Morgan, a student in NYC iSchool, and his afterschool P.E. teacher practicing Capoeira. Photo by Niko Arranz
Imagine you are walking into your college as a new student. You think that you have successfully passed high school, but when you go to register for your classes, you find out that you can’t register. You ask “Why?” They tell you that you can’t register because “You didn’t pass the P.E. requirement.” You have just been rejected.
Acquiring Physical Education (P.E.) credits is a requirement for teenagers to graduate high school. Some hate doing it and others don’t.
Is NYC iSchool doing their job to help the kids acquire P.E. hours? Are the kids doing their part?
Students who are in the iSchool have mixed feelings about P.E.
Seven out of ten students don’t have any hours for P.E., or even know how many hours they have done. Those students usually do not participate in the afterschool P.E. class.
Some of the students I have interviewed that do have an afterschool P.E. class are unhappy with the teacher or are unhappy because they are being forced to do the hours. Only half of the students are actually happy with the afterschool P.E. classes.
Students from the iSchool are also worried that they won’t be able to find a proper source for hours and think the school should do more to help them with getting hours.
“I think that 54 hours is reasonable, but the school should help out more with the students who are behind.” Says an iSchool student who wishes to remain anonymous.
Another iSchool student who also wishes to remain anonymous claims, “There are not enough interesting P.E. classes given from the school.”
Some students use the afterschool P.E. classes to naturally gain P.E. hours.
“It’s easy because it’s not doing that much work. It’s like another daily class,” Though P.E. is easy for them, some of them still say they consider it a bore.
Other students, even though they don’t know how many hours they have, normally do exercise in some other way. One student, who normally does outside activities, was asked if he thinks P.E. is easy.
“No one explained to me how to send in my hours, so no.”
As quarter 2 of the NYC iSchool is ending, a few P.E. classes are being closed. The students that had those classes now do not know what to do for their hours. Though they have some hours from these classes, they do not have enough to reach the requirement.
The problem of acquiring P.E. credits has become a big one in NYC iSchool and neither the faculty nor the students should ignore this problem.
Very well written article. Fun to know!