Daily Physical Education for students should not be required in Illinois

I would now like to take this time to refute the arguments brought forth by my opponent, both in this round and in the last. What part of the information you learn in this class is actually useful? None. This is incorrect. In fact, I would consider Physical Education to be one of the most important and most useful classes in the curriculum. Example: A man wants to become an English teacher. Let us assume that this man has aced all tests, whizzed through school and university, and has successfully become an English teacher. Great. Now let us assume that this man forgot all of his science he learned in school, all of his French, all of his Social Studies, and parts of his math. The only thing he retained was his English. Will his sudden amnesia at all have an effect on his career? No, it won’t. Being an English teacher and not knowing some science is perfectly acceptable, it has no effect on his life. Many of the subjects we know today will eventually have no effect on our future careers, but we learn them to pass a test. However, physical education is in everyone’s life. Everybody will exercise and use their body. Learning how to keep it healthy (as taught in physical education) will be a key and integral component in everybody’s life. The only purpose of these tests is so that people who slack off in class can still bring up their grades. Clearly incorrect. This course was not designed to just raise the marks of slackers. The course was designed to teach kids how to lead a healthy life style. It doesn’t matter if the course is option or gym, the amount of effort you put in should be rewarded. If these “slackers” are putting effort into gym, they should be rewarded for it. If that’s our goal, then why are we taking time out of our class to have the students sit down and fill out a sheet of paper? In gym class, you don’t sit around for a period EVERY day to do this. You may have to fill out a form once or twice a semester. The purpose of math class is to learn math, if that is our goal, why are we taking time out of our class to allow for washroom breaks? Shouldn’t we be learning math? If you’re going to make PE required, don’t make it a graded course. Why then would anybody try in PE unless they really cared about becoming physically fit? If we do this, kids will just skip class and they can’t be punished as the course isn’t graded. This is completely ridiculous. Or at the very least, don’t make it affect your GPA. If an intelligent person isn’t that physically fit, it will affect what colleges they can go to, and that’s just not right. First off, gym class is considered one of the easiest courses to pass. Secondly, gym class marking shouldn’t be based off of physical capacity, most physical education courses are now based off of effort. If it isn’t marked like that, you cannot blame the course but the markers. Illinois is the only state that requires Daily Physical Education all 4 years of high school. In my opinion, this should either be completely removed as a requirement , or at least minimized to 2 years. Just because Illinois is the only state to do so doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, more states should be doing what Illinois is doing. I will elaborate more on this in my first contention. Secondly, my opponent has provided no evidence or sources for his claims, merely his opinion which cannot be conclusive evidence in a debate. I will now move on to my first contentions. C1: PHYSICAL EDUCATION HELPS KIDS LEARN Daily physical education has been found to increase kid’s abilities to learn and focus. Over 50 studies have confirmed the following academic benefits of physical education: Increased PE time increases students ability to focus and stay on task Short PE breaks of only 20 minutes can help students pay attention in class and even score better on tests Participation in a sport or team in school can increase your grade average [1] Countless sources have all verified the positive effects of physical education on school performance, no studies have shown a negative effect. Clearly, physical education has been helping us learn better and should definitely not be abolished. C2: PHYSICAL EDUCATION KEEPS US HEALTHY Children whom are overweight or obese have a much higher risk of becoming overweight or obese adults. [2] Being overweight as a child is extremely dangerous as you will most likely be condemned to be overweight and unhealthy for the majority of your life unless someone is there to help you lose weight. Being overweight is extremely dangerous with several deadly side effects, such as increased heart attack risk, increased cholesterol and many more. Physical education strives to do help kids become healthy to grow up and be healthy adults. Already 1/3 kids are either overweight or obese! [3] If we abolish physical education, we can only expect this to rate to rise. Two contentions are enough to show how physical education is clearly beneficial to kids, both in their academic and non-academic pursuits. Thus, we should not get rid of daily education as it is so beneficial for students. We cannot make non-required because then not as many people would take the course, thus lowering the benefits of the program. I have refuted all of my opponent’s points, so it is a clear and easy vote CON. SOURCES: . http://www.usatoday.com... . http://www.ext.colostate.edu... . http://www.heart.org...