<p>PE is a required subject for all twelve years at our school. It meets every day. In the high school part of the focus is on health. Students write papers often on nutrition and how different exercises effect different muscles. The high school divides classes into competitive and non-competitive. Non-competitive do more aerobics and life style sports but everyone, from pre-k to seniors run laps. I hated PE in school but I really see this as a good approach. </p>
<p>As to the OP, I agree with everyone who said the work should have been done. No excuses. In life, we do many things that seem pointless and that we don’t want to do. Suck it up now and take your consequences. You were told up front what you needed to do and you decided not to do it. Quit crying about it and grow up. Sorry, but I am tired of people not taking responsibility for their actions.</p>
<p>Aibarr-unlike going to client meetings, I don’t get paid for going to PE. Half the kids at my school either took BS classes, found a way around it or blew it off altogether. I did the first two.</p>
<p>PE doesn’t matter and should never be graded on any basis other than Pass or Fail anyways, nor should it ever be evaluated on any basis other than that of showing up and pretending to make an effort.</p>
<p>Wanna hear one better?.. A family friend of ours has a sister who is blind. She was required to take Drivers Education because it is a graduation requirement. It didn’t matter that she would never drive and couldn’t drive. A graduation requirement is a graduation requirement. A simple paper like that is nothing.</p>
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<p>And why should Calculus or Biology or Chemistry be graded any different than PE? You still have not explained to me why PE is allowed to be pushed off… it is a class just like the rest of them!</p>
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<p>That is awesome! More schools need to adopt those policies!</p>
<p>FYI to the OP: No matter what courses teachers are teaching, they don’t consider them blow off courses. Also, many if not most PE teachers majored in that in college, and take it very seriously. Many hope that their courses will help students develop lifelong habits that help them have good health. That’s why your teacher probably wasn’t willing to give you full credit for simply sitting through PE.</p>
<p>And many school districts are finding that the PE ones are the first to go when the money gets tight. Pretty sure sign of usefulness there-- no one is cutting algebra II classes.</p>
<p>Not something that will happen if they’re shoving healthy habits down someone’s throat. Any changes in lifestyle will be temporary unless the students actually WANT to change. Just like you can’t shove knowledge down the throat of a person who doesn’t want to learn.</p>
<p>I found that gym teachers are usually the least flexible and are the most draconian.</p>
<p>Honestly, the sooner teachers realize that some people are there because the school’s shoving that class down their throats, the sooner they’ll be more effective teachers. </p>
<p>Science/math/social sciences/English help you develop your reasoning and critical thinking ability. Gym doesn’t. Like Piterbizon said, nobody’s touching math classes.</p>
<p>I see that the OP is from NYS. Gym is a requirement for graduation. If you do not pass gym, you don’t graduate- it is that plain and simple. There is nothing new under the sun because this time every year there are students not graduating because they have failed gym.</p>
<p>What Op also does not realize is that you can be medically excused from participating in gym and still fail gym. IIf a student is on home instruction, then gym is waived while the student is out of school.</p>
<p>Even if you are medically excused, you are required to attend classes, get dressed if asked to do so or complete the alternative assessment (and the paper is an alternative assessment) you can and will fail gym.</p>
<p>In NYC, a student is required to have 1 term of health and 7 terms of gym (1 term of gym for every term they are in school). If a student a student completes the requirements for graduating early, they do not have to return to school for the sole purpose of attending gym.</p>
<p>If one is medically excused from gym will will show up on the transcript as either:</p>
<p>the fact that you "just hung out at the library for the past month " is grounds for failing because you did not meet the attendance requirement.</p>
<p>The 9 page paper is not punishment, the teacher is required to show that you did do work in the class even though you could not physically participate.</p>
<p>If OP hasn’t been to class and hasn’t turned in the papers, it will be by her own hand that she does not graduate. if she fails, she will just have to take gym in summer school.</p>
<p>Personally, I think the OP is lucky to do a 9 page alternative assessment. The PE alternative assessment at my high school is a paper that has 7 sections and sub categories and essays in each section. When completed it comes out to about 70 pages.</p>
<p>“Not something that will happen if they’re shoving healthy habits down someone’s throat. Any changes in lifestyle will be temporary unless the students actually WANT to change. Just like you can’t shove knowledge down the throat of a person who doesn’t want to learn”</p>
<p>Not true at all. Many most elementary and secondary school students would prefer to hang out or do something else instead of going to school as they are required to do by law. Heck, most kindergardeners would probably prefer playing friends instead of being expected to learn things in school. Still, most people do come to enjoy learning and tat becomes a lifelong habit for many. </p>
<p>Most of the things we do – from brushing our teeth to wearing clean clothes to being polite – are things that initially we were forced to do.</p>
<p>Try forcing a teenager to do something against their will. You’ll find that they resist a lot more the pre-Ks. They’ll do what they want when nobody’s forcing them to. No matter what is taught in school.</p>
<p>PE is required in high school as well as health class. Yet, 65% of americans are overweight and 31% are obese. Why?</p>
<p>Because a majority of those classes are “fluff” because society has put little importance on them. Those things do not show up on “the test” therefore they are seen as being not important. How many times does that need to be explained to you?</p>
<p>Because they are not seen as important, PE budgets have been cut across the nation which prevents many from doing things that would be beneficial. Also, when you have one teacher and 50 students, it’s hard to accomplish much as well. Maybe the biology or calculus teachers would like 50 students in one class and see how it works out. And give you 30 of the worst students in the school too. That’s what our PE classes are mainly made up of.</p>
<p>First, OP, you need to get in to your GC’s office and approach your gym teacher with no attitude whatsoever and see what you can do to pass gym at this point. If this means a 9 page paper and sitting around and watching other people do their gym class for a couple of periods a day, you’re stuck. Even if it seems unfair and ridiculous – you can’t just blow off a class and state requirements in the hope it will somehow work out. If you want to deal with an issue like this in the future, you need to do so in an upfront, non-confrontive way when the issue first arises, such as talking with your GC or another administrator when you were first aware of the gym requirement and trying to find a different alternative. </p>
<p>Second: I think that the NYS requirement is a time-waster for students who are medically prevented from participating in PE. If a student has a legitimate medical reason that prevents him or her from participating in PE, I don’t see the point of having the student suit up and watch others engage in sports. It seems to me that the student would be better served by spending that time in a study hall or, if his or her schedule permits, a different class if the disability is going to last for an entire semester or school year. The writing of a 9 page PE paper seems problematic for many students; my kids attended a pretty rigorous prep school and very rarely were they called upon to write a paper of that length. Also, when students figure out their class schedule, while PE may be an important subject, it is not a subject for which they have to allocate a lot of time outside of school. Finding oneself with a medical issue and then having to write a long PE paper outside of school on top of all of the requirements of one’s academic classes could be a bit much for some students. Why not waive the PE requirement for students who genuinely can’t take PE so that they can spend the time doing something productive?</p>
<p>Let them write the paper during the PE period. That eliminates the argument of “time outside of class” while also allowing them to do something that could be useful IF they want it to be. If they write a bad paper to “just get it done” then why it be useful? They have a requirement and they can meet it with a couple different options. The OP has chosen an option that should lead to failure.</p>
<p>Really?? The majority of our papers are at least 10 pages long and I go to a public school. Do you not believe they will have to write 9 page papers very often in college?</p>
<p>" A family friend of ours has a sister who is blind. She was required to take Drivers Education because it is a graduation requirement. It didn’t matter that she would never drive and couldn’t drive. A graduation requirement is a graduation requirement. A simple paper like that is nothing."</p>
<p>Simply a waste of time & money for all involved. This is the same. Just write a really crappy paper and be done with it, complain to the principal that you’re being discrimnated gaainst if you fail it.</p>
<p>That’s really rude to people who actually <em>are</em> being discriminated against (like the blind student required to take drivers ed-- SHE has a legitimate case). Crying wolf on discrimination lessens the credibility of ALL discrimination claims. This student has already shown disrespect for this teacher; I think her claims of discriminatory practices on the teacher’s behalf would have already gone out the window by now, and I think the teacher has every right to grade this student’s papers critically.</p>