P.E. Should not be a required class in public schools

When I was in high school, I put off taking P.E until the last moment. I was eventually forced to do it my senior year, and I can attest that it was the worst class I have ever taken. I wasn't in the best of shape, I never really have been to be honest and I didn't want to be graded on how well I could perform physical activity. Fortunately, a few of my friends were in the same position I was and were also in the class, so at least I wasn't by myself. Our teacher was one of the athletic coaches and also a personal trainer on the side. I went to a small AAA school out in the country who had one of the best athletic programs in the state, not just in our class division either. We had won the state football game two time in the last eight years and just this past month we came in second for the 2012 state game. Anyway our P.E. teacher was an athletic coach who had been stuck with teaching the class. It was obvious he didn't want to be there, that he would rather be with the athletics class that happened during the same period as ours. that's probably why we went out to walk the track most days, so he could talk with the head football coach as the team practiced. After it began to get cold the class started taking place in the old gym. Our high school had two gyms, one less than the number of hallways in the main building. The school dated back to at least the 1960s and the old gym made that age very clear; being as apathetic as he was about the class, we didn't do much most days. We just sat in the bleachers and waited for the bell ring for second period, but for some reason about January out teacher decided he would make us do something, the problem was he didn't let us tread the frying pan, we were into the fire. For some reason our P.E. teacher reasoned that kids who had never worked out before were capable of running suicides[1], lunging across the gym floor[2] and finishing off with few high knee sprints[3]. This went on for several days, while many in my class (myself included) complained of soreness and pain; I hadn't been able to walk up stairs since we had started these exercises, and few times I wasn't even able to use the bathroom because sitting on the toilet hurt so much. However the biggest problem arose when I had gotten sick and informed the teacher I couldn't do it that day. I was extremely nauseous, and the fact my entire body hurt didn't help either. His response? "Throwing up never hurt nobody, get back to it." I supposed my body took that as a clue because in that moment I did exactly as he suggested and threw up in front of the entire class. It was humiliating, I felt fat and useless, the thought that I had four more months of that ahead of me killed me inside, but what's worse is that this story isn't just me. Every year thousands of American students are told they aren't good enough, that they need to slim up and get to a 'normal body mass'. While that may or may not be the case, it is not the responsibility of the school system to tell them that. P.E. is not a class, and it doesn't do anything to change a student's exercise habits[4], it simply wastes time and works as a justification so as to afford paying full time athletic team coaches. This will be the sole contention of the Pro in this debate; that P.E. violates the privacy and free choice of students across the United States by forcing them to take a class which neither carries an academic benefit and even imposes lifestyle changes on them which they should not be required to endure. I encourage the voters to interpret this debate under a standard of comparative advantage and look forward to debate! [1] http://www.ehow.com... [2] http://www.shape.com... [3] http://www.sixpackfactory.com... [4] http://abcnews.go.com...