Dear Editor,
Student athletes dedicate a minimum of ten hours through a five-day week— not including contest days— toward sports. Student athletes should not have to participate in physical education (P.E.) class during a sport’s season. A school can replace the class, save money, and gain student athletes.
To begin with, student athletes could replace the P.E. class with a study hour. A main goal of P.E. is to meet fitness goals given to each of them. In 2016, the article “Physical Education” in New World Encyclopedia hypothesized that a main goal of physical education is to have students reach fitness goals. In sports, athletes may complete their own goals set by themselves, and not have the pressure of a grade on how well they can do something. Not only can they set their own personal goals, but also have goals they will want to achieve by will— not by force of a grade.
Student athletes can meet personal goals in their own sport. By setting goals through their sport, they may push themselves harder than they would have in P.E. Many athletes strive to be great, but only when one has set their own personal goals, not by standards of adult.
During the time of the P.E. class, student athletes could be focusing more on their education with a study hall. With this study hall, students may make up on missing work or ask for teachers’ help. Study hall will help the student athletes stay caught up with all school work, and this study hall will only be offered during the sports season the athlete is participating in. Each season would count as a half credit for school.
It really is a simple decision to replace P.E. for study hall on behalf of student athletes.
Additionally, replacing P.E. with a study hall will not cost the school extra money. For further support of this idea, Brad Wolverton, in “Missed Classess, a Changed Grade, and One Disillusioned Adviser” printed in Chronicle of Higher Education on October 16, 2015 hypothesized how college students and former students struggled throughout school when missing classes.
This article explained that players, even at the college level, have a hard time with academics. Generally, student athletes of a variety of ages struggle academically because of the absences in sports. Study hall will help the student athletes with their missing work.
When a student athlete is absent for a class, they are missing essential learning time. Not only will having a study hall benefit student athletes who need to catch up, but also help them understand the work missed. To have this study hall there must be a teacher to assist the student athletes during this time, so the P.E. teacher will look after the athletes for the period of the class. Doing this will not cause the school to spend more money on another teacher to run the study hall, and will not cause any sort of financial problems for the school.
Finally, having sports count as a P.E. credit will encourage students to participate in athletics. Further support of this idea is provided by Chris Nicholson in “The Business Of: Sports Field Maintenance” printed in District Administration in 2014. He hypothesized that when parts of a turf football or soccer field are ruined it may cost anywhere from $500 to $10,000 dollars to fix.
Having a sports season count as a P.E. credit will influence students to join in the sports that are available. When the schools spend money toward a sport they choose the sport that they see to be most successful. As the school spends money on a sport, by having more students going out the school will get their money’s worth in that sport. Since more students go out for sports, the materials bought for the sport will be used instead of having less students going out and being stuck with all the extra equipment.
Many students do not like to partake in P.E., but students would willingly participate in a sport instead of being judged/graded by adults. Overall, one could say by having sports count as a P.E. credit will inspire students to join sports programs.
Most students work harder in practice than in physical education classes. Student athletes should not have to take physical education. Schools can replace the class, save money, and gain student athletes.
—Madison Pearson
(Ed. note: The preceding letter was written for an assignment in Debb Proctor’s Freshman English class. Please send any responses to this letter to *protected email*)