Change Idea Request

 Dr. Baker, 

Most student-athletes can agree how tired, stressed, and burnt out their mental and physical health is after a full day of school AND extra sports practice. Nearly all can agree that the school P.E. period is a complete waste of student-athletes time and energy. Imagine being the most successful and talented athlete at a sport for your age. Then, later being forced to run a timed mile, at school, while being yelled at by your teacher for “not being athletic enough.” Not only is this humiliating for you, but you choose to preserve your energy for your sports practice. To help take some of the stress off student-athletes, please consider allowing student-athletes to have the option to opt out of school physical education classes.

As obvious, one of the main reasons student-athletes should not have to participate in P.E. is because there is simply no purpose. Student-athletes already work many hours weekly to stay fit for their sport, and already get beyond the amount of exercise needed. Already, this disproves many arguments opposers may draw. Once again, if athletes already are getting enough exercise to stay healthy, truly, what is the purpose? Others may state that it may be easy to lie one’s way out of P.E., and do not truly do an outside sport. While this does have a high possibility, ask the student for proof, such as a simple history record of sport, or coach approval. Additionally, most athletes already straight up discard the meaning and effort of this class in general, once again, as they already acquire a vast amount of exercise, and simply do not care. If needed, have the students who do not do sports be required to participate in P.E., and let the rest have an option. If they really enjoy the class, and would like to take it as a class, they can still have an opportunity to.

 To make matters worse, as an attempt of motivation to force participation, the P.E. class receives a grade, and will affect one’s overall GPA. Yes, I do understand the reason for doing this, but do I agree with it? Absolutely not. If there is a straight A, perfect student-athlete, who decides P.E. is a waste of their time and energy, and lacks effort in this class, their perfect 4.0 GPA is now ruined. Maybe excuse athletes from having a P.E. grade? Or erase the P.E. grade as a whole? And before we bring in the “there’s an academic GPA,” what if future schools and class placements are determined by the overall GPA? That perfect student’s record and GPA are now ruined by a P.E. grade, which should not exist in the first place.

Another reason to allow this to happen is because this class has the ability to take away from a student’s academic learning. Like stated earlier, after a full day of school, school P.E., and sports practice, most students are too tired to complete homework assignments. Others may decide to still complete the work, yet will slack off and not turn in the work to the best of their ability. As time accumulates, a student will begin to be confused with the topic, and will end up not understanding future topics. Another huge impact which may happen is the absurd amount of lack of sleep. It is very common to find athletes staying up all night attempting to finish assignments, which not only is bad for their understanding of a topic, but is horrible for their health. You may be wondering, how can a single P.E. period cause this to happen? Well, this comes from a variety of reasons, yet the P.E. period is one of the large contributors. Also, the P.E. period allows a good amount of time to allow athletes to work on homework and assignments before going home, and can be used as a “study hall” period. This way, a good amount of the athlete’s homework is done before coming home from a long day, and can help prevent further events from happening.

Due to all of the negative impacts, student-athletes should have the option to opt out of school P.E. classes. Reasons including that the P.E. period is a waste of time for student-athletes, as they already receive the exercise needed. And how P.E. can affect a student’s academic performance, and the time instead should be spent working on assignments. And finally how P.E. receives a grade and is a part of the overall GPA. Based on all of this, I, along with nearly all student-athletes, suggest you look into the rid of P.E. for us, and take our words into consideration. Thank you.

Sincerely, Yani Ye