BY: Mike DiMatteo
Sometime during the middle of my teaching career, around the mid-90s, there began a move away from P.E. and recess as being part of the educational curriculum. I’m deliberately lumping recess into that statement, as I am more convinced than ever of the necessity of grade and middle school children having such a period.
We first began to see this as the push for academic excellence—meaning more time in the classroom—became a touchstone in the public education sector. There were a few turning points, one of them being during the Reagan administration, which issued a report warning of a “rising tide of mediocrity” in American education. Test scores were stagnant, and the thinking was there needed to be a greater push for academic excellence, which meant more time in the classroom, especially where math and science were concerned.
The result was somewhat predictable: a greater push for testing and a greater importance placed on test scores. All of this meant that schools began prioritizing testable subjects over the greater goal of a holistic education. As there are only so many hours in a day, activities like recess for children were cut or reduced.
A Very Brief History
By the 1990s, the Standards-Based Reform movement began to take shape, with schools adopting academic standards and accountability systems often tied to funding or school ratings. I can recall quite vividly how important these ratings were, as they were published in the newspapers, both local and national, as well as being featured in U.S. News and World Report.
Ratings were published in the local papers, creating significant consternation among teaching staff as well as school board members and administration. This is not to say schools should not be held accountable—they should—but state testing has a significant number of its own issues regarding everything from implementation to how serious students take them.1
Such reform resulted in a few good things, like the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative,2 but again, all of this takes time, and the necessity for time resulted in the elimination of recess or, beginning in the mid- to late 90s, cutting or eliminating P.E. positions. For P.E. classes at the high school level, fewer teachers meant those still there could be saddled with upwards of 50 students—limited by union bargaining—or the numbers might have been greater. This, of course, presents a problem with supervision as well as curriculum implementation.
Further, students at the high school level were given the option to “opt out” of P.E. altogether, despite the fact that in many school districts, it was a required and credited class. If one was
It is an often unspoken condition, but students, many of them, simply “blow off ” state 1 mandated testing, thinking them a joke and a waste of time.
This was an initiative to infuse writing into all core academic subjects—but poor 2 implementation hindered its effectiveness. A math or science teacher is not necessarily trained to teach writing, as an example.
in marching band or a varsity sport, they could opt out, as those activities could be counted as P.E. credit, allowing students to take more academic or elective classes in its place. The result was fewer P.E. classes offered, a gradual eating away at the body movement curriculum.
By 2001, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) initiative was in full force. This meant that the federal government required testing to be done annually in reading and math from grades 3–8, again requiring more time for preparation and, again, that time being taken from recess or P.E. classes, which in some states were on the decline. Schools that underperformed faced sanctions, so again, time spent at recess or P.E. was reallocated.
What Was the Effect?
The assumption was that more instructional time meant better test scores. Between 1991 and 2007, elementary schools saw significantly reduced time in unstructured play (recess) and other physical activity time. By 2012, more than half of school districts nationwide allowed the aforementioned substitutions (JROTC, marching band, athletics) as substitutes for P.E., functionally reducing time in actual P.E. classes.3
It has become quite common today for schools to either substitute “physical activity” credits or downgrade P.E. in favor of test preparation for core academic classes. This leads to P.E. being either lightly regarded or simply disregarded as an important part of the academic curriculum.
Further, there is substantial evidence that not only have academics suffered because of the reduction in student physical activity, but it has also resulted in much higher student obesity levels. In 2013, in an article published in the Journal of Health Economics, J. Cawley discovered that a 60-minute increase in P.E. per week was “associated with a decrease in BMI and obesity probability in 5th-grade boys.”4 Another study published by Active Living Research (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) found that removing or reducing P.E. time correlates with rising sedentary behavior and increased health risks.5
Finally, the CDC found that not only does reducing P.E. and student activity levels result in increased obesity and chronic health risks, they also noted increased physical activity does not harm academic performance, a finding that directly contradicted one rationale for cutting P.E.
Personally, as an academic teacher at the AP level as well as a high school head coach, I can directly attest to the importance of physical activity not only increasing academic success— specifically test-taking —but also helping grade school-aged boys with their inherent 6 rambunctiousness and need to move.
There’s another reality: cutting Physical Education (P.E.) classes or the need for P.E. teachers can actually improve a school district’s financial situation. This is because there are fewer salaries to pay to Full-Time Educators (FTEs). Naturally, teachers’ unions oppose this idea, but superintendents and school boards are willing to make these cuts because they prioritize the bottom line. This is one reason why electives like P.E., music, and theater are often the first to be eliminated.
However, there are further complications. Our students are becoming increasingly sedentary due to the rise of video games in all their forms. Young children are less active than ever, spending more time in front of screens than playing outside on the playground. It seems “free range” kids are a thing of the past. This is a challenge that requires stricter, not looser, standards, and another significant reason why P.E. and recess should be integral to the school curriculum.
Where Do We Go from Here?
The answer is quite simple—should school districts, superintendents, and the people of said districts have the will, P.E. must be required, and recess—especially for students in grades K–8—must be mandated in some form. It is not enough to consider marching band as a substitute for P.E. or being in the school play. There should be no excuse for young students not having time for the free play that recess gives. While no one questions the role and importance of academics, there is more than enough evidence to support rigorous physical activity as an important part of the educational process.
There was a reason the German immigrants who arrived on these shores in the mid-1800s insisted upon physical education being part of the academic curriculum.7 They understood the importance of mind and body working together.
It is time we revisited those days again.
Footnotes:
4 Journal of Health Economics, Vol. 32, Issue 4, pp. 743–755
5 https://activelivingresearch.org/sites/activelivingresearch.org/files/ ALR_Brief_ActiveEducation_Jan2015.pdf
Hillman, Charles H., et al. “The Effect of Acute Treadmill Walking on Cognitive 6 Control and Academic Achievement in Preadolescent Children.” The Journal of Pediatrics, vol. 155, no. 6, 2009, pp. 887–893. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.jpeds.2009.06.017
German Turnvereins and Swedish gymnastics programs introduced by 19th-century 7 immigrants helped shape early U.S. physical education, emphasizing both strength and discipline. The Chicago Turners Association is still in operation today.
