This was discussed in my band class recently, PE vs Electives?
The email about it ran as such:

There is currently a bill before the state legislature that could
eliminate your child's ability to be involve in the band program
starting next year. Rep. Ken Guin has introduced a bill that would
require high school students to take 4 years of P.E. instead of the
one semester that is currently required. This would prevent most
regular diploma students and all advanced diploma students from being
able to be in band or any other activity because these elective hours
would be taken up by the new P.E. requirements, as well as, the
classes that are already required for their diplomas. Not to mention,
this would eliminate the jazz band program and instrumental techniques
classes because students just would not have the time in their
schedule.

The bill is called House Bill 83, and is aimed at making our students
more healthy in schools. Ken Guin was resently diagnosed with Type 2
Diabetes, so he is making it his personal crusade to save the children
of Alabama from themselves.

What he doesn't realize is the damage that this bill will do to
students throughout the state. I believe that our band students
already receive more physical activity in the marching band than they
ever would in a regular P.E. class. There are actually studies that
have been conducted at Auburn University that have proven that
students involved in marching band receive an ample amount of physical
activity. More than the average healthy Americans. It is obviously
very important that the students receive a well-rounded education that
includes band, chorus, and drama. This will not happen if this bill
passes.
I personally hope it doesn't pass.

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Clear skies Maksutov.

I think a crusade against soda machines in schools would be a bit more effective. Oh, and let's not forget nutrition EDUCATION... wait... that's stupid, they're in school, there's laws against learning in public school now aren't there?

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Plus P.E. is a required course pretty much all their lives at that point. If they haven't learned Health by the time they finish their sophomore year of High school- another year or two isn't gonna make a dent in their habits....

Its an hour a day. Do it in the morning.

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Gimme a minute to read through Jay's latest observations...

And P.E. was my one of my favorite subject back in school.

__________________
Jean
-----
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einsteiin

No, that's P.T.

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Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
Isaac Asimov

Oh, don't get me started on PE. Yeah, PE's not a bad thing, but there are logistical issues involved that I'm not convinced are best handled by the school system. Other than the locker room issues (the balance between hygene and bullying), PE was a one-size-fits few solution.

There weren't many units that I actually enjoyed: badminton, distance running (11th and 12th grade, two weeks each), cross-country skiing (which we only did in 12th grade, one week's worth), dodge ball (which we stopped doing by middle-school), golf (two classes, 12th grade, and only with wiffle-balls and cheapo irons in an improvised indoor range).

But it's not so much what I experienced in school that gets my back up as an adult (although it does), but what I didn't experience. To say the musical education in my school district was token is being generous. What mus-ed we had was a colossal waste of time. Six years and all we had to show for it was one song - just one - on the Recorder, and it only used two notes: sol and la. Six years.

There's more, a lot more, but it's basically maudlin bitter kind-of-obsessive ranting, so I'll resist the temptation and spare you guys anything other than the executive summary: I could express interest in any instrument I wanted, as long as it was the guitar (my father) or the glockenspiel (music teacher). I was actively denied/discouraged from wanting to play anything else in the years that mattered. And so now I'm musically illiterate.

My school system had virtually no funding. The math program was ace, but that was mostly on the strength of the 12th grade teacher for the optional advanced classes where he had a free hand to push us. Hard. We didn't have much else going for us.

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"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
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Moose,

I went to elementary school in the late 50's and early 60's. I don't recall
musical instruments in the classroom. We had at least one hour a week of
singing in fifth grade. It could have been much more than an hour. Maybe
90 minutes every other day. (Trading off with Spanish on alternate days.)
It's hard for me to believe that fifth grade was the only year we had singing,
but I don't remember it any other year. We performed at least one song, a
Christmas song set to the Greensleeves melody, at the Christmas auditorium
program. It's also hard for me to believe we did that only three months after
we started. Greensleeves was used extensively in the movie How the West
was Won, which I saw in the theatre about a year previously, and I still
think it is fabulously beautiful. So I was enthusiastic about the music even
if I had pretty much given up on Christianity by that time. My ability to hit
notes left something to be desired, though, and nobody had to tell me, so I
tended to sing at the minimal volume level I thought I could get away with.

The school also had a separate music/band class which took place during the
school day, so kids got out of regular class for it (again I don't recall if it was
every day, every other day, or once a week). Somehow I enrolled, and tried
trumpet and/or coronet, and saxophone. I do not have the ability to control
the rapid finger movements required. My own assessment. Nobody said that.
In any case I didn't progress and the teacher kicked me out.

In junior high school we had four different "arts" classes each year: Music,
home economics, visual/graphic arts, and drafting/woodworking shop. Each
class was 90 minutes long but alternated every other day with P.E. Again I
don't recall using instruments in the music class. My main recollection was
that the teacher (Donald Bulfur, the only teacher who ever showed up at a
class reunion that I attended.) sometimes played music on a phonograph,
including the Grand Canyon Suite and something by Gershwin (probably
Rhapsody in Blue, of course).

Although it was taught to me, I never learned to read music. I can sort of
work it out one.... note.... at.... a.... time.

I can't imagine the problems with gym classes and especially locker-room and
shower issues. That must be so difficult that it seems almost unbelievable that
P.E. classes manage to happen. My main gripe about P.E. is essentially the
same as my big gripe about school in general: We spent way too much time
standing around waiting or "getting ready" to do things and not nearly enough
time actually doing them. We could have got three times as much physical
activity if the time had been better organized.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

I don't remember how much PE was required at my HS...

BUT, my time in the Marching Band was applied against it. In other words, my 4 semesters of Band (I'm only counting Falls here since we didn't march in the spring) counted as 4 semesters of PE credit.

Maybe this is the best of both worlds? It allows students who are intrested in things like the band, sports, cheerleading, and other physically involving endevors to particiapte, but also gets the students who arn't involved moving during the day.

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Carl Matherly

Offical Battlestar Galactica Apologist

Named Time Magazine's 2006 "Person of the Year"

Let me guess: The guitar is the only instrument your father thought
you'd be able to handle that didn't cost a mint and wouldn't make a
deafening racket when you played it. The glockenspiel was the only
instrument the music teacher had available.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

__________________
http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

Not so much. It was a combination of Dad wanting me to follow in his footsteps and the fact he already had guitars. I don't have long hands, so even as an adult, I can't stretch far enough for some of the chording without considerable discomfort (and IIRC, I couldn't strum a G to save my life.) That, and I'm not a "follow in footsteps" kind of guy. The guitar just isn't my instrument. I felt pressured and I resisted. Dad switched to the piano five years ago anyway, so it's all good.

The music teacher started me on the glockenspiel because he needed someone to play the glockenspiel to support his choir, I couldn't sing, and he trusted me to handle it. And I did pretty well. The school concert went well and we won the recital. Where he and I differed is that I wasn't interested in only the glockenspiel, although I did enjoy my time on it. I have a thing for all percussion instruments, especially the Jamaican steel drum, which I've secretly lusted for all my life.

Anyway, the music teacher had an "open house" sort of class where he laid out a large variety of instruments, and I made the mistake of ignoring the glockenspiel for the only drum, a snare. (I'd have gone for his tympanies if he'd have brought them out of storage.) That, as they say, pretty much nipped my musical 'career' in the bud. I never got a lick of support after that.

As for my folks, I'm honestly not sure if they thought "no way" or just never clued in as to how strongly I'd felt about it. But kids who feel actively discouraged on something new they're passionate about will often never bring it up again. I even stopped playing the harmonica my grandfather gave me, and never touched the recorder once the music program stopped after grade 6.

__________________
In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

never liked highschool PE, being an overweight asthmatic even then. Another fact was the teacher never really liked him but I found a couple of years ago he was found out well doing things with the female students he should not of doing. The thing with our local school district lately is converting shop areas into like an are for the wrestling team to practice.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
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Okay, step back from the issue and the e-mail for a second and look at it objectively. Does it sound like anything other than scare-tactic propaganda? I mean, they act like "If X then Y HAS TO HAPPEN!"...but fail to address alternatives. In this particular case, an act is proposed that would add a mandatory class. Well, we all know you can't add a class without taking away a class. And (apparently) it's common sense that there's already only room for ONE class that's not core cirriculum (personally, I had upwards of two or three electives per semester, but different school so can't assume the same).

What they ignore is the possibility of making band an after school activity...which at many schools it already is. In fact, they chose to not explore or attempt any alternatives other than their dooms-day prophecy. It might not be ideal to re-work this particular scenario to allow for both PE and band...but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

I'm not trying to be political here; the point I'm trying to make is you need to approach these real life issues the same way you approach anything...critically. Look at both sides, and try to be as objective as you can. It's tough when you have strong personal ties (e.g., I loved band! But I hated PE!). But ignore those and see what you can come up with. Don't just take something as true because it agrees with your own ideals.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

I love P.E. because of Sports, I love Volleyball, Badminton and Swimming. We had Dance Class too but unfortunately , my school doesn't offer much of those Music inclined classess like the Band, here when you want to be a member of the Campus Marching Band, you have to audition, it is not part of our P.E. Curriculum.

__________________
Jean
-----
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." - Albert Einsteiin

Our schools, sixth through twelfth, offer a PE class called Outdoor Ed. The kids love it. They learn lifetime sports like fishing, rock climbing, archery, canoing, biking, skating, etc.
The high school offers stuff like skateboarding, bowling, pilates/yoga and other stuff. We also have a very good band, choir and theatre program. Our athletic programs are certainly well taken care of.

I live in a really poor district. Our school really strives to offer many choices for our kids. Why can't other districts?

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

My schools required PE through grade 10. I was overjoyed to be done with it because, as an out-of-shape skinny nerd, I couldn't do any of it well. The teachers were uniformly jerks as well.

Unfortunately my college required all freshmen to take three quarters of PE. They gave us a PE test during orientation which I of course failed and had to take the "remedial" gym course. Then when I was a senior they changed the curriculum and required 6 quarters so I had to sign up for three more time-wasting 1 credit classes. Golf, Archery, and Tennis as I recall. I wasn't any good at those, either.

The "Outdoor Ed" class seems like a great idea, as do some of the other offerings. Times have changed, at least in some places.

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I was always good at sports and activities- but I do not like playing organized sports.

I tend to be a Lone wolf- not a team player.

Moreso- I noticed that P.E. was always like "recess". You didn't really learn anything about physical fitness or health- you just had to run around a track or play a sport.
This usually caused a separation between the fit jocks and the unfit kids- which exacerbated social problems.

I recall a Mr Highberger as a Gym Teacher, that actually did make an effort to teach about cardio vascular health, what gym training meant, the highs and lows and how to train properly. But he was