Você está na página 1de 6

My Philosophy Regarding High School

Physical Education and Sports


Introduction to Physical Education
Hayley Sefton
12/04/2013

Should physical education and sport be required for students at the high school level?
Physical education is not just for athletes to show off their skills or students to feel embarrassed
about their lack of athletic skills. The ideal of physical education is for an individual to learn,
practice, and promote a healthy lifestyle: a healthy lifestyle that should not just be worked on
during school, but continued as an adult out of school, as well. Physical exercise also has many
health benefits that range from cardiovascular health to increased brain function.
Physical education should be a mandatory class that all students take every semester
during their high school career. The requirement for physical education should be for everyone.
It should not matter if the students are athletes, band members, or that they want to take another
class instead. Grading in physical education should be split, although not weighted equally,
between all three domains: psychomotor, cognitive, and affective. Physical education should also
be considered an academic subject like any other required class needed to graduate high school.
To begin with, schools should require physical education to promote exercise which, in
turn, will increase learning in all subjects. It also teaches students the advantages of how to live
a healthy lifestyle. Regular physical activity improves strength and endurance, helps build
healthy bones and muscles, helps control weight, and reduces anxiety and stress. With the proper
instruction of physical activity students should stay healthier, which should also help them stay
in the classroom and not miss as many school days because of illness. Exercise has been shown
to increase heart rate, pump more oxygen to the brain, release necessary hormones, and aid in the
growth of brain cells. If the brain is functioning at a higher level because of improved oxygen
levels and increased number of brain cells, the student should have some benefit in all areas of
schooling. These benefits, after having been reinforced in class, should remain with the students
long after they have left the school environment.

Teaching students to live healthier lifestyles will not only benefit them immediately, but
will also aid them later in life. If students become overweight or obese from physical inactivity,
their risk for diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol increases dramatically. They can
also have lower self-esteem because of their weight, which affects their learning in the
classroom. People who disagree with physical education as a required aspect of high school tend
to be more focused on the student gaining as many credit hours as possible while preparing for
college. However, if students do not learn how to live a healthy lifestyle from physical education,
they will not be able to ever reach their potential, both physically and mentally.
The requirements for students taking physical education in high school should not differ
between athletes, non-athletes, or other extra-curricular activities, such as marching band, in
which they may be involved. Everyone needs to know how to live a healthy lifestyle both in and
out of school. Athletes will not always be participating in a sport for the rest of their lives and
will, therefore, need to learn how to stay healthy when not participating in a sport. Non-athlete
students need to learn how to have a healthy lifestyle and most extra-curricular activities do not
have a high enough aerobic level to constitute being physically active. To have an appropriate
aerobic level one needs to exercise for at least 150 minutes a week of moderate intensity
activities. Moderate intensity is defined as activities that raise the heart rate between fifty and
seventy percent of the maximum heart rate. People who disagree, and say that students that are in
athletics or marching band should be exempt from physical education because of the physical
nature of those programs, are missing the idea of learning about a healthy lifestyle outside of
activities that most students will not be involved with for the rest of their lives.
Now that it is known that physical education should be required for every student,
determining physical education grades can be a very daunting task. Many physical education

grades are based on how the teacher perceives the students' effort that day. This, however, should
not be how to classify someones grade. There are other forms of data that can be recorded and
used to determine a grade. All three learning domains should be incorporated. Using an aerobic
zone, for instance, to grade students is one of the fairest grading methods that can be used. The
aerobic zone can be tailored for each individual student no matter the ability level. To find the
most accurate students aerobic level, the student takes the current age and subtracts it from 220,
which is the maximum heart rate. The students resting heart rate will then be subtracted from
the maximum heart rate and will calculate the heart rate reserve. To stay within the healthy
aerobic zone of fifty to seventy percent, .5 and .7 will be multiplied to the heart rate reserve and
then, finally, added to the resting heart rate. For example, 220-33 = 187 (maximum heart rate),
187 60 (resting heart rate) = 127 (heart rate reserve), 127 .5 (minimum aerobic zone) = 63.5
+ 60 (resting heart rate) = 123.5 and 127 .7 (max aerobic zone) = 88.9 + 60 (resting heart rate)
= 148.9. The healthy aerobic zone for this individual would be 123.5 and 148.9. If the student
stays within the aerobic zone specifically designed to meet that individual's needs during the
workout, he or she receive full points for the activity. Using this particular method will also
incorporate all three areas of learning: psychomotor, cognitive, and affective. The psychomotor
aspect is actually performing the activity, the cognitive aspect is the ability to calculate the
aerobic zone and apply the activities learned to daily life, and the affective aspect can be to
journal the results and observe them improve as exercise is continuously done. This can help to
increase the students self-image as they become successful in controlling their own heart rates
and applying that knowledge and practice to their general fitness.
Since it is possible to grade physical education classes fairly, based on individual results,
what about giving it the same amount of credit that other academic subjects receive? Physical

education should be considered an academic subject. An academic subject is a course that


promotes higher education and research. The definition provided by Wikipedia states that
physical education "is an educational course related to the physique of the human body that
encourages psychomotor learning in a play or movement exploration setting to promote health."
All academic subjects promote learning and the idea of higher education. To better accomplish
these goals one must be ready and capable of learning. The only way to be truly ready and
capable of learning is to have good health. Having a healthy lifestyle will also require study and
continuous research while putting to practice the learning that has been done. Physical education
can easily be incorporated into the grade point average, if the class/grading is done correctly. For
physical education to be considered a true academic subject, there must be an incorporation of
other subjects as well. For instance, using math and writing to complete a project geared towards
physical education and a continuing healthy lifestyle can be assigned to the students. The
students could gear their projects to real life situations, such as class, to promote exercise both in
school and their lives outside of school. However, if teachers base students' grades on the
perceived effort for the day, physical education will not be a legitimate subject based on higher
education. There must be a data oriented grading system to give physical education an equal
foothold as other subjects have. Individuals that disagree with having physical education as an
equal to other core subjects are missing the most critical step in learning, and that is being
healthy enough to be able to do so.
In conclusion, my philosophy of physical education is that it should be required by all
students as part of the curriculum. All students no matter what their class schedule, sport
involved in, or other activities should not be allowed to "opt out" of physical education. All
students must learn how to live a healthy lifestyle. Grading in physical education should be

mostly psychomotor, but also needs to incorporate the cognitive and affective domains as well to
be a well-rounded class. Physical education should also be considered an academic subject.
Integrating other subjects into the curriculum would make it comparable to other academic
classes. Promoting higher education for ones health should be a top priority in learning how to
live a healthy lifestyle both in school and later in life.

Você também pode gostar