By: Fabiola Grosshan
Submitted: 2010-05-31 05:44:59 | Word Count: 373
There is a reason why high school physical education (PE) is considered a mandatory curriculum. Physical education, required and offered by most schools in the United States to students in grade K through 12, is set up by many unified school districts to promote a healthy and fit lifestyle. Though many schools have subpar programs, that is largely due to a lack of PE resources.
The goal for most high school PE classes is to provide the students with a full set of knowledge, skills, capacities, and values to maintain a healthy lifestyle into adulthood. Through a variety of planned physical activities, high school and middle school PE promotes four cognitive and physical contents:
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Improve Physical Fitness
Through sports and physical fitness, students’ motor development will develop and improve with age. Recreational activities that improve students’ physical fitness are running, basketball, football, soccer etc. Other benefits students will gain through physical activity are:
Muscular Strength
Flexibility
Muscular endurance
Body composition
Cardiovascular endurance
Psychological Benefit
Physical fitness also affects students’ psyche in a good way. The positive effect of high school physical education gives students a boost in their self-esteem and self-image, while promoting general feelings of health and wellness. Feelings of happiness, calmness and the ease of stress and pain are stimulated by the production of body “endorphins” through the development of brain cells created by physical movements. Students who had a great workout would feel better about themselves, compared to inactive students who would feel lethargic and under stimulated.
Social Development
Physical education not only strengthens a student physically and mentally, but it is also a major force with his/her social development skills. Physical activities provide students with opportunities to learn people skills that would be with them throughout their entire lives. High School physical education prepares its student for dances, games, and sports–all important to culture.
Improved Judgment
Students’ judgment skills are also developed through sporting activities. Understanding the rules, concepts, and strategies to work as part of a team or as an individual helps student develop not only new skills and concepts but also self-worth, confidence, assertiveness, independence and self-control.
