Sad State of P.E. in Schools....

Just watched a troubling segment on ESPN's Outside the Lines about childhood obesity and the lack of Physical Education in Elementary Schools. This was disturbing. It is showing that 1 in 5 children are considered obese to morbidly obese. AND, that PE classes and teachers are systematically being cut all across the US because of the focus on Academics for the No Child Left Behind. From what I heard I am not a big fan of NCLB but wish there was another form of "grading" schoold/teachers with real teeth to do away with bad schools and bad teachers but that is for another rant...

PE is such a fundamental part of schools - in my mind.... Every Parent in America has memories (good or bad) of growing up and being required to take PE class. I was traumatized by my Elementary School PE teacher - Sammy Simmons. Holy Shit, he may have only been 5'5" but to a 6 yr old he was a monster of a black man with arms like Tony Atlas. He would yell and scream and I hated PE because I was afraid of him - but guess what? I did what he said and always made A's. I always came in 3rd in races to pain in the ass K. Crowder and Chad Church (R.I.P.) and I did well in the classroom too.

My feeling is that fit kids perform better than fat kids in class.... Think about it... When I was in Elementary School we would have 1 fat boy and 1 fat girl in the class. They were always the class clown, sometimes the bully, but they were always the brunt of jokes. In H.S. I did have quite a few of the chubby boys/girls in my Advanced classes BUT they never got over their self consciousness and excelled. The kids that excelled were the smart athlete, that knew what it took to be competitive and could out will the others because they learned the killer instinct on the playing field and applied it to the classroom. Our Valedictorian and Salutatorian were not Athletes but were Geeky Nerds but at least they were not obese. Caroline and Stuart did the work, good for them.

I just hope that the US can change their mentality. Kids should go out and play. My neighborhood is full of pain in the ass kids running up and down the street - key is, are they going to be delinquints or are the becoming well rounded and in shape kids? Hmmmm.