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Kids and exercise.


Thanks to "Don't Sweat It" (features, Fall 2006) and "Not Your Father's PE" (research, Fall 2006), we now know that top-down solutions to child obesity offer minimal benefit. A "bottom-up" approach would be to change the way we fund schooling. We fund systems; we do not fund students. Because districts tend to add classrooms to existing structures as enrollment grows, we have large schools.

District consolidation also put us on the road to supersize supersize or supersized
Adjective

larger than standard size

Verb

[-sizes, -sizing, -sized]

to increase the size of (something, such as a standard portion of food)
 schools. In 1931, there were 120,000 school districts. By 2000, there were fewer than 15,000. University of Chicago professor Christopher Berry ("School Inflation," research, Fall 2004) studied the period of greatest school-district consolidation, 1930-70. Berry found a consistent correlation of .70 between school size and district size, across states. Big districts have big schools.

How do big schools lead to inactive, overweight kids? To go to and from big, consolidated schools--often at remote sites--children wait for and sit in buses instead of walking or bicycling to a nearby school and playing in the schoolyard before and after the bell. High schoolers and middle schoolers are doubly afflicted af·flict  
tr.v. af·flict·ed, af·flict·ing, af·flicts
To inflict grievous physical or mental suffering on.



[Middle English afflighten, from afflight,
: when they finally arrive at their very large schools, they find that the most popular sports are dominated by elite athletes elite athlete Sports medicine An athlete with potential for competing in the Olympics or as a professional athlete; EAs are at ↑ risk for injuries, given the amount of training, for psychological abuse by coaches and parents, and self abuse. . A glance at almost any high-school annual of the 1920s through the 1950s (before the final wave of consolidation) will reveal a lot of skinny young people, small senior classes, and wide participation in the major sports.

Were we to fund students rather than systems, such schools--and skinny kids--would make a comeback.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

TOM SHUFORD

Retired Public School Teacher

Lenoir, North Carolina Lenoir is a city in Caldwell County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 16,793 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Caldwell CountyGR6. Lenoir is located in the Blue Ridge foothills.  

For combating kids' weight problems, K-12 dance education offers unique potential. Merging mind and body, dance education can contribute to students' intellectual growth in many academic subjects. Student dance making can offer some of what reading and writing offer--fantasy, storytelling Storytelling
Aesop

semi-legendary fabulist of ancient Greece. [Gk. Lit.: Harvey, 10]

Münchäusen

Baron traveler grossly embellishes his experiences. [Ger. Lit.
, and performer-audience connection.

Dance is a way to cope with stress. In dances they make, kids can embody troubling ideas, hold them up to scrutiny, play with them, and, consequently, make them less threatening.

Kids need to get hooked on a physical activity in which they burn calories in physical education and that they can pursue outside of school. Breaking and krumping became popular on the streets, Mad Hot Ballroom engaged kids in and out of school, and So You Think You Can Dance There are several local versions of the reality television show So You Think You Can Dance:
  • So You Think You Can Dance (US); to date there have been three seasons of the US version of So You Think You Can Dance
 drew huge audiences. Let kids make their own dances, compete, and find dances in their neighborhoods or on TV to demonstrate to classmates Classmates can refer to either:
  • Classmates.com, a social networking website.
  • Classmates (film), a 2006 Malayalam blockbuster directed by Lal Jose, starring Prithviraj, Jayasurya, Indragith, Sunil, Jagathy, Kavya Madhavan, Balachandra Menon, ...
.

JUDITH LYNNE HANNA

Senior Research Scholar

University of Maryland University of Maryland can refer to:
  • University of Maryland, College Park, a research-extensive and flagship university; when the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to this school
 

Bob Cullen has done a fine job of identifying some of the challenges physical education teachers face. In "Don't Sweat It," Mr. Cullen implies that it is nearly impossible to have a permanent positive impact on the health and fitness of the students given the current graduation requirements for physical education, the attitudes of the kids and parents toward PE, social and cultural factors, the declining fitness levels of physical education teachers, and the low enthusiasm among teachers. Here in Miami-Dade Public Schools, we must add to this most difficult equation low family incomes, poor nutritional habits of students, extreme heat, no use of the indoor gymnasium gymnasium

In Germany, a state-maintained secondary school that prepares pupils for higher academic education. This type of nine-year school originated in Strasbourg in 1537.
, large classes, lack of adequate fountains for students to keep hydrated hy·drat·ed  
adj.
Chemically combined with water, especially existing in the form of a hydrate.

Adj. 1. hydrated - containing combined water (especially water of crystallization as in a hydrate)
hydrous
, and lack of classroom space.

BENNETT PACKMAN

Physical Education Teacher

Miami-Dade County Public Schools
COPYRIGHT 2007 Hoover Institution Press
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2007, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Article Details
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Title Annotation:correspondence
Author:Packman, Bennett
Publication:Education Next
Date:Mar 22, 2007
Words:555
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