class to get more time in the classroom for kids to better their knowledge on

other subjects. School administrators are cutting PE classes to save the school money. According

to the The Huffington Post, Six states are holding firm to the National Association of Sport and

Physical Educations recommended two and a half hours per week of PE in elementary school.

This is showing that six out of the fifty states are following the two and a half hours of PE.

Thats also showing how much PE really means to some of the schools and the time theyre

putting into PE. The schools are starting to go away from PE or cutting the time that kids are in

PE classes. School administrators think that PE wont help kids out with academic success, so

thats a reason that they would cut PE.

Some problems that may result from school administrators cutting PE classes are kids

likely to become obese, develop poor life and exercise habits, a lack of social skills, and

teamwork skills. It also prevents them from developing how to play different games or sports

that kids might be involved in. Kids also cant develop good hands on skills by sitting in a

classroom reading a text book. PE also develops hand-eye coordination that kids can use in all

things in life. PE also helps kids develop and better their cognitive skills that they will need to

use for the rest of their life in everything that they do.

In an article on Medical Daily, it states that, In 2010, 32.6 percent of American youths

aged 6-11 were overweight, and 18 percent were obese. (Siddique para. 4). In this quote, the

author is showing stats and giving a percentage on many kids are overweight and obese. Obesity

is a big problem in the United States and PE can prevent kids from becoming obese. In a study

done by John Cawley from the University of Cornell, he discovered that an extra sixty minutes

of PE can help reduce kids from becoming obese by 4.8%! There was also an article written by

Gretchen Reynolds in the New York Times that talks about a study done in Nebraska with close
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to 12,000 students that showed that kids who were still a little overweight, but still kind of fit

scored better than kids who were less fit in English and Math. She also writes that in one study

that region names would show up on a map where they belonged. After looking at the map, the

kids were to put the region where it belonged on the map. The next day, the kids were supposed

to do it again and the kids that were in better shape remembered about 40% of where the regions

were supposed to go and the names of the regions. The kids who werent as fit or in as good of

shape, remembered close to 25% of the regions names and where they were supposed to go.

These two articles do a good job in showing that PE helps kids become less obese and that kids

who are less obese tend to do better in school.

All parents want their kids to develop good life and exercise habits. Without PE, how are

kids supposed to develop good life habits if theyre not learning about their body? Also, dont

you want your kids to stay healthy their whole life by developing good exercise habits? PE helps

kids learn about their body and all the things that happen in the kids body. The skills kids

develop to help them in life are teamwork skills, hands on skills, competitiveness, accepting and

learning from being defeated by someone or something, and being humble after winning or

defeating someone or something. Kids can develop good exercise habits by being in PE too!

Kids are learning how to do push-ups, jumping jacks, squats, how to slide, and many other things

just to warm-up before exercising. They are also learning the proper ways to stretch to prevent

pulling muscles before playing a game. Kids in PE are developing good exercise habits from

their teachers making them exercise and getting kids to know that its important that you exercise

everyday. By developing good exercise habits, kids are developing good muscle and bone

development too! Muscle and bone development is something that is very important for kids to
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develop and thats part of them developing good exercise habits to improve their muscle and

bone development.

How are kids to develop good social skills if they have to be quiet in class all day? In an

article by Alison Datko, there is a section where she talks about how PE helps kids with socially

interacting (para.4-5). During PE, kids have to communicate with their teammates on how to win

the game or to get another kid out. Kids are constantly talking in PE and figuring out different

ways to communicate with their teammates. Also, PE puts kids in a situation where one kid

might have to communicate with a kid he or she doesnt hang out with or talk to. Kids are going

have to communicate with people they dont know when they get out into the real world. PE will

help kids develop social skills so theyre comfortable about talking to other people that they

dont know. Social skills are also something kids need at the job they will be employed in. If you

cant communicate well with your boss or your co-workers, you will likely be fired from your

job. Kids developing good social skills are something that will help kids out their whole life and

will make kids lives a lot easier.

Schools really want kids to do the best they can on tests and in school. Who doesnt want

that though? The schools are getting evaluated on kids tests scores, so they want to make sure

kids are very knowledgeable and are in the classroom for as long as they can. Which means less

PE time. however according to the Active Living Research an interdisciplinary team with

internationally-recognized expertise and deep connections in public health, they build evidence

on how to create communities that increase physical activity. During their study, they found out

that after have going through physical activity, the kids are better able to concentrate on the

classroom task they have. They also discovered that physical activity has positive effects on the

kids performances in math, reading, and writing. They also proved that even just one class of PE
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for kids helped improve their tests scores, concentration during class, and the ability to transfer

information from short-term memory to long-term memory. There is also a study done by the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that shows that PE classes are actually having a

positive outcome on the students test scores in math, reading, and language arts. Table 2b on

page 18 shows that out of twenty-seven students that tested that fourteen kids tested with a

positive score while thirteen kids had no effect at all. The biggest thing in this graph is that zero

kids had a negative score on the test. So out of twenty-seven kids, fourteen tested positive and

thirteen tested with no effect on them! Thats a good sign and shows how PE can affect kids in

school. There is also Table 2a which shows the cognitive skills and attitudes, academic behavior,

and academic achievement. The things that were tested in the cognitive skills and attitudes part

of the graph were: attention/concentration, self-esteem, creativity, perception of academic or

intellectual competence/self-concept, perceptual motor ability, planning ability, perceived self-

concept, impulse control, life satisfaction, and the kids attitude towards school.There was

twenty-four kids tested in these categories. Twelve of the kids tested positive in all these

categories and twelve kids tested with no effect on them at all. There was zero that tested

negative in those categories. In the academic behavior category the only thing tested was

conduct. They had seven kids test in this category and two of the kids tested positive, while the

other five tested with no effect at all. That means that zero kids had a negative effect in that

category! In the last category of academic achievement there was two things that twenty-one kids

were tested in. The categories were achievement test scores in math, reading, and language arts

and grades/grade point average. In the achievement test scores in math, reading, and language

arts there was a total of nineteen kids tested in the category.

The results were that ten kids tested positive, eight kids had no effect on them, and only one kid
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had a negative effect on their test scores. In the grades/grade point average category, there were

only two kids tested in it. The results were one kid in the positive section and it didnt have any

effect on the other kid. The good thing about this category is that no kid had a negative effect on

their grades or grade point average. There was fifty-two kids that participated in this study. Out

of those fifty-two kids, twenty-five kids tested positive and twenty-six kids with no effect on

them at all. Now you might be thinking how is this a good thing if there was more kids that

werent affected than the kids that had a positive effect on them? Well, you obviously dont want

kids to be in the negative, right? Well, theres no kids in the negative part of the study! Which

means kids are either being affected positively by PE or not being affected at all! Thats exactly

what we want to hear!

But wait, theres more! In study done in North Carolina on livestrong, which was written by

Alison Datko. In this article she has section on how PE affects kids academic performance. In

that section of the article, she writes regular activity during the school day is strongly associated

with higher concentration levels as well as more directed, composed behavior. A statewide policy

in North Carolina required that children from kindergarten to eighth grade participate in 30

minutes of physical activity each day. A survey of school representatives from 106 of the state's

school districts reported that the most recognizable benefit of the mandate was improved

academic focus (para.3).

This quote is showing in just thirty minutes of physical activity it can make the kids more

concentrated and portray acceptable behavior throughout the day. It also shows how focused the

kids were after thirty minutes of physical education on their academics.

I sympathize with school administrators even though some schools are starting to cut PE classes

for the benefit of more learning time, however, doctors and teachers are arguing that not having
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PE class is determinantal to kids health and academic success. I can see why schools are starting

to cut PE classes because they want kids to better focus on their school work and getting better

test grades too. However, I have shown in my essay that PE improves kids test scores and a lot of

other things kids need. If we were to cut PE classes kids could become obese and not develop

good habits too. I guess its up to schools if they want to have a chance at better test scores or if

they want to look out for child's health.

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Works Cited

"9 of 10 U.S. Teens Don't Get Enough Exercise: MedlinePlus Health News." 9 of 10 U.S.

Teens Don't Get Enough Exercise: MedlinePlus Health News. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"How Physical Fitness May Promote School Success." The New York Times. The New

York Times, 17 Sept. 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"Longer Gym Class Periods Reduce Childhood Obesity." Medical Daily. 20 May 2013.

Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"More PE in School, New Report Recommends." ABC News. ABC News Network, 23

May 2013. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

Teachers, By Teachers For. "Physical Education in School Is Valuable to Children."

TeachHUB. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.

"Physical Activity and Academic Performance." PsycEXTRA Dataset (n.d.). Physical Activity

and Academic Performance. Active Living Research, Jan. 2015. Web. 6 Nov. 2016.

"Physical Activity and Academic Performance." PsycEXTRA Dataset.. U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services, July 2010. Web. 6 Nov. 2016.

"What Are the Benefits of Physical Education in School?" LIVESTRONG.COM.

LIVESTRONG.COM, 05 May 25. Web. 06 Nov. 2016.